HYD.L Regulatory News (HYD)

21 Feb 2008 15:16

Hydro International PLC21 February 2008 HYDRO INTERNATIONAL PLC US TRADING UPDATE Hydro International notes the movement today in the company's share price andwould like to clarify the content of a press release issued by the Company's USsubsidiary in relation to the appointment of two new General Manager roles inthe US. This press release contained financial information on the tradingperformance of the US operation and was posted inadvertently ahead of thepublication of the results for the year ended 31 December 2007. The company can confirm that trading levels in the US during 2007 were improvedon the previous year. This improvement was consistent with the company'sexpectation as reported in the Chairman's statement to the Interim Results.Segmental analysis of the results for the year ended 31 December 2007 will beincluded in the preliminary announcement to be published on Thursday 28 February2008 The corrected text of the press release reads as follows: Hydro International today announced the appointment of Dave Mongeau as GeneralManager of Stormwater and Neil Raymond as General Manager of Wastewater. Both General Manager positions are newly created roles at Hydro. As GeneralManagers of their respective divisions, Mongeau and Raymond will be responsiblefor the day-to-day operations and management of Hydro International's Stormwaterand Wastewater Divisions, respectively. Mongeau and Raymond will develop anddeliver all aspects of the annual budget for Hydro International US - includingmanaging, enhancing and expanding Hydro's US business by increasing sales andmaximizing profits in their divisions. Dave Mongeau has 25-years of technical sales and management experience, withthe last 17 years directly in the water treatment industry. Mongeau has been atHydro since 1999, first as New England Regional Stormwater Sales Manager, thenmoving up to National Stormwater Sales Manager in 2006. Over Mongeau's time atHydro, he has generated over $8.5 Million in sales during his 7-year tenure asRegional Sales Manager of the New England territory. Mongeau is responsible forsecuring one of the largest domestic orders of Downstream Defender(R) stormwatertreatment devices in the history of Hydro US - the Greenbush transit line($289,000). As National Sales Manager, Mongeau oversaw a 34 percent sales growthin the US Stormwater business in 2007. Neil D. Raymond joined Hydro International in May of 1999 as a ProposalEngineer for the company's Wastewater products. Over Raymond's time at Hydro hehas served various functional and general management assignments to includeoversight of the Contracts and Sales operations of the business. Raymond wasinfluential in securing two of Hydro US' largest contracts to date - the GritKing(R) contract for the City of Clearwater, FL ($1.8 million) and DownstreamDefender(R) contract for Chevron Nigeria ($38,000). Since 2005 he has overseennearly $25 million dollars worth of contracts through the business. In 2007Raymond led his team to achieve record performance by increasing the USWastewater Division's order intake (excluding the City of Clearwater orderreceived in late December) by 80 percent and its revenue by 40 percent over theprevious year's statistics. Both General Managers will report to COO Chris Williams, with Mongeau reportingon the growth and expansion of the Stormwater Division, and Raymond reporting onthe growth and expansion of the Wastewater Division. "Hydro's US operations have enjoyed great success and growth, and we now see aneven greater opportunity in the stormwater and wastewater sectors," said ChrisWilliams, COO, Hydro International. "Dave and Neil have the industry knowledgeand the proven sales experience to drive our stormwater and wastewater divisionsto a whole new level. We look forward to leveraging their superior skill sets togrow our business." As a consequence of this premature release of information the Company hasreviewed internal procedures and put in place measures to mitigate the risk of afurther such occurrence. For further information contact: Tony HolloxGroup Finance DirectorHydro International plc Tel: +44 (0) 1275 878371 KBC Peel Hunt (Nominated Adviser and Broker)Julian Blunt Tel: +44 (0) 207 418 8900Daniel Harris 21 February 2007 This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange