IQ-AI Regulatory News (IQAI)

4 Apr 2005 12:00

Flying Brands Limited04 April 2005 4 April 2005 FLYING BRANDS LIMITED TRADING UPDATE Flying Brands, the home shopping company, is today updating the market on recenttrading, the acquisition of a home entertainment business, and the appointmentof a new Finance Director. TRADING UPDATE At our Preliminary Results Announcement on 11th March, we commented that currenttrading for our Gardening Direct subsidiary had been slow to date, but that weanticipated strong response through the second half of March and April.Unfortunately, trading through March has remained behind expectations and wehave not seen much of an uplift as a result of the early Easter weekend. Whilstwe remain confident that the final mailing of the Spring season (which goes outin the middle of April) will fully cater for the increasingly later seasondemand, we do not believe that it will be sufficient to offset the disappointingresponse levels from the campaign to date. Our other brands remain on track, butbecause Gardening Direct Spring is the largest campaign of the first half, itsperformance means that it is unlikely that we will deliver profit levels in linewith market expectations. ACQUISITION NEWS We have signed an Agreement to acquire the database and various other assets ofSilver Minds Direct Limited, a music CD and published DVD and video business,which we have been following for over a year. This business has built up astrong database of repeat purchasing customers whose profile complements that ofour audio books brand, Listen2Books. We will be able to absorb this businesswithin our existing infrastructure with minimal additional overheads and we willbe able to apply to it the benefits of our Jersey based status. The next stagein the process is for us to validate the database and we will have furtherinformation on this after our Annual General Meeting on 12th April. This is avery exciting opportunity that will significantly enhance our growingEntertainment Division. FINANCE DIRECTOR We are delighted to announce the appointment of Graham Norton, formerly of Cableand Wireless plc, as Group Finance Director and Company Secretary. A fullerannouncement on this will be published later today. For further information, please contact: Flying Brands Limited 01376 575 010Mark Dugdale, Chief Executive Smithfield 020 7360 4900George Hudson Notes to editors Jersey based Flying Brands Limited (LSE: FBDU) is a leading home shoppingcompany. Founded in 1965, it was admitted to the Official List of the LondonStock Exchange in 1993. The Group has the following brands: • Flying Flowers, the UK's largest flowers by post brand, despatching nearly one million bouquets a year• Gardening Direct, one of the UK's largest mail order bedding plants and gardening products operations• Listen2Books, the leading mail order audio books distributor• Benham, the first day cover stamps and coins collectables specialist More information can be found at: www.flyingbrands.com This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange