Kinovo Plc Regulatory News (KINO)

8 March 2024

Kinovo plc

("Kinovo", the "Company" or the "Group")

Update on DCB Discontinued Operations

Kinovo plc (AIM:KINO), the specialist property services Group that delivers compliance and sustainability solutions, provides the following update on its discontinued operations.

The Group continues to make positive progress towards concluding the remaining projects relating to DCB Kent ("DCB"), its former construction division, with a further four sites having their build completed subject to only final minor snagging checks. This means that a total of seven of the nine projects will soon have been concluded and before the end of Kinovo's financial year.

As announced in our previous update on 9 February 2024, the penultimate project is expected to be build complete by the end of May 2024 and discussions continue regarding the final project (due to complete in 2026). The timeline on the penultimate project is subject only to a recent instruction from the client to supply and fit the connection of a statutory incoming gas main, but the instruction will not impact financial obligations.

These nine projects have been affected by a number of unforeseen and legacy issues, arising from poor quality workmanship with most only becoming apparent on final commissioning and surveys at the sites as they approached completion. These issues caused damage that required significant remedial action with additional costs, causing associated project delays which were, in certain instances, exacerbated by one of the wettest winters on record. The Board continues to assess the recovery of costs incurred as a result of works that have not been performed to a reasonable standard and intends to pursue these rigorously.

Consequently, with most of the outstanding projects now completed, the Board has assessed that the pre-tax net cost to complete all the DCB projects has now risen by a total of £2.9 million from the £5.72 million highlighted at the Interim Results issued 28 November 2023. This includes a bond with a value of £0.9 million, on which Kinovo has now received a formal demand, in relation to the final project.

A significant majority of these net costs have already been paid, with the remainder expected to be funded from the strong cash generation from the underlying operations and existing finance facilities to manage the cashflow dynamics. In accordance, the Company maintains the support of its banking partner, HSBC UK Bank plc. 

The Company looks forward to bringing these DCB legacy issues to a conclusion whilst the continuing business performs well, demonstrating robustness, resilience and growth. The continuing business is performing strongly during the peak trading season and the Board continues to anticipate the outlook for the full year ending March 2024 to be at least in line with that provided on the 9 February.

The Company will be providing a live presentation via the Investors Meet Company platform on Tuesday 12th March at 10:00 BST.

The presentation is open to all existing and potential shareholders. Questions can be submitted pre-event via the Investor Meet Company dashboard up until 9am the day before the meeting or at any time during the live presentation. 

Investors can sign up to Investor Meet Company for free and add to meet Kinovo plc via:

https://www.investormeetcompany.com/kinovo-plc/register-investor

Investors who already follow Kinovo plc on the Investor Meet Company platform will automatically be invited.

This announcement contains inside information for the purposes of article 7 of the Market Abuse Regulation (EU) 596/2014 as amended by regulation 11 of the Market Abuse (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019/310. With the publication of this announcement, this information is now considered to be in the public domain.

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