Lpa Regulatory News (LPA)

8 Mar 2006 12:04

LPA Group PLC08 March 2006 LPA Group Plc ("the Group") 8th March 2006 AGM Announcement At the Annual General Meeting of LPA Group PLC, held today, all resolutions werepassed. Michael Rusch, Chairman, commented; As I stated in the Annual Report, the start to the new financial year has beendisappointing, and this will be reflected in the first half. However, the groupenjoyed excellent order receipts during February, which, together with a numberof near term opportunities, should deliver a recovery in the second half. At last year's Annual General Meeting we set out our 'Rail Market Strategy'.This strategy was necessitated by the fact that there are now very few majorBritish rolling stock manufacturers in the UK, and the presence of overseasrolling stock manufacturers in the UK, 'on the ground', was diminishing. The intended 'strategy' was not only to greatly enhance our relationships withthe French, German and Japanese rolling stock manufacturers, who currentlysupply the requirements of the British market, but to do so on their homeground. Since the last AGM LPA personnel have had an intensive presence in thesecountries and the desired relationships have developed substantially Hitachi, for instance, chose LPA for the lighting, including our new LEDtechnology, of the Sentosa Monorail in Singapore - a small contract nowcompleted. More importantly Hitachi has selected LPA as the designer andsupplier of the lighting system for the Channel Tunnel Rail Link (CTRL) rollingstock, which will operate between London and the major towns and cities in Kent. This award means that, to varying degrees, all four major suppliers to the UKrail market, namely, ALSTOM, BOMBARDIER, SIEMENS and HITACHI are now tradingwith us for supplies of LPA equipment for the UK market. The first strategyobjective has been achieved. The second and third objectives are to impress these major companiessufficiently with our technical and commercial expertise, that they areencouraged to include us when tendering for their other export markets and,eventually, their domestic market. I am pleased to report that we are makingprogress in this objective as well. This process is already helping to rebuildour order book, which has nearly doubled over the past three years, and which isrepairing the damage done to our business by the substantial reduction in newtrain building in the UK in 2002. A relatively small increase in order activity will substantially improveperformance and your management team is working hard to re-establish the baseload so that each small increment delivers that improvement, rather than simplyfilling a part of the shortfall. Unfortunately, the gestation period in ourmajor markets is long, and the slowness in recovery frustrates us as it does ourshareholders. We believe we are close to the rebirth. The group is, and hasbeen, bidding for very large contracts, and whilst taking a long time to drop,we are very aware that we have lost no significant contracts in recent times. Your board remains hopeful of progress during the second half of the year. This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange