LTC.L Regulatory News (LTC)

14 August 2012

Latchways plc

Interim Management Statement

In accordance with the UK Listing Authority's Disclosure and Transparency rules, Latchways plc presents its interim management statement in respect of the period 1 April 2012 to 13 August 2012 inclusive.

As previously reported in our full year results in June, the new financial year began slowly with economic uncertainty and recession resulting in lower orders. Since then, order intake in June and July has improved significantly, to levels in line with management's expectations.

For the year as a whole, we remain confident of a successful outcome, although the early shortfall, together with the increased costs associated with our investment in additional sales resources, will mean that the first half result will be below last year's strong performance.

Our recently enhanced sales team is beginning to contribute and has been actively recruiting new end user customers and installers around the world. On the product side, the Personal Rescue Device is beginning to generate meaningful revenues and we expect to report some important milestones for this product in the next few months. We have recently made considerable progress on Oil & Gas opportunities with the Sealed Self Retracting Lifeline, which we expect to result in additional business in the coming months, whilst we have also had further success in the Wind energy market.

These positive developments are being accomplished in the face of a generally weaker economic climate in both the UK and Europe, where it is noticeable that customers are taking longer to commit to projects than in the past. This makes the precise timing of significant orders more difficult to predict. Despite these headwinds, we remain committed to our long term strategy of growth through innovation and geographic expansion. We have a strong balance sheet and are well placed to move the business forward, whatever the economic environment.

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