Mears Regulatory News (MER)

6 Jun 2007 12:00

Mears Group PLC06 June 2007 MEARS GROUP PLC AGM Statement At the company's Annual General Meeting to be held at 12.00 p.m. today, Bob Holt, Chairman, will issue the following statement: "When we announced our record results in March of this year we highlighted thesignificant contract gains we had made. In addition we have been notified todayby Welwyn and Hatfield District Council ( WHDC ) that they have agreed (subjectto the standard legal conditions) to award Mears the contract as the solestrategic partner to deliver their entire housing maintenance and improvementprogramme. This is worth a minimum of £168million over 15 years but furthernegotiated works could see that rise. We have been working on behalf of WHDCsince 2001. This award demonstrates the value of choosing customers with astrong partnership ethos and represents the biggest sole partner contract awardin Mears history. The size of the social housing bid pipeline for contract tenders remainsextremely healthy and we continue to target customers who share our view of longterm partnering arrangements. The recent acquisition of Careforce Group plc is proceeding well and we continueto progress the healthy pipeline of target companies in this fragmented sector.We have a number of potential acquisitions at various stages which we expect tocomplete over the coming months. We are pleased to report a satisfactory performance for the first four months of2007 and are confident that we will again produce results to meet marketexpectations. Given the scale of our order book, current opportunity pipelineand our vision for community based services we look forward with optimism. The Board is committed to taking Mears to new levels of excellence and playing acrucial role in creating better communities." Bob Holt Chairman Press Contacts: Bob Holt (Chairman) Tel: 07778 798816 David J Robertson (FD) Tel: 07887 705357 Trevor Bass/Alex White (WSSM) Tel: 020 7067 0743 NOTES TO EDITORS: Mears Group PLC is a leading provider of a range of services to sociallandlords. The Group is also a major supplier of domiciliary care in the UnitedKingdom following the acquisition of Careforce Group plc in April 2007. The social housing services provided include response maintenance, voidrefurbishment, planned preventative maintenance, improvements to meet the"Decent Homes Standard" and estate management. Profits have shown an annual compound growth rate of 40% since Mears was listedon the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) in October 1996. The Group wasawarded the AIM Company of the year award in 2003. The Mears mission is to be the market leader in transforming the social housingenvironment, improving homes, improving neighbourhoods and improving lives. Further information is available on our website www.mearsgroup.co.uk This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange