Parity Regulatory News (PTY)

30 Jun 2005 06:00

Embargoed for 07:00, 30 June 2005 Parity Group plc AGM Statement Parity Group plc ("Parity" or "the Group"), the international IT servicesgroup, holds its AGM at 11.00am today. The following statement is being made byJohn Hughes, Executive Chairman:"Trading since the start of the year in aggregate across the whole Group hasbeen broadly as we anticipated with some variations between businesses in theirrate of improvement.Business Solutions has performed satisfactorily since the start of the yearwith good interest in its offerings, a positive sign of progress being the twoorders we have announced separately today.Resourcing Solutions in the UK has performed well, benefiting from therelatively healthy demand we are seeing in the market as well as our strongreputation. Parity Americas has remained profitable since the beginning of theyear although there is still work to be done to return to the growth rate thatwe have targeted and we are forging closer links between the US business andour UK Resourcing Solutions activities to facilitate this.As expected, the Training division remains the most volatile of our businesses,with trading hardest to predict in a very competitive market. Losses havereduced in the first half and a return to profitability in the second halfremains our objective but is dependent on the planned revenue increase in thatperiod.The Mainland European Resourcing Solutions business has performed well in theyear to date in spite of the inevitable impact on the business of the intendedsale process which we announced earlier this year. This forms part of thestrategy previously outlined to reduce Group debt and we expect to be givingmore detail on this at the time of our interim results.We have taken significant steps in implementing the restructuring of the UKbusiness, designed to simplify our organisation, clarify our offerings andreduce costs and consequent cash utilisation but, as we have stated, the fruitsof this strategy will not be seen until next year and we do not expect toreturn to overall profitability this year.Alison Leyshon, our Finance Director, has tendered her resignation with effectfrom 31 July 2005, which the Board has accepted with regret. We would like tosincerely thank Alison for her hard work and commitment to Parity and wish herwell in the future.Her responsibilities will be taken on by Ed Watkinson, a highly experiencedfinance and transformation practitioner, who has been appointed to the newlycreated non-Board position of Head of Finance, with effect from 18 July 2005.Mr Watkinson has been appointed under an interim contract which is anticipatedto run for the balance of this year as the restructuring of Parity continues.As previously announced, John Maxwell, Non-executive Director, is standing downfrom the Board with effect from today's AGM. I would also like to take thisopportunity to thank him for his support and commitment and most especially forhis contribution during the recent period of executive management change. Theappointment of a replacement for John is a priority for the Board.Our objective remains to get the business into significantly better shape for2006 and as we start the second half of the year, we are pleased with theprogress made in recent months since the output of the strategic reviewannounced in April 2005Parity will announce its interim results for the six months ending 30 June 2005in late September 2005."EndsEnquiries:Parity Group plc Tel: 020 7776 0800 John Hughes, Executive Chairman Financial Dynamics Tel: 020 7831 3113 Giles Sanderson Harriet Keen Cass Helstrip ENDPARITY GROUP PLC