QRT.L Regulatory News (QRT)

19 Oct 2007 07:00

Quarto Group Inc19 October 2007 Friday October 19, 2007 THE QUARTO GROUP, INC Q3 Trading Update Quarto (QRT.L), the fully listed independent book producer and publisher basedin London, announces its trading update for the third quarter of 2007. "Sales in the third quarter ended September 30, 2007 climbed to £31.1 million(2006: £27.8 million), helped by a first-time contribution from MBI, which weacquired at the end of August", said Laurence F Orbach, chairman and chiefexecutive of The Quarto Group, Inc. "EBITDA rose 10% to £5.9 million (2006: £5.4 million), operating profit, at £3.6million (2006: £3.3 million), increased by 9%, and profit before tax was 5%higher at £2.8 million (2006: £2.7 million). With ten weeks to go before the endof the year, we remain confident that our results for the year will meet marketexpectations. "The book industry's major trade event, the annual Frankfurt Book Fair,concluded last Sunday. The event is very important for our internationalco-edition book publishing segment, less so for the publishing segment. Initialreports suggest that we will see continued robust trading internationally,marred only by the continued fragile state of the book retailing scene in theUK. Fortunately, as Quarto's revenues are widely spread internationally, withonly some 16% of Group revenues in the UK, our exposure to the British market islimited. "To put the Q3 numbers in context, we summarize below the unaudited results forthe 12 months and 9 months ended September 30, 2007." ----------------- Unaudited Results----------------- Trailing 12 months to UnderlyingSeptember 30 Results * Reported Results Headline Underlying(£'000) 2007 2007 2006 Growth Growth________________________________________________________________________________ Revenue 98,084 95,164 94,514 1% 4% EBITDA 19,133 18,589 17,828 4% 7% Operatingprofit 10,025 9,925 9,577 4% 5% Profit beforetaxation 7,604 7,513 7,158 5% 6% Underlying9 months to Results Reported Results Headline Underlying September 30 (£'000) 2007 2007 2006 Growth Growth________________________________________________________________________________ Revenue 68,516 67,623 66,072 2% 4% EBITDA 11,836 11,853 11,241 5% 5% Operating profit 5,241 5,327 4,959 7% 6% Profit before taxation 3,306 3,370 3,119 8% 6% * "underlying" excludes the impact of currency and the acquisition of MBI. The above figures are before amortization of non-current intangibles andnon-recurring items. Notes for Editors: Quarto is an international book producer and publisher with two principalstrands of activity: it publishes, under imprints owned by the Group, books andart prints in the US, the UK, and Australia; and it creates books that arelicensed to other publishers for publication under their own imprints in manylanguages around the world. Enquiries: The Quarto Group, Inc.Laurence Orbach (Chairman & CEO) 020-7700 9003Mick Mousley (Finance Director) 020-7700 9004 Bankside Consultants LimitedCharles Ponsonby 020-7367 8851 This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange