Tribal Grp. Regulatory News (TRB)

17 Jan 2008 07:01

Tribal Group PLC17 January 2008 Tribal Group plc17 January 2008 Tribal Group plc Trading Update Statement Tribal Group plc ("Tribal" or the "Group") will announce its results for the nine months to 31 December 2007 on 26 March 2008. The results will be for a nine month period reflecting the change of Tribal's year end to 31 December, as announced previously. The encouraging progress reported in the Interim results on 21 November 2007 hascontinued.The Group therefore expects profits and earnings to be substantially ahead of the corresponding nine month period in 2006, pro forma profit before tax for the year ended 31 December 2007 to be towards the top end of market forecasts and pro forma earnings per share for the year to be ahead of expectations. Cash generation in the last three months of the period was better than expectedand net debt at the year end was less than £8m. Tribal has continued to focus on its core activities of providing a range of consulting, support and delivery services that improve the delivery of public services. We have seen good demand for our services in the past three months andan increasing number of opportunities for us to supply integrated solutions to our clients. Our Education business has had a strong end to the period with good performancesacross Software, Learning & Publishing and Services. Consulting has also continued to perform well in the period, particularly in Housing & Regeneration, Central Government and Health. We have also seen the development of a good pipeline of opportunities for our recently established Health Commissioning business. Each of our support services businesses has traded in line with our expectations, with Architectural Design and Communications continuing their good performances and Resourcing seeing an improvement in its operating margins. Given the strength of the balance sheet, the Board believes that it is nowappropriate to make an additional equity return in the form of an on-marketshare buy-back. Accordingly, Tribal's brokers, Hoare Govett, will be makingselective purchases in the market with the intention of acquiring up to 5% ofthe issued share capital during 2008. Tribal enters its new financial year with approximately 40% of 2008 planned revenue already committed (2007: 29%) and with total committed income of£124m (2007: £108m) an increase of 15 per cent. We continue to see good opportunities for growth across our markets and the Board is confident about Tribal's prospects in the current year and beyond. End For further information, please contact: Tribal Group plc Telephone: 020 7323 7110Peter Martin, Chief ExecutiveSimon Lawton, Group Finance Director Maitland Telephone: 020 7379 5151Colin BrowneAnthony Silverman Editors' note: Tribal provides a range of consultancy, support and delivery services focused on improving the delivery of public services in the UK. Our core markets are in education, health, housing and regeneration, central government and local government. Tribal employs approximately 2,000 staff and its shares are quoted on the London Stock Exchange (TRB). Links: Tribal Group plc website: www.tribalgroup.co.uk This Statement has been prepared for and is addressed only to our shareholdersas a whole and should not be relied on by any other party or for any otherpurpose. Tribal, its directors, employees, agents or advisers do not accept orassume responsibility to any other person to whom this Statement is shown orinto whose hands it may come and any such responsibility or liability isexpressly disclaimed. This Statement may contain forward-looking statements. Any forward-lookingstatement has been made by the directors in good faith based on the informationavailable to them up to the time of approval of this Statement and should betreated with caution due to the inherent uncertainties, including both economicand business risk factors, underlying such forward-looking information. To theextent that this Statement contains any statement dealing with any time afterthe date of its preparation, such statement is merely predictive and speculativeas it relates to events and circumstances which are yet to occur and thereforethe facts stated and views expressed may change. Tribal undertakes no obligationto update these forward-looking statements. This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange