Trifast Regulatory News (TRI)

Trifast plc

('Trifast', the 'Group' 'TR' or 'Company')

"HOLDING THE WORLD TOGETHER"

Leading international specialists in the engineering, manufacturing and distribution

of high quality, industrial fastenings to major global assembly industries

TRADING UPDATE

LONDON: THURSDAY 15 FEBRUARY 2018: The Board of Trifast provides the following unaudited trading update covering the Q3 financial period and up to the date of this announcement.

Organic performance

Our global visibility and order pipeline is still very encouraging. The Group balance sheet remains strong and provides capacity to fund our growth. The global dynamics of our business continue to match management expectations in relation to our revenue, margins and other KPIs across all our business teams in the UK, Europe and Asia. It is pleasing to report that our US operation continues to recover following the impact of Hurricane Harvey.

The consistent levels of progress over recent years, coupled with our future growth and significant investment plans future proof the business and ensure TR can meet the demands of its multinational OEM customers therein turn, building long term shareholder value.

The capital investments we have made in our manufacturing operations in Italy and Taiwan are already delivering ongoing benefits. The significant expansion of our Singapore facilities is on track with phase one expected to complete by the financial year end. To support our ongoing advancement and to meet the evolving needs of our multinational OEM customers, the project to develop and integrate our existing IT infrastructure initiated in 2017 continues. Additional investments have already been made into our global enquiry system. We expect to finalise the scoping of the wider project by the time we report our full year results in mid-June.

Acquisitions

As ever we are evaluating several interesting acquisition opportunities which would further enhance our vendor sourcing, technical portfolio and engineering skills; expand our global footprint; or add value to our sector specialisms.

Summary

There are, of course, some macroeconomic factors we cannot fully mitigate including the wider potential implications of Brexit on our business and the UK economy. However, as we have said previously, the Trifast Group has the flexibility and foresight to continue to grow while facing any challenges head on as and when they arise.

Accordingly, the Board remain confident that the Group will deliver its expectations for the year ending 31 March 2018 when it reports in mid-June 2018.

The next trading update will be in mid-April.