28 Jul 2009 12:30
Torotrak Plc
("Torotrak" or "the Company")
Annual General Meeting and Interim Management Statement
For the first quarter ended 30 June 2009
Torotrak Plc today publishes its interim management statement describing progress made in the first quarter of the financial year ending 31 March 2010. This also includes the trading update to be delivered at Torotrak's Annual General Meeting which takes place today.
Since reporting results for the financial year ended 31 March 2009 to shareholders on 27 May 2009, Torotrak's trading has been in line with our expectations and those of the market. We expect revenues to be strongly weighted towards the second half of the year, following the pattern of our last financial year.
Our strong licensing and engineering order book supports our confidence in delivering increased revenues in the current financial year and to achieving close to a break even in profit after tax. We aim to achieve this through higher levels of engineering fee income than experienced in the last financial year and through strong licensing income flows. We expect this income to more than offset an increase in development costs linked to further investment in our joint venture, Infinitrak, which is preparing for production build of its second product in this financial year.
We continue to have strong net cash resources providing a resilient level of financial capital for the foreseeable future.
Commercial Vehicles
As reported in May, we now have substantial engineering programmes with two of our licensees in the Commercial Vehicle sector. Our engineering programme with the European truck and bus licensee continues on track, with the completion of key milestone events as planned. Our programme with Allison Transmission, Inc. has commenced with an encouraging sense of pace on both sides, and is making good progress. Our prime objective is to support these customers to ensure that we achieve our mutual goals of readiness for production.
Outdoor Power Equipment (OPE)
Excellent progress has been made at Infinitrak with the development of what we see as an innovative product for the mainstream OPE market - the Single Toroidal Transmission (STT). Transmissions are currently undergoing rig and vehicle tests with good results to date.
The timetable through to launch of this new transmission in Infinitrak's customer's product in the third quarter of our financial year, remains challenging. Nonetheless, Infinitrak is tooling up for a production capacity to deliver in excess of 10,000 units for this financial year and to support larger volumes going forward.
Sale of Infinitrak's first, more specialist transmission, the Twin Toroidal Transmission (TTT), will, as explained in May 2009, focus on niche applications with relatively low order levels anticipated.
Off Highway
Since reporting in May, we have made encouraging progress with our business development activities in this market, in particular with the successful completion of comprehensive tractor field trials undertaken with a major international prospective customer.
Automotive/ Other
Our development programmes continue with interesting new collaborative work on variable drives being undertaken on a speculative basis with a major automotive tier 1 supplier.
We have continued to support Tata Motors Limited, which is licensed across a range of markets, with its evaluation of our technology.
Our plan does not anticipate material earnings from these automotive and other cross-market activities in the short term.
For further information, please visit www.torotrak.com or contact:
| Dick Elsy, Chief Executive Jeremy Deering, Finance Director | Simon Hudson Lulu Bridges |
| Torotrak Plc | Tavistock Communications |
| Tel: +44 1772 900938 | Tel: +44 20 7920 3150 or +44 7966 477256 |