Tarsus Regulatory News (TRS)

4 Jul 2006 07:00

Tarsus Group PLC04 July 2006 TARSUS GROUP PLC Pre-close update4 July 2006 Tarsus Group plc, the international media group with interests in exhibitions,conferences, publishing and online media will be announcing its interim resultscovering the six-month period to end-June 2006 on Monday September 4th 2006.Prior to entering its close period, the Company is today providing an update ontrading. Trading performance in the first half has met our expectations both in ourestablished products and in our new launches. The Group expects to reportlike-for-like revenue growth in excess of 10% for the period. Our US shows have had a particularly good first half and like-for-like revenuegrowth is expected to be ahead of the Group's average. The February Off-Priceclothing show was ahead, once again, in revenue terms compared with 2005. Theupcoming August Off -Price show, which is the larger of the two, is on track tobe a record show. Our second Packaging Services Expo, which took place inChicago in May, was combined with our first Packaging Containers and MaterialsExpo to form the Packaging Summit. We were encouraged by its performance whichsaw revenues and buyer attendance more than double. Revenues from our largestevent of the year, Labelexpo Americas in September, are tracking well ahead ofthe previous event in 2004. Our European business is second half weighted, but like-for-like revenue in thequieter first half is expected to have increased by some 4%. In France, ourorganic expansion continued as we launched 5 new exhibitions and 4 newdirectories. A notable success in our established business was the DirectMarketing exhibition where our share of revenues increased strongly. We have nowbought out one of the minority interests in this show and as part of the samedeal have sold our smaller Progilog software exhibition. This disposal gave riseto a small exceptional gain in the period. In the second half, the outlook forour largest show in France - Heavent- is encouraging with indicated revenueswell ahead of those for 2005. The UK online business - while still small -continues to grow rapidly andrevenues are expected to rise substantially in the first half. We are veryadvanced in replicating our online business into the USA and France. Theacquisition of Onrec, an online recruitment business, has been fully integratedand we have launched two new events in this sector in 2006. Revenues in our emerging markets portfolio are expected to have increasedstrongly, owing to the launch of an Indian Label Summit in Mumbai. As a resultof this success, we will be replicating the event in Delhi in 2007. In addition,we have launched a new event in India for the Flexible Packaging Industry(Flexpack Summit) which is scheduled to take place in October 2007. In China, our BITTM travel exhibition had a successful second edition doublingvisitor numbers and remains on track to become profitable in 2007. Significantlyfor our prospects in the region, we have recently entered into a new strategicpartnership with Shanghai Modern International Exhibition Company, a subsidiaryof the Shanghai World Expo Group, organisers of the World Expo event in Shanghaiin 2010. Shanghai Modern is a market leader in China in our core packaging andprinting sectors. In 2007, the partnership will concentrate on the 15th Print,Pack and Paper exhibition, the 7th Papertech show, the 3rd Corrugating &Converting Expo and the 14th Shanghai International Advertising Technology &Equipment exhibition. Douglas Emslie, Group MD of Tarsus said: "Our established events continue to perform well and our organic expansion isaccelerating with 15 new products launched in the first half. The success of ourlaunch programme over the last two years is giving us the confidence to drivethis expansion which is laying the groundwork for significant medium-termgrowth. In addition, we are increasing our exposure to areas -notably China -which offer above average rates of growth. With a good first half performanceunder our belts and a robust outlook for our major shows in the second half, weremain confident that 2006 will be a year of further progress and stronglike-for-like growth" For further information please contact: Tarsus Group plc:Douglas EmslieGroup Managing Director : Tel. 020 8846 2700 Media:Matthew Moth:Madano Partnership Tel 020 7378 7033 Investors:Neville HarrisIRFocus: Tel 020 7378 7057 This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange