Wilmington Regulatory News (WIL)

14 May 2009 07:00



Thursday 14 May 2009

Wilmington Group plc

Interim Management Statement

Wilmington Group plc, the professional information and training group, today issues its Interim Management Statement for the period up until the date of this announcement and incorporating the Company's third quarter ending 31 March 2009.

Trading Performance

We reported in February that the economic outlook, which deteriorated during the second half of the 2008 calendar year, had become more difficult in the early part of the 2009 calendar year. Conditions have continued to be difficult and trading performance during the period from 1 January 2009 to 31 March 2009 and to date has been below the Board's previous expectations, which will impact the full year's performance. 

In our Professional Publishing & Information businesses, trading during the quarter to 31 March 2009 was slightly below our expectations, with difficult trading conditions experienced particularly in the Media & Entertainment sector. Nonetheless, revenue for the nine month period to the end of March 2009 on a like-for-like basis was 3% ahead of the same period in the prior year, with corresponding profits also marginally ahead.

In April we sold the Press Gazette magazine to Progressive Media. As part of this transaction we agreed a long term deal to work together with the new owners on the associated events which we retained. The sale of Press Gazette completes the disposal of the Group's trade magazines.

In our Professional Training businesses, market conditions adversely and significantly impacted legal course bookings and some other short courses, particularly in the areas of investment banking and finance. Conversely in the areas of international fund management, compliance and accountancy the training business has proved resilient. In law for non-lawyers, where our customer base is largely in the public sector, trading has been strong. In Singapore, enrolments on our compliance programmes are ahead of our expectations although the benefit of this will be felt largely in the next financial year. Overall, Professional Training revenue for the 9 month period to the end of March 2009 on a like-for-like basis, was 13% below the same period in the prior year. 

 Outlook

Many parts of our business continue to produce robust performances and the trading performance going forward will benefit from the cost savings and efficiencies already achieved. We continue to monitor our structure and cost base to align them with market conditions and to create the best platform to exploit the market recovery.  However, the board does expect the continuing challenging economic conditions to impact on the Group's performance for the remainder of the calendar year, with some softness in our Professional Publishing & Information businesses during the seasonally important quarter to the 30 June 2009 and a continued challenging environment for our Professional Training businesses, particularly in the legal and financial sectors.

We have a strong balance sheet, low gearing and significant unutilised committed long-term banking facilities until March 2012. We remain focused on delivering optimal trading performance in difficult conditions whilst continuing to search for strategic acquisition opportunities capable of generating long term value for shareholders. The Board believes that the professional market sector will provide many opportunities for value creation and the company has a robust business model with an infrastructure in place to create an effective platform for growth.

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Notes to Editors

Wilmington Group plc is one of the UK's leading providers of information and training for professional business markets. The Group provides training, arranges industry events and publishes directories, databases, magazines and special reports for a variety of markets including the legal, health, accounting, pension, charities and financial sectors. Capitalised at approximately £112 million, Wilmington floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1995.