Wilmington Regulatory News (WIL)

11 Nov 2009 07:00



11 November 2009

Wilmington Group plc

Interim Management Statement

Wilmington Group plc, the information and training group, today issues its Interim Management Statement for the period from 1st July 2009 to date. The statement is being made to the Group's Annual General Meeting which is being held today.

Trading performance continues to be difficult and has been, as expected, below the level achieved in the prior financial year. In the legal sector where we saw a noticeable decline in revenues in the early part of the calendar year 2009, trading conditions have remained depressed. As anticipated, the Matchett graduate training programmes for investment banks generated significantly less revenue than the prior year despite increasing market share. However, the resilience of Wilmington's portfolio of businesses is demonstrated by the encouraging levels of turnover and profitability achieved by many of the Group's other businesses. We are seeing the benefits of cost savings and operational efficiencies coming through across all of our businesses and we intend to closely monitor our structure and cost base to ensure that they continue to be aligned with market conditions.

Outlook

The Board continues to expect that the results for the first half of the financial year will be below the level achieved in the prior year but that the full year results will benefit from the cost savings and efficiencies, together with less difficult comparators.

We are a cash generative business with modest gearing and have committed bank facilities until 2012 that will help us to underpin the development of our business for the medium term with the ability to make strategic bolt on acquisitions when the opportunities present themselves.

-Ends-

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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 £120 million, Wilmington floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1995.