AGM Statement

25 Jul 2006 12:31

Sutton Harbour Holdings PLC25 July 2006 SUTTON HARBOUR HOLDINGS PLC AGM STATEMENT At their AGM held in Plymouth today, 25th July 2006, the Aim listed transport,property and regeneration specialists issued the following update toshareholders on current trading. Your company has made significant progress in the last two financial years asAir Southwest was established and grew, and activity in the regeneration andproperty sector expanded. We have seen group profits grow quickly over thisperiod. This year will be one of consolidation as we bring forward new projects,particularly in the regeneration and property sector, to provide profits growthover the medium term. In Plymouth the DWP office building is now complete and with the ground floorsof new harbourside developments let or nearly let to commercial tenants, we arepushing on with the next phase of development to the East of the harbour. Again,we aim to bring a mix of uses to the area including residential, office andcommercial. We are also working on a major canalside scheme in Exeter and wecontinue to bid for a number of public-private partnership initiatives includingLIFT schemes elsewhere in the country. The first phase of the Plymouth LIFTschemes is now complete and we hope to have the next phase in the ground earlyin 2007. Air Southwest started new routes on 10 April from Newquay to Cardiff andManchester and from Bristol to Norwich and these are showing a normal pattern ofsales growth for new routes. After accounting for extra costs in connection withthe launches and marketing spend we would not expect these new routes to beprofitable in their first year of operation. Other routes continue to be popularalthough we have had to contend with a number of factors over the last fewmonths, not least being the continuing high cost of fuel. We noticed a waning indemand for tickets during the World Cup and we experienced poor weather duringMay. Although the withdrawal of Air Wales from Plymouth City Airport has reducedpassenger-related revenues, the airport has been active in promoting itsfacilities to light aircraft pilots and continues to boost income by rentingland for parking. Our Marine Activities have again made a satisfactory start to the year. Fishingcontinues to perform steadily with the summer scallop season coming on streamand marina incomes have been swelled following the near capacity letting ofberths on the new West Pier Marina. We are continuing our strategy of balancing our different activities to reducerisks. At the interim stage last year the reported results showed a largeincrease due to the exceptional performance by Air Southwest. This half year, weexpect to report a more modest performance from our transport sector given thetrading factors that I have already outlined but a stronger performance from theregeneration sector. Your company has no shortage of opportunities and is working to progress these.We are pleased with the company's achievements and look forward to bringing thenext phase of regeneration projects to fruition to provide stable returns in thefuture. For further information contact:Nigel Godefroy, Managing Director, Sutton Harbour Holdings plc on 01752 204186Ken Rees or Paul Vann, Winningtons Financial PR on 0117 920 0092 or 07802 466567 This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange