Result of AGM
Inspace Plc
18 May 2006
Press Release 18 May 2006
Inspace plc
('Inspace' or 'the Company')
Result of AGM
Inspace plc (AIM:INSP), the property based support services business that has
established itself as one of the UK's leading repair and maintenance service
providers, confirms that all the resolutions put to shareholders at the
Company's Annual General Meeting held today were duly passed. At the meeting,
Executive Chairman, Colin Enticknap, made the following statement:
'2005 was a good year for Inspace. We became established as a credible,
stand-alone business; we successfully floated on AiM; we delivered record
results ahead of consensus forecasts; and we grew our order book by over 60% to
reach £450 million. But having said all this, we are certainly not complacent.
We have ambitious plans for the future, and we recognise that there is still
much to be done if we are to meet our aspirations.
'Our main challenge will be to secure the balance of our workload need for 2006,
and create a solid platform for continued growth into 2007. We continue to see
social housing as the main driver of that growth. Last year we doubled the
scale of our social housing branch infrastructure providing a bespoke service to
local authority and registered social landlord customers, which reinforced our
position as one of the leading specialist providers to the sector. We intend to
capitalise on this position in what we expect to remain a substantial and robust
market for the foreseeable future.
'Alongside a growing core of well performing repair and maintenance contracts,
where we have already developed an enviable track record, we now aim to become
equally adept at securing and delivering substantial capital programmes. In the
short term, the Decent Homes initiative is likely to receive a significant
proportion of that capital investment, but there are early signs that we may see
a subtle shift in Government policy, with longer term investment favouring more
radical estate regeneration initiatives, capable of delivering integrated
communities as well as improved housing stock. If so, we may see the larger
registered social landlords becoming increasingly important alongside our
traditional local authority customer base.
'In non-housing terms, the realignment programme launched late last year will
continue to take priority. With structures and systems being realigned, and new
supporting technology being developed, we expect this investment to realise
efficiency improvements as we move into 2007. In parallel, we expect to see a
progressive increase in the proportion of non-housing workload undertaken for
public sector customers, as we start to convert opportunities from our growing
sales pipeline into secured orders.
'Whilst this planned shift in weighting towards the public sector brings
increased visibility, it also brings increased sensitivity to the seasonality in
public sector spending patterns, where we typically see a degree of caution in
spending during the final January to March quarter of the local authority cycle.
We have therefore modified our profit flow model, for 2006 and also for
subsequent years, to show our first half years delivering between 35% and 40% of
full year aspirations.
'We remain on track to meet consensus 2006 forecasts. We are determined to
build a portfolio of quality work, capable of delivering realistic and
sustainable levels of margin; our pipeline remains healthy; we are attuned to
our market; we are flexible to respond to changing patterns; and we look forward
to announcing important successes as we move through the year.'
- Ends -
For further information:
Inspace plc
Colin Enticknap, Executive Chairman Tel: +44 (0) 1462 678 910
colin.enticknap@inspace.co.uk www.inspace.co.uk
Seymour Pierce
Mark Percy, Corporate Finance Tel: +44 (0) 20 7107 8000
markpercy@seymourpierce.com www.seymourpierce.com
Media enquiries:
Abchurch
Henry Harrison-Topham Tel: +44 (0) 20 7398 7700
henry.ht@abchurch-group.com www.abchurch-group.com
Notes to editors
Inspace plc is a property based support services business that has established
itself as one of the UK's leading social housing repair and maintenance service
providers. For the year ended 31 December 2005, it recorded turnover of £147.5
million and its order book stood at £450 million stretching as far as 2020.
The Company has three complementary areas of activity:
Partnerships provides repair, maintenance and improvement of social housing
stock which includes maintenance of building fabric, maintenance of engineering
services reinstatement of void homes, minor capital projects and Decent Homes
improvement works under regeneration schemes.
Maintain provides repair, maintenance and improvement of public and corporate
sector non-housing real estate. Maintain is one of the UK's largest fabric
maintenance businesses delivering an integrated 24/7 reactive service and
planned maintenance & minor capital works with a national infrastructure across
England, Scotland and Wales. Maintain also offers mechanical and electrical
maintenance capable of stand alone or integrated service delivery to suit
customer requirements.
Complete provides interior design, installation and furnishing of corporate and
public sector non-housing real estate. The design led service offers its
customers an integrated 'one stop' solution. There are natural synergies with
Maintain's customer base.
Industry forecasts show a steady social housing repair and maintenance market
over the next 15 years, running at around £4 billion per annum. These forecasts
illustrate the constant need for repairing and improving housing stock. The
private non-residential repair and maintenance market was indicated to be worth
approximately £14 billion in 2004, representing approximately 32.1 per cent of
the total UK repair and maintenance market.
Further information on Inspace can be found at www.inspace.co.uk
This information is provided by RNS
The company news service from the London Stock Exchange