Interim Management Statement

RNS Number : 7455K

Quarto Group Inc

26 April 2010

 



Monday April 26, 2010

THE QUARTO GROUP, INC - INTERIM MANAGEMENT STATEMENT

"Trading encouraging"

Quarto (QRT.L), the fully-listed international specialist book publisher based in London, announces its Interim Management Statement for the period since January 1, 2010 and its unaudited results for the three months to March 31, 2010, together with the trailing 12 months' figures to that date.

"Trading, for the three months ended March 31, 2010", said Laurence F Orbach, Chairman and CEO of The Quarto Group, "has been encouraging.  Business has stabilized and, in some respects, improved, in our major English-language markets, and is growing in geographies where local economies are improving.  Co-edition sales to the major Eurozone economies are tougher than a year ago, and display evidence of greater caution on the part of licensees.

"Operating profit, for the period, increased by 14% to £288,000 (2009: £252,000), on flat revenues of £19.9 million (2009: £19.8 million).  With a reduced interest charge, the normal seasonal loss for this first quarter was £0.5 million (2009: £0.7 million).  Cash collections have held up well.

"Difficult as the Great Recession has been, the impact on our financial performance has been well managed and, as the trailing 12 months' figures show, there has been some revenue and profit improvement over the reported 2009 results. We are cautiously optimistic that the picture will continue to improve"

A summarized trading statement to March 31, 2010 (before amortization of non-current intangibles and exceptional items) is set out below:

	Three months ended March 31,				12 months ended March 31,				Year ended December 31, 2009
	2010		2009		2010		2009		2009
	£000		£000		£000		£000		£000
Revenue	19,879		19,769		106,741		111,556		106,631
Gross profit	6,537		6,769		36,159		38,704		36,391
Overheads	(6,249)		(6,517)		(25,932)		(27,370)		(26,200)
Operating Profit	288		252		10,227		11,334		10,191
Interest	(799)		(929)		(3,202)		(3,696)		(3,332)
Pre-tax result	(511)		(677)		7,025		7,638		6,859
EBITDA	3,385		3,440		22,744		22,611		22,799

There has been no material change in the financial position of the Group since December 31, 2009.

Notes for Editors:

Quarto is an international book publisher and producer with two principal strands of activity: its Publishing segment publishes books, under imprints owned by the Group, in the US, Australia and the UK; and its Co-Edition Publishing segment creates books that are licensed to other publishers for publication under their own imprints in many languages around the world.

For the year ended December 31, 2009, Quarto announced revenue of £106.6m, an adjusted pre-tax profit of £6.9m, adjusted diluted earnings per share of 26.0p and dividends per share of 7.15p.

Enquiries:

The Quarto Group, Inc.                                                   020-7700 9004

Laurence Orbach (Chairman and CE0)                                                                      

Mick Mousley (CFO)

Bankside Consultants Limited                                                                  

Charles Ponsonby                                                           020-7367 8851                                    

Rose Oddy                                                                        020-7367 8853

 

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