AGM and IMS Statement

RNS Number : 7529Z

Shanks Group PLC

24 July 2008

AGM Statement and Interim Management Statement

24 July 2008

Reporting to shareholders at the Company's Annual General Meeting in London today (24 July) the Group Chairman Adrian Auer will say:

'I am pleased to report that results for the first quarter have been ahead of our expectations.

Activity levels in our Dutch Solid Waste business continue to be high with no indication of a slow down in the construction and demolition sector. Hazardous Waste trading was also buoyant however at the end of June ATM, our hazardous waste treatment facility, suffered an interruption to its waste water activity which will lead to one-off increased disposal costs and a temporary reduction in the plant's capacity.

In the UK, Solid Waste has continued to show strong year on year growth aided by the recent £8 per tonne increase in landfill tax to £32 per tonne.

In Belgium we have been successful in adding new input streams to our landfill to mitigate the expected decline in the short term. However we still expect it to decline over the medium term as previously indicated. In our Industrial and Commercial business our recently commissioned solid recovered fuel (SRF) production facility in Ghent is performing well and attracting significant interest from customers. The recent acquisition of Foronex is integrating well and opening up interesting development opportunities.

We have made good progress in a number of areas in implementing our strategy for the business.

In line with our commitment to test and manage the portfolio, in July we sold our Liverpool operations to Veolia for £3m.
To broaden our UK residual municipal waste treatment offering we have formed a strategic partnership with Wheelabrator Technologies Inc (a subsidiary of Waste Management Inc) to provide mass burn incineration facilities to those authorities who have decided on this treatment option. This will complement our proven Ecodeco Mechanical Biological Treatment (MBT) offering and allow us to offer what we believe are market leading solutions for the two principal residual municipal waste treatment techniques.
In Canada the extension to our Orgaworld composting plant in Toronto was commissioned on time and started accepting waste from the beginning of July.
Finally, in July we relocated the Group head office from Bourne End into the same building as our UK head office in Milton Keynes.

The Group's core net debt position as at 30 June 2008 was £261m, an increase from 31 March 2008 of £49m due principally to the acquisition of Foronex and the planned high level of expenditure on organic growth projects. PFI debt, excluding fair value of interest rate swaps, remained more or less constant at £112m (31 March 2008: £111m).