AGM Statement

RNS Number : 7840H

Restore PLC

22 May 2014

 



22 May 2014

Restore plc

AGM Statement

At the Annual General Meeting of Restore plc ("Restore" or "the Group"), to be held today at 12 pm, the Chairman, Sir William Wells, will make the following statement:

"I am pleased to report that 2014 has started well and that Group trading in the first four months of the year has been encouraging and in line with management's expectations.

In our Document Management division, the core records management business continues to perform steadily.  We are currently operating at just short of capacity but have acquired and developed additional space to accommodate our projected organic growth. Last year's acquisitions of File & Data and Atix are contributing as expected at the time of their acquisition.

As anticipated in our Full Year results announcement, Restore Scan has had a strong start to the year with profit sharply ahead year-on-year. Restore Shred has continued to grow rapidly with annualised growth in turnover currently running in excess of 50%.

Our Relocations division, which trades primarily as Harrow Green, has, as expected, benefited from improved market conditions and lower fixed costs. Activity in the London market is clearly strengthening and we have also secured several major projects outside of London, such that our regional network is now making a significant contribution to profit. Relocom, our IT relocation subsidiary, has traded in line with expectations, as has Restore IT Efficient.  I am also proud to announce that Harrow Green was last week awarded the prestigious Commercial Mover of the Year award.

In the last two months, we have made several acquisitions:

-       Records Management. In April, we acquired Magnum Secure, based in Goole, Yorkshire, and Spennymoor, County Durham and last week, we acquired Filebase in Washington, Tyne and Wear. These acquisitions continue our strategy of consolidating smaller records management businesses and will significantly strengthen our presence in the North East.

-       Restore Shred. We have today announced that we have exchanged contracts to acquire Cannon Confidential, the UK shredding division of OCS. This adds significant critical mass to our fast-growing secure shredding and recycling operations, and increases our geographic coverage, particularly in North West England and Scotland.

-       Relocom. In April, we acquired an additional 33% stake in Relocom, the UK IT relocation business, taking our overall stake to 83%, with an agreement to purchase the remaining shares, owned by the Managing Director of Relocom, in due course. This enables us to integrate Relocom fully into our operations, which will improve its profitability.

These acquisitions will increase our share of the UK market in the areas in which we operate and were funded from internal resources together with the new banking facility which we put in place in March. We expect them all to enhance earnings, particularly once they are fully integrated.

We look forward with confidence to making further strong progress this year."

For further information please contact:

Restore plc

Charles Skinner	Tel: [phone]
Adam Councell	Tel: [phone]

Cenkos Securities
Nicholas Wells	Tel: [phone]

FTI Consulting
Nick Hasell	Tel: [phone]

 

END

 

 

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