9 November 2006
XP Power plc
("XP" or "the Group")
Trading Update
XP, one of the world's leading providers of power supply solutions to the
electronics industry, is today issuing an update on trading ahead of its year
end on 31 December 2006.
Although trading in the UK business over the past few months has been weaker
than expected, trading in Continental Europe and in particular North America
have been robust across virtually all sectors. Accordingly the Board expects
basic and diluted earnings per share will be higher in the second half of the
year than the first half and earnings per share for the year to December 2006
to be in line with market expectations.
In April this year we announced that we had terminated a number of third party
lines in order to focus on our own product. As a result, we stopped taking
orders for these products from 1 July 2006. These third party lines represented
annualised revenues of approximately £4 million in Europe and US$10 million in
North America. We will have some modest inventory provisions associated with
these terminations. Despite this, we expect revenues for the year to be in line
with the current market expectations for 2006.
Our Chinese manufacturing joint venture opened in May this year. This facility
is performing well, in accordance with our plan, and has been profitable
throughout the second half. All new XP products will be built in this facility.
This venture, together with our Shanghai office which opened in October 2005 in
order to support our customers manufacturing in Asia and our manufacturing
operations, has given us much greater insight into cost and supply chain
management within Asia. We hope to capitalise on this knowledge as we introduce
new generations of products to the market. In October 2006 we also announced
the completion of the buy out of the remaining 50% of our Singapore sales joint
venture. This will continue to help in building a stronger presence in Asia.
Given the importance of Asia to both our target customer base and our supply
chain operations we consider it important that our Company and its operations
become much more Asia centric. Over the next few months we will be actively
planning to relocate our head quarters and certain supply chain activities to
Asia. The one off transaction costs of doing this are likely to be substantial
but we would expect to get a rapid pay back from this move.
XP expects to release preliminary results for the year ending 31 December 2006
during the second week of February 2007.
- Ends -
Enquiries:
XP Power plc 0118 984 5515
Larry Tracey, Executive Chairman
James Peters, Deputy Chairman
Duncan Penny, Chief Executive Officer
Weber Shandwick Square Mile 020 7067 0700
Nick Dibden
Notes to editors:
XP Power plc provides power supply solutions to the electronics industry.
All electronic equipment needs a power supply. Power supplies convert the
incoming AC supply into various levels of DC voltages to drive electronic
components and sub-assemblies within the end user's equipment. XP Power
segments its business into Communications, Defence and Avionics, Industrial and
Medical. By servicing these markets XP Power provides investors with access to
technology and industrial sectors of the North American and European
electronics market.
The market is highly fragmented and made up of a large number of small to
medium sized Original Equipment Manufacturers who source standard and modified
standard power supplies from several hundred power supply companies.
For further information, please visit www.xppower.com
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