AGM Announcement
LPA Group PLC
08 March 2006
LPA Group Plc ('the Group')
8th March 2006
AGM Announcement
At the Annual General Meeting of LPA Group PLC, held today, all resolutions were
passed.
Michael Rusch, Chairman, commented;
As I stated in the Annual Report, the start to the new financial year has been
disappointing, and this will be reflected in the first half. However, the group
enjoyed excellent order receipts during February, which, together with a number
of near term opportunities, should deliver a recovery in the second half.
At last year's Annual General Meeting we set out our 'Rail Market Strategy'.
This strategy was necessitated by the fact that there are now very few major
British rolling stock manufacturers in the UK, and the presence of overseas
rolling stock manufacturers in the UK, 'on the ground', was diminishing.
The intended 'strategy' was not only to greatly enhance our relationships with
the French, German and Japanese rolling stock manufacturers, who currently
supply the requirements of the British market, but to do so on their home
ground. Since the last AGM LPA personnel have had an intensive presence in these
countries and the desired relationships have developed substantially
Hitachi, for instance, chose LPA for the lighting, including our new LED
technology, of the Sentosa Monorail in Singapore - a small contract now
completed. More importantly Hitachi has selected LPA as the designer and
supplier of the lighting system for the Channel Tunnel Rail Link (CTRL) rolling
stock, which will operate between London and the major towns and cities in Kent.
This award means that, to varying degrees, all four major suppliers to the UK
rail market, namely, ALSTOM, BOMBARDIER, SIEMENS and HITACHI are now trading
with us for supplies of LPA equipment for the UK market. The first strategy
objective has been achieved.
The second and third objectives are to impress these major companies
sufficiently with our technical and commercial expertise, that they are
encouraged to include us when tendering for their other export markets and,
eventually, their domestic market. I am pleased to report that we are making
progress in this objective as well. This process is already helping to rebuild
our order book, which has nearly doubled over the past three years, and which is
repairing the damage done to our business by the substantial reduction in new
train building in the UK in 2002.
A relatively small increase in order activity will substantially improve
performance and your management team is working hard to re-establish the base
load so that each small increment delivers that improvement, rather than simply
filling a part of the shortfall. Unfortunately, the gestation period in our
major markets is long, and the slowness in recovery frustrates us as it does our
shareholders. We believe we are close to the rebirth. The group is, and has
been, bidding for very large contracts, and whilst taking a long time to drop,
we are very aware that we have lost no significant contracts in recent times.
Your board remains hopeful of progress during the second half of the year.
This information is provided by RNS
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