Trading Update

RNS Number : 0161T

Minoan Group PLC

14 July 2015

 



14 July 2015

Minoan Group Plc

(the "Group")

                                                                            

Trading Update

The Directors of the Group are pleased to note that the well publicised situation in Greece now appears to be moving towards resolution. The Government, elected in January this year, has been concentrating its efforts on resolving the larger issues facing the country and, understandably, this has meant a delay in the procedures leading to the signature of the Presidential Decree ("PD") for the Group's project in Crete.

As announced on 18 March 2015, a Plenum of the Greek Council of State (the highest Court in Greece) gave its unanimous approval of the draft PD, which was signed off by the President of the Council of State. In normal circumstances the Greek President's signature of the PD would have followed in a few weeks.

In the hope that the agreement between Greece and the EU/Members of the Eurozone will now be ratified by the Greek Parliament, the Group has been advised  that normal Government procedures will resume shortly thereafter. 

In the meantime, the underlying performance of the Group's travel division has continued to improve with Gross Sales up by 15% and Commissions up by 17% in the current financial year. This is despite difficulties in Aberdeen relating to the oil price, which have had a detrimental effect on the performance of our corporate travel division. This will be ameliorated going forward by the recent acquisition of other non-oil related corporate customers. As can be imagined, the long running situation in Greece and, tragically, recent events in Tunisia have also had an impact. In addition, there has been a dispute with our back office services provider relating to cash settlements, which has now been resolved. The effect of this on our profitability means that the Group's results for the current financial year will no longer meet current market expectations but are expected to be in line with the previous year. As these items are all one-off, we do not believe they will impact upon trading in the financial year ending 31 October 2016 and accordingly we believe that market expectations for this period remain valid.

Nonetheless, the Group is continuing to pursue a number of opportunities about which we will update the market and shareholders when they are concluded. The Board is confident that the Group's travel division will bear significant fruits in the coming year.

We will be publishing our Interim Results at the end of this month and will give additional updates in due course.

For further information please visit www.minoangroup.com or contact:

Minoan Group Plc
Christopher Egleton	[e-mail]
Duncan Wilson	0141 226 2930
Bill Cole	020 8253 4305
WH Ireland Limited	020 7220 1666
Adrian Hadden/Mark Leonard
Throgmorton Street Capital	020 7071 0808
Forbes Cutler
Morgan Rossiter	020 3195 3240
Richard Morgan Evans/James Rossiter

 

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