9th Mar 2020 12:05
(Alliance News) - Willmigton PLC on Monday warned of a hit to annual profit after the postponing of some of its conferences in the US.
London-based Wilmington provides information, education and networking services, which includes the likes of training courses, workshops, seminars, and awards events and conferences.
The spread of the coronavirus, Wilmington said, is not expected to have a "material" impact of profit either for its current year ending June or for the year after.
However, Wilmington has posted its RISE Nashville event to the end of June. It had originally been set to go ahead on Sunday to Tuesday next week. RISE Nashville's sister event, Social Determinants of Health, has been postponed to the same time.
There will be some extra costs due to the postponement, but the company said this will partly be offset by incremental revenue which was ahead of expectations prior to the spread of the virus.
Wilmington has warned of a GBP500,000 hit to profit in its currently financial year as a result.
"Based on current information, our other US events scheduled for the rest of the financial year are not seeing the same level of challenge as RISE. Generally, these are smaller events with lower attendance levels and currently most organisations are allowing staff to travel to these types of events," said Wilmington.
"Accordingly, all other US events scheduled by the group are currently still planned to go ahead. However, we are monitoring the situation very closely and will act as circumstances dictate."
Outside of the US, some small events in Hong Kong, Dubai, and Madrid have been postponed, but Wilmington expects them to go ahead before the end of June.
Aside from the GBP500,000 guided, Wilmington said there will likely be other knocks to profitability but they are not likely to be material.
"Clearly if travel bans are imposed in other parts of the world or are extended beyond the end of April then that could result in a more material impact," it cautioned, however.
Shares were untraded in London on Monday, last quoted at 220.00 pence each.
By George Collard; [email protected]
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