12th Jul 2007 11:00
FirstGroup PLC12 July 2007 Thursday 12 July 2007 FIRSTGROUP PLC AGM and Interim Management Statement At today's Annual General Meeting in Aberdeen FirstGroup plc will report thefollowing: The Group made excellent progress across all businesses and delivered a strongset of results for the year to 31 March 2007. We have made significantinvestment in our businesses in both the UK and North America and are now seeingthe results of that investment. Group revenue increased by 22.4% to £3,708.8m and adjusted operating profit was£259.2m despite absorbing £37.1m of additional fuel cost. EBITDA increased by13.4% to a record high of £398.9m. Our commitment to increase dividends by 10%for the foreseeable future, at least for a further three years, reflects theBoard's confidence in the Group's strong cash generation and prospects forfurther growth. Our proposed acquisition of Laidlaw International, Inc. will give us a uniqueopportunity to become the leading operator in the large, fragmented NorthAmerican transport market and leverage value through scale. We are confident ofthe opportunities this acquisition will bring to increase our service offeringto customers. In Canada the Group has received approval from the CompetitionBureau and in the US from the Surface Transportation Board and the Committee onForeign Investment. We now await antitrust approval from The Department ofJustice ("DoJ") with whom we continue to work cooperatively. Our UK Rail business delivered another excellent performance with strongpassenger income and volume growth trends continuing. We are committed to thelong-term development of railways in the UK and are investing to deliverimproved services for passengers. We are shortlisted for the Intercity EastCoast Franchise which represents approximately £500m of additional revenue perannum. In UK Bus revenue growth continues to be strong and we have seen an encouragingtrend of increased passenger journeys for the UK Bus division as a whole. Wecontinue to deliver improvements in operating performance and efficiency withinthe business. Improving the quality of our services together with robust costcontrol initiatives continues to underpin our margin enhancement strategy. Our North America business delivered margin improvement during the past year,despite continued fuel cost pressure, through rigorous contract bidding, tightmanagement of controllable costs and a strong focus on productivity. In FirstStudent we were pleased to win new contracts to operate school bus services instates including Connecticut, California, Louisiana, Maine and New Hampshire.We remain confident that North America offers further exciting growth prospectsfor the Group. The board remains confident about the prospects for the Group. Trading in thefirst three months of the year has started well and is in line with ourexpectations. Unaudited Group operating profit for the period was up 9.3% onthe comparative period in the previous financial year. The interim results for the six months to 30 September 2007 will be announced onWednesday 7 November 2007. FirstGroup contacts on 12 July 2007: Rachael Borthwick, Group Corporate Communications Director 07771 945 432 Stuart Bugg, Group Corporate Communications Manager 07734 577 684 This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock ExchangeRelated Shares:
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