General Meeting Statement

HELPHIRE GROUP PLC - General Meeting Statement

PR Newswire

London, May 21

Helphire Group plc

Issue date: 22 May 2013

At the General Meeting of the Company, to be held later today, Chairman, AvrilPalmer-Baunack, will make the following statement:

Financial Update

The Board is pleased to announce that the improvement in the Group's tradingperformance reported for the first half of the Company's financial year to 31December 2012, has continued through the four month period to 30 April 2013.

While trading conditions within the Group's marketplace during this period havebeen broadly unchanged, results continue to show a significant improvement overthe corresponding period last year. Average hire lengths have remained stableand margins have continued to show improvement over last year as a result ofthe control of operating costs and improvements to the business model.

Cash collections during the period since 31 December 2012 have continued to bestrong, reflecting the much improved operational processes that have beendeveloped over the past two years and as a consequence statutory debtor days at30 April 2013 were 132 days compared to 155 at 31 December 2012 and 177 at 30April 2012.

Net debt (including fleet financing and cash balances) was £7.7 million at 30April 2013. This compares with net debt at 31 December 2012 of £95.3 million.

Referral Fees and Alternative Business Structures ("ABS")

Following the introduction of new regulations regarding the referral ofpersonal injury claims which came into effect on 1 April 2013 the Group hasmade LASPO compliant arrangements for the handling of these claims goingforward with certain of its partners. In addition the Group continues toprogress its application for its own ABS through its own majority heldsubsidiary in conjunction with certain specialist partners and has reached thefinal stage of the application process prior to the granting of a licence tocommence business.

Autofocus

The position with regard to Autofocus remains largely unchanged since theannouncement of 28 February 2013. In that announcement it was stated that theintermediaries approved by the court had only recently been able to completetheir negotiations with the liquidators with respect to their terms ofreference. Since then these terms of reference have been subject to furthernegotiations with the intervening insurers as part of the legal requirement forthem to also give their approval and this protracted process has continued.

As a consequence until this process has been completed and the requisite datahas been received from the Autofocus Liquidators, Helphire is unable toquantify the number or value of the cases that have been compromised as aresult of the unreliable evidence or the value or timing of any possiblesettlements that may be obtained. However, the Company believes that it has nowreached the final stage of obtaining approval to the terms and the next stagewill be to receive the agreed data.

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Helphire Group plc is a market leader in the provision of accident managementassistance to drivers involved in road accidents that were not their fault.Working with the UK's top insurance companies, its services include provisionof like for like replacement vehicles, financing of vehicle repairs, legalexpenses and the management of personal accident claims.