16th Oct 2006 07:00
Spice PLC16 October 2006 16th October 2006 Spice plc Pre-close trading update Ahead of the announcement of interim results, and prior to entering the closedperiod, the Board of Spice plc ("Spice" or "the Group") is pleased to advisethat the trading of the Group continues to be in line with the Directors'expectations. Market conditions remain favourable for both our Commercial Services and UtilityServices divisions with strong levels of organic growth. During the first half of the year, Commercial Services has grown strongly.Within Facilities, we are now undertaking commercial insurance claimsreinstatement work for Norwich Union, as well as domestic. The integration ofBreval into the division is ongoing and proceeding to plan. Within Energy,Inenco (acquired in June 2006) is performing ahead of expectations. Contractwins since acquisition include BHS and Spirit Group where we will be providingenergy procurement and invoice validation services for the next three years. Our Utility Services division has also grown strongly. Telecoms has maintainedthe momentum generated in the second half of the last financial year. Contractwins include a five year framework agreement with Huawei in connection with BT's21st century network and a three year contract with British Airways to provideand support data devices for its task allocation project. Economic andenvironmental pressures continue to drive the performance of our Wateroperations where we have seen high demand for our leakage detection and repairservices. Water meter installation volumes remain strong and we have commencedtwo new pilot installation projects which may lead to long term frameworkcontracts. Electricity Services continues to see strong orders levels underframework agreements for customers including Scottish Power, Edf Energy Networksand National Grid. We have also secured significant project work including newconnections at Red Tile windfarm in Cambridgeshire. We remain excited by the cross selling opportunities that exist within thebusiness. These opportunities have been extended through the acquisition ofInenco and momentum is gathering in this area. The Board remains confident ofcontinued growth over the remainder of this financial year and continues to lookto the future with confidence. Spice's interim results for the period ended 29 October 2006 will be announcedon Thursday 14 December 2006 and Spice will hold a briefing for analysts at9.30am on that morning. Further details of this briefing will be announcednearer the time. Enquiries: Spice plc - Tel: 0113 201 2120 Simon Rigby, Chief Executive Officer Oliver Lightowlers, Group Finance Director Carl Chambers, Corporate Development Director Financial Dynamics - Tel: 020 7831 3113 Billy Clegg NOTES TO EDITORS Spice plc Spice is a support services business operating in the Commercial Services andUtility Services sectors. The Group's operations were founded in 1996 and havetheir origins in the electricity industry, though the range of activities hassince been expanded into the water sector, niche telecommunications services,the public sector and commercial facilities management. Spice's businesses havea common theme of delivering and co-ordinating infrastructure services tocustomers, and the technological element within the product mix has been builtup significantly over the course of the last three years. This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock ExchangeRelated Shares:
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