Preliminary Results

15 June 2015

LATCHWAYS PLC

PRELIMINARY RESULTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2015

Latchways plc is the world leader in the design, manufacture and sale of engineered fall protection safety systems, which offer continuous protection to individuals at risk of a fall. Latchways' systems are sold globally, both directly and through a network of trained installers, to a legislation-driven marketplace. These systems are used to provide worker safety on a diverse range of applications including commercial rooftops, wind power turbines, electricity transmission towers, aircraft wings and industrial plants.

Financial Summary

· Full year Group revenues £33.1 million (2014: £38.5 million)

· Profit before tax £4.9 million (2014: £6.8 million), in line with October 2014 guidance

· Basic earnings per share 37.87 pence (2014: 50.68 pence)

· Maintained final dividend of 27.50 pence per share, total dividends of 39.60 pence per share for the year (2014: 39.60 pence per share)

· Net cash £9.8 million (2014: £10.3 million)

Business Development Summary

· Difficult year in European markets

· North American business affected by customer de-stocking

· UK and Latin America performing well

· Substantial strategic enhancement of sales resources well underway

· New Self Retracting Lifeline launching in June

Commenting on the results, Paul Hearson, Chairman, said

"As highlighted in previous trading updates, we have experienced a difficult and disappointing two years, in response to which we have made significant investments in our sales infrastructure to restore growth. We expect a significant return. The new teams are only recently in place so it is too early to judge their success. That said, North America and Europe have made a positive start to the year and UK lead generation has been encouraging.

Vertical revenues are expected to be bolstered by a recently signed supply agreement with our largest utility customer, whilst wind energy activity levels are high. Although the weakness of the Euro and the general uncertainty around the Eurozone remain a real concern, we expect that the steps we have taken will revitalise and expand our business pipeline, generating sustainable growth over the coming year and furthermore reducing the disproportionate impact of particular contracts."

Enquiries:

Chairman's Statement

After 15 years of almost unbroken growth for the Latchways business, the last two years have been a disappointment to both our shareholders and the Latchways team. Whilst a number of one-off events have conspired to impact on this year's results, it has become clear that our business pipeline was not sufficiently well primed to withstand such effects. As a result, our current focus is on substantially strengthening our sales resources across our core geographic markets. Although we are at an early stage in this process, we have already recruited a number of high calibre sales professionals, many with direct industry experience, who we believe will have an immediate impact on revenues. We are confident that we have the right products and strategy in place to restore our business to growth.

We are encouraged by the good progress made in recent months resolving the specific issues which adversely affected the year's results. In addition, UK construction activity continues to recover, whilst Latin America has produced strong growth in the year. European markets remain challenging, not helped by the recent weakness in the Euro but we believe we can return this market to growth in the coming year through a combination of targeted increases in sales resources and improvements in specific industries such as offshore wind energy. Our North American sales team has been substantially upgraded with the recruitment of a new Head of Sales and an additional six sales people. We expect this market to make an important contribution to our growth in the current year and beyond.

Results

Group revenue for the year ended 31 March 2015 was £33.1 million (2014: £38.5 million), a 14% reduction on last year. Safety Products revenue was down 17%, whilst the Safety Services division saw revenues improve by 6%.

Group profit before taxation was £4.9 million, 28% less than last year's figure (2014: £6.8 million). This was in line with the market guidance provided in our trading update on 7 October 2014.

Basic earnings per share reduced by 25% to 37.87 pence compared to last year (2014: 50.68 pence).

Net cash balances at year end were £9.8 million (2014: £10.3 million), reflecting the fact that the maintained dividend was not fully covered by earnings for the year.

Dividends

Latchways has a progressive approach towards dividends, as evidenced by our track record of maintaining or increasing the dividend every year since flotation in 1997. We have always followed a prudent approach to cash management to ensure we could maintain that record through good and bad times. During the year to 31 March 2015, our cash flow has remained strong despite the trading headwinds that we have faced. As a result, I am pleased to announce that the board is recommending an unchanged final dividend of 27.50 pence per share (2014: 27.50 pence). Together with the interim dividend of 12.10 pence, the total dividend for the year of 39.60 pence per share is also unchanged on last year. We expect to resume the progressive increase in our dividends once our business returns to profitable growth.

Subject to approval at the Annual General Meeting, the final dividend will be paid on 11 September 2015 to shareholders on the register as at 14 August 2015.

Our trading environment

As outlined in previous trading updates, this was a difficult year across the business. Despite encouraging progress in the UK and Latin America, the challenges faced in Europe together with a number of specific negative events left our revenues well below previous levels. In particular our Self Retracting Lifeline (SRL) and Personal Rescue Device (PRD) ranges, which performed so well in the previous year, were impacted by de-stocking at our largest North American customer. The SRL was also affected by delays in offshore wind turbine projects, although these delays are now largely resolved and we are seeing increased activity levels in this market. This has also been a relatively quiet year for Wingrip and Vertical system sales, although much of this was due to timing of projects and both of these are expected to improve in the coming year.

The UK market had a much improved year, with product revenues 10% ahead of the previous year. This performance would have been stronger but for the delays in wind energy projects. We have added sales resources and switched our focus to geographic regions rather than product specialism. This will encourage cross selling and enable each sales manager to take a greater ownership of their business. We expect to see further progress this year as a result.

Europe has been our most difficult market in the past year, with revenues under pressure for most product lines. We have recruited a distribution sales specialist to drive our SRL and PRD sales. Further sales headcount increases are planned in country for the most important geographic markets. Whilst we expect conditions to remain challenging, we believe that these investments will return revenues to growth this year.

North American results were dominated by the de-stocking issues at our largest customer for SRL and PRDs, together with a relatively quiet period for the Wingrip business. We are encouraged by the progress that our customer is making with their sales of the SRL and we expect this aspect of the de-stocking to complete in the coming months. We remain convinced that this market is key to our long term success and our recent investment in the sales force reflects this view. North America is the largest fall protection market in the world and it is important that we control our own future rather than relying on others. We expect the revenue generated by this new team to build through the second half of the year and beyond.

The Rest of the World made good progress. In particular, Latin America generated strong growth for our engineered Horizontal systems. However, a relatively quiet year for Wingrip sales offset this and overall revenues were slightly down as a result. We expect to see good progress in the coming year as a large Australian utility customer resumes its rollout of systems, and we have recently recruited a locally based sales manager to drive sales in the Australia/New Zealand region.

New Product Development

Innovation remains key to Latchways' position at the forefront of our industry. Our products set the standard by which others are judged, and we have maintained our investment in this area despite the short term decrease in profitability.

Much of our activity in the past year has been towards the development of our new, patented SRL range. We are now in production of the first variants of the range, with initial shipments to customers planned for June. Feedback from customer reviews has been very positive. The product uses revolutionary technology to enable it to be smaller and lighter than our existing range and competing products. We are excited by the potential for this new suite of products. The remaining variants will be launched in a phased process over the coming year. The SRL market is worth at least 200 million US Dollars annually and we believe our new range will enable us to increase our share of this market over the coming years.

Recent Projects

Latchways products have an unequalled reputation for quality and innovation around the world. For this reason we continue to be specified for the most prestigious and demanding projects.

Our Horizontal systems continue to be the system of choice in the UK, with thousands of systems installed including such sites as Airbus Broughton and the new lifeboat manufacturing facility, RNLI Coventina, in Dorset. Further afield, our systems have been installed on GM's manufacturing plant in Sao Paulo, Brazil, as well as the Shanghai Disney Resort, China.

Wingrip continues to attract new customers across the world, with this year's business including Air France, Thai Airways and Skywest of the US. The business pipeline is robust and we expect Wingrip revenues to grow in the current year.

The PRD has had some notable successes during the year. It is being used on the construction of the Royal Navy's new aircraft carriers, in the BMW Mini plant in Oxford, and many other locations.

Our sealed SRL continues to be the industry standard for the offshore wind energy market, with a number of new farms being supplied during the year. We have also seen further success in the Oil and Gas market.

Our People

This has been an extremely active period from the point of view of building the right staffing infrastructure for the future. We have made substantial investments in the sales team, which will result in a salesforce almost twice the size of a year ago. In particular, our North American sales team, headed by Bill Marshall, is just getting up to full complement. While it will take a little time for the team to become fully effective, much is expected from this investment.

Elsewhere in the business we have had to do more with less. I have been impressed by the way in which our people at all levels have responded, with considerable productivity improvements in the production team in particular. Our apprenticeship scheme is working well and we will continue to build on this in the coming year. Whilst the emphasis of our current investment must be on the sales infrastructure, we recognise the efforts being made across the business and on behalf of the board I would like to thank everyone for their efforts over the past year.

At the board level, succession planning remains central to our thoughts and we continue to seek a third independent non executive director, with international commercial experience. I hope to be able to report a successful conclusion to this in due course.

Current Trading and Prospects

Following a difficult and disappointing two years, we have made significant investments in our sales infrastructure to restore growth. We expect a significant return. The new teams are only recently in place so it is too early to judge their success. That said, North America and Europe have made a positive start to the new year and UK lead generation has been encouraging.

Vertical revenues are expected to be bolstered by a recently signed supply agreement with our largest utility customer, whilst wind energy activity levels are high. Although the weakness of the Euro and the general uncertainty around the Eurozone remain a real concern, we expect the steps that we have taken will revitalise and expand our business pipeline, generating sustainable growth over the coming year and furthermore reducing the disproportionate impact of particular contracts."

.

Paul Hearson

Chairman

STRATEGIC, FINANCIAL AND OPERATING REVIEW

The board of Latchways plc presents these consolidated results for the year ended 31 March 2015.

Strategic Overview

Latchways is a world leader in the provision of high quality fall protection equipment and related services. Our aim is to maximise shareholder returns through providing the most innovative and functional equipment to a largely legislation-driven market, with a customer support network and after-sales service that is unrivalled in our industry. There has been no change to this overall strategy during the year.

The challenges we have faced in the past two years have demonstrated the need for a greater presence in our key target markets. The fall protection industry is now a truly global one, with North America the largest market but others such as Latin America and Australia developing rapidly. We have seen economic headwinds increasing in our core European market, requiring us to take a more country specific approach to revenue growth. Until recently it was possible to manage all our overseas expansion from our UK base, but we have recognised the need to upgrade our sales resources, both in country and in the UK. Our North American operation, located in Houston with regional sales staff based in their local areas, has been substantially upgraded in recent months, while further geographic hires are being made in Europe and Australasia. This process is expected to continue in the coming years.

Our growth over the past decade has been based on diversifying our offering away from our traditional, cyclical construction facing markets and moving into new opportunities, and this approach continues. We expect these new markets to form an increasingly important part of our business in the future, and will be targeting our investments in both new product innovation and sales resources accordingly.

Financial Results

Group revenue for the year was £33.1 million, 14% lower than the 2014 figure of £38.5 million. Adverse foreign exchange impacts accounted for £0.7 million of the shortfall.

Operating and pre-tax profits were £4.9 million, 28% less than the prior year (2014: £6.8 million).

Both gross and operating margins are among the group's key performance indicators.

The consolidated gross margin was 0.5% better than last year at 51.6% (2014: 51.1%). An improved product mix offset the negative impacts of FX movements and weaker Safety Services margins.

Overheads were 5% lower than last year at £12.2 million (2014: £12.9 million). This was despite the investments made in sales resources, and resulted from lower volume-related costs and tight cost control across the business. We expect to see overheads rise in the coming year as the full costs of the new sales teams flow through.

Despite the lower costs and improved gross margins, the reduction in revenues, coupled with the high degree of operational gearing in the business, resulted in operating margins reducing by 2.8% to 14.9% (2014: 17.7%).

The effective rate of taxation for the year was 13.6% (2014: 16.7%). The reduction on last year is mainly due to the reduction in the UK corporation tax rate from 23% to 21%, along with prior year adjustments on conservative year end assumptions relating to the taxable position of the new factory. We expect our effective tax rate to remain in the mid-teens due to the ongoing benefits of R&D tax credits and the Patent Box regime. This year 44% of Latchways' product revenues (2014: 41%) were eligible for Patent Box relief.

Basic earnings per share reduced by 25% to 37.87 pence (2014: 50.68 pence), while diluted earnings per share also decreased by 25% to 37.87 pence (2014: 50.63 pence).

On the balance sheet, non-current assets increased by £0.1 million to £13.2 million (2014: £13.1 million). Property, plant and equipment of £6.4 million (2014: £6.5 million) mainly represents premises, production plant and tooling. The premises consist of the head office and production/warehousing facilities at Devizes, which now total around 4,800 square metres. With the new facility completed in the prior year, tangible capital expenditure levels were substantially lower at £0.5 million (2014: £3.7 million). The bulk of this year's spend was on tooling for the new SRL product ranges. This is expected to continue for the coming year.

Intangible assets were unchanged at £2.2 million (2014: £2.2 million). These comprise the intellectual property, brands, order books and customer relationships acquired since 2004, together with internally generated patents and trademarks, computer software and ongoing development costs that have been capitalised. Total spend on intangible assets in the year was £0.5 million, the majority of this being capitalised development costs on the new SRL range.

Inventory of £5.3 million (2014: £5.2 million) was £0.1 million higher than last year. Reductions in UK inventories were offset by increases in finished goods stock in the US.

 Trade and other receivables were £2.0 million lower than last year at £9.8 million (2014: £11.8 million), as a result of the reduced revenues.

Group creditor days were 30 days (2014: 43 days). Our long term policy of ensuring that suppliers are paid on time remains unchanged.

Cash generation is a key performance indicator for the group. Cash generated from operations as a proportion of operating profit was 116% (2014: 149%). The past two years have seen an exceptionally strong level of cash generation, due to reducing receivables balances. We would expect to see some reversal of this as revenues return to growth, although there is no reason to believe that our traditional strong record of cash conversion should not continue. We expect average ongoing cash generation performance to be in the 85-95% of operating profit range. Tax payments in the year were £1.7 million lower than last year at £0.8 million (2014: £2.5 million). The lower profits of the past two years, coupled with the effects of Patent Box and R&D credits and the reduced UK Corporation Tax rate, are the cause.

Dividend payments increased by £0.3 million to £4.5 million (2014: £4.2 million). Although this was not covered by group profits for the year, we expect this situation to reverse and we intend to resume dividend growth when our profits allow this.

Cash and cash equivalents were £0.5 million less than last year at £9.8 million (2014: £10.3 million). The group has no borrowings.

Operating Review

The Latchways group has two business segments, each of which is managed independently with strategic input from the group board. The Safety Products division is the main Latchways product business, operating out of the group headquarters in Devizes, a sales and distribution centre in Houston, Texas, and a small production plant in Kozina, Slovenia. Safety Products generates over three quarters of group revenue, and produces 88% of group operating profits. Approximately 63% of Safety Products' revenue comes from exports, reduced from 72% last year due to the relatively strong performance of our UK business this year. The Safety Services division allows us to offer turnkey solutions by installing and servicing safety products in the UK, and generates the remaining revenue and profit.

Safety Products

Latchways designs and manufactures fall protection equipment for people working at height. This equipment is sold worldwide, both directly to end users and also through a network of independent, trained installers. In addition, certain products such as the PRD and SRL range are sold through distributors. The business is broadly categorised between Horizontal business (systems for those working at height, such as on rooftops, crane rails etc) and Vertical business (systems for those climbing to or from height, for example ladders, telecom masts, electricity transmission towers). In recent years the range has been enhanced, both through acquisition and product development, to include Personal Protective Equipment, guardrails and walkways, and most recently rescue equipment.

The Safety Products business saw total revenues fall by 17% in the year. The strong operational gearing of the business resulted in operating profits being 31% lower at £4.3 million.

Fall protection is a global business. As such, revenue performance by geographical segment is a key performance measure for the Safety Products business.

The UK saw a marked improvement in trade during the past year, with our traditional Horizontal and Vertical systems leading the way. Total revenues were up 10% on last year to £9.7 million. Construction activity in the UK is increasing, albeit from a very low base, and this gives us cause for optimism looking ahead. We have restructured our UK sales team to focus on a geographic, rather than product specific basis in order to maximise the opportunity for cross selling of our product range. The UK growth would have been more pronounced but for a weaker performance from the Wind Energy sector, with fewer, smaller wind farms being commissioned during the year. The opportunity presented by the industry's plans for additional offshore wind farms around the UK coast is undiminished, and we remain the supplier of choice to the industry, although by its nature this will always be a lumpy business.

European revenues reduced by 30% to £8.6 million. Underlying economic conditions within our core markets have been difficult, particularly within the Eurozone. This resulted in lower levels of commercial construction activity across Europe which, combined with delays to key projects, resulted in the revenue shortfall. These issues have led us to conclude that we need more direct representation in the most significant markets. We are in the process of recruiting suitable in-country sales resources.

North America was a disappointment after the strong performance in the previous year. Revenues were 38% lower at £4.2 million. The shortfall was accounted for by substantially reduced revenues for both the SRL and the PRD, resulting from de-stocking activities at our largest US customer. Whilst this was a major setback, we are encouraged by the increasing rate of sales that our customer is achieving, which gives us confidence that significant revenues will return once the stock situation is resolved. We are expecting a modest but accelerating improvement in these revenues as the current year progresses. Additionally, the Wingrip business had a relatively quiet year following a strong showing in the previous year. The business pipeline for Wingrip is encouraging for the coming year. These shortfalls are being addressed with a substantial increase in our North American sales headcount. We have recruited an experienced team of sales people with proven track records, with a number of area representatives across the country backed up by product and industry specialists. The team will continue to work with existing customers whilst seeking to increase our coverage. North America is our key growth market and we have resourced appropriately. Whilst it will take some months for the team to come fully up to speed, we expect to see progress by the coming half year.

The rest of the world made significant progress. In particular, in Latin America our Horizontal systems produced record revenues. These effects were offset by lower Wingrip sales in the Middle and Far East. As a result overall ROW revenues were down 2% to £3.5 million. We expect to see Latin America making further progress this year, and we also expect our largest Australian utility customer to resume its rollout of Vertical systems. This gives us confidence in the outlook for the coming year.

Safety Services

The Safety Services division is Latchways' UK installation arm, which also offers inspection and certification services and some property remedial works. All three operations achieved modest revenue improvements in the year, reflecting the more active UK economic climate, although these were achieved at the expense of gross margins as conditions remain very competitive. Overall Safety Services revenues were 6% higher for the year at £9.8 million (2014: £9.2 million). Gross margins were 3% lower at 33%, whilst operating costs were reduced by 6%. As a result, operating profit improved by 11% to £0.6 million. After some significant restructuring of the team during the year, we hope to make further progress in both installation and inspection revenues in the coming year.

During the year, Safety Services, as the largest installer of Latchways products, purchased £2.6 million of product from Latchways, a 25% increase on the previous period.

Risks and the Operational Environment

As a provider of fall protection solutions to a global marketplace, the group is subject to a number of external factors which affect its risk and opportunity profile. The more important of these are discussed below.

The Global Economy

The past year has seen very mixed degrees of recovery in our key geographies, although in all cases this recovery remains fragile. Any further economic downturn, particularly in our more developed markets, would naturally have an impact on the performance of our business. Our response to this risk has been to accelerate the rollout of our geographic expansion, as well as to develop and/or seek to acquire new products designed either to address new issues or take market share in existing markets.

The Commercial Construction Market

Latchways operates in a diverse and growing range of markets. This ensures that we are not excessively dependent on one market for our growth. Through diversifying our geographic and end user markets, we continue to reduce the importance of both the UK and European commercial construction markets to our overall business. We also work with a number of larger customers to maximise our retrofit opportunities, further reducing the dependence on new build. However, these markets are and will remain important to us, as has been demonstrated by the downturn in European construction activity.

The Legislative Environment

Increasing emphasis on Health and Safety regulation throughout the European Union has been one of the key drivers of the fall protection business over the past decade. This increase in regulation has embodied a view in the developed economies that companies should do all in their power to protect their workforce from hazard. This view is fast being adopted by many in the developing economies which will provide growth opportunities for the company in the years to come. The UK, and certain other EU countries, which have interpreted this into specific fall-protection legislation have become significant markets for the Latchways product range. Within the UK, the most obvious examples of this legislation are the Workplace (Health, Safety & Welfare) Regulations 1992, the Construction (Design and Management) ("CDM") Regulations 1994 (revised in 2007), and the Working at Height Regulations 2005. Latchways sees the development of appropriate, workable safety regulations as of critical importance, not just to its own business but to business as a whole. We have ensured that Latchways is represented on a number of key legislative standards committees, both in the UK and overseas.

In recent months we have seen an update to the UK CDM Regulations which clarifies certain responsibilities throughout the duration of construction projects. Although this is mainly a formalisation of existing responsibilities, it reinforces the importance of fall protection in the mind of the specifier and is therefore a positive development for Latchways.

Commodity Prices

The majority of Latchways products are constructed of either marine grade stainless steel or, to a lesser extent, aluminium. Market prices for these commodities can be volatile, although the reduced levels of global economic activity have resulted in a relatively benign commodity market over recent years.

It remains Latchways' philosophy to protect our customers from the volatility of commodity prices through a combination of modest price increases and product re-sourcing efforts. This policy has served us well over a number of years, and will continue.

Foreign Exchange

Latchways has substantial exposure to fluctuations in the Sterling/Euro exchange rate, as our European sales are invoiced in Euros. This risk is partly mitigated by the fact that guardrail and cable are purchased in Euros. Forward exchange contracts are used to mitigate the remaining exposures. Despite these efforts, the significant weakening of the Euro in the past few months has had negative consequences on our European revenues and margins.

With our North American business now entirely denominated in US Dollars, we now use forward exchange contracts to mitigate our exposure to the Sterling/US Dollar exchange rate.

Other currency exposures currently include Australian and New Zealand Dollars. Where large contracts are won, forward contracts are used to mitigate these risks as appropriate.

Prospects

The past two years have shown us the importance of our sales pipeline and the need to take more direct control of our potential growth markets. The global fall protection industry will continue to grow and we need to have sufficient representation on the ground to take advantage of that. Our investments in sales resources reflect this. Latchways has a strong international brand with the highest quality products.

The improving economic situation in the UK, together with our emerging Latin American markets, are already generating growth, and we now need to see growth restored in North America and Europe. These are the areas where our investments are focused. Along with further product innovations, we expect these efforts to lead to a resumption in revenue and profit growth this year and into the future.

David Hearson

Chief Executive

The directors propose a final dividend of 27.50 pence per share (2014: 27.50 pence) at an estimated cost of £3,090,000 (2014: £3,090,000), which will be subject to shareholder approval at the Annual General Meeting on 4 September 2015.

NOTES

1. Basis of accounting

This financial information does not constitute the group's statutory accounts for the years ended 31 March 2014 and 2015. The financial information in respect of 2015 has been extracted from the audited financial statements for the year ended 31 March 2015 which have not yet been delivered to the Registrar of Companies. The auditors have reported on these financial statements; their reports were (i) unqualified, (ii) did not include a reference to any matters to which the auditors drew attention by way of emphasis without qualifying their report, and (iii) did not contain a statement under section 498(2) or (3) of the Companies Act 2006.The information has been prepared in accordance with the EU-adopted International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and IFRS Interpretations Committee (IFRS IC) interpretations and with those parts of the Companies Act 2006 which are applicable to companies reporting under IFRS.

2. Accounting Policies

The accounting policies applied by the group were published in the Annual Report and Accounts for the year ended 31 March 2014, which are available on the group's website at www.latchways.com, and they will also be included in the Annual Report and Accounts for the year ended 31 March 2015. There have been no significant changes to the group's accounting policies during the year.

3. Forward-looking statements

Certain statements in this preliminary results announcement are forward-looking. Although the group believes that the expectations reflected in these forward-looking statements are reasonable, we can give no assurance that these expectations will prove to have been correct. Because these statements involve risk and uncertainties, actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements.

We undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

4. Earnings per share

The calculation of basic earnings per ordinary share is based on a weighted average of 11,235,695 ordinary shares in issue and ranking for dividend (2014: 11,210,855) and on a profit of £4,255,000 (2014: £5,682,000).

The calculation of diluted earnings per share is based on a weighted average of 11,235,695 ordinary shares (2014: 11,222,172), and uses an average market price for the year of £8.97 (2014: £12.04).

5. Dividends

In addition, the directors are proposing a final dividend in respect of the financial year ended 31 March 2015 of 27.50p (2014: 27.50p) per share which will absorb an estimated £3,090,000 of shareholders' funds (2014: £3,090,000). Subject to approval at the Annual General Meeting, the dividend will be paid on 11 September 2015 to shareholders who are on the register of members on 14 August 2015.

6. The Annual Report and Accounts 

The Annual Report and Accounts for Latchways plc for the year ended 31 March 2015 will be posted to shareholders on or before 4 August 2015 and copies will be available from the registered office, Latchways plc, Hopton Park, Devizes, Wiltshire, SN10 2JP.

7. The Annual General Meeting

The Annual General Meeting will be held at Hopton Park, Devizes, Wiltshire, SN10 2JP on 4 September 2015 at 12 noon.