4th Apr 2007 07:00
Biffa Plc04 April 2007 BIFFA PLC PRE-CLOSE PERIOD TRADING STATEMENT 4 APRIL 2007 Biffa Plc, the UK waste management company, today announces an update on tradingfor the 52 weeks ending 30 March 2007 in advance of announcing its preliminaryresults on 12 June 2007. In the Collection Division, trading in our Municipal business continues to gowell and we are on track to deliver satisfactory revenue growth boosted byrecent contract wins such as that for the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral. AtLeicester, we are making good progress with modifications to the treatment andrecycling facility so that by mid-2007 we expect this contract to move intoprofit. In the Industrial and Commercial collection sector, while continuing to grow ournational account business, we have also sought to improve levels of customerretention in our locally-managed accounts. Among other initiatives to achievethis, we have implemented selective price increases instead of imposing astandard increase across all accounts. This has constrained profits during thesecond half so that the contribution from the Collection Division for the fullyear will be below that achieved last year. In our Resource Recovery and Landfill Division, we are seeing a continuingstrong performance. November saw the opening of Cottonmount as part of ourprogramme of opening new and extending existing landfill sites. The division isexpected to show profitable growth over the year as the continuing increase inaverage unit revenue more than offsets the decline in volume. Trading in the Special Waste Division has returned to more normal levels ofactivity following a first-half which benefited from a number of one-off, highermargin contracts. The Division is, however, expected to show profitable growthover the year. The Power Generation business has successfully added a further 4 MW to existingwholly-owned capacity. The Division performed well in the second half and it,too, is expected to deliver profitable growth over the year. Levels of free cash flow for the year as a whole and closing net debt areanticipated to be better than expectations, reflecting improved working capitalmanagement and tighter control over capital expenditure on fleet and containers. Overall, we expect to deliver 2006/7 revenues and profits towards the lower endof market expectations. We believe that the Group is well positioned to delivergrowth in revenue and profits in 2007/8 and beyond. Contacts on Wednesday 4 April 2007: Martin Bettington Biffa 0207 353 4200Chief Executive Officer Tim Lowth Biffa 0207 353 4200Finance Director David Trenchard Tulchan 0207 353 4200 Stephen Malthouse Tulchan 0207 353 4200 This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock ExchangeRelated Shares:
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