600 Group PLC – Trading Update

The 600 Group PLC (“the Group”), the diversified industrial engineering company (AIM: SIXH), today announces a trading update.

 

As noted in our interim results, the Group has been experiencing certain macro-economic and political uncertainties across our end markets which it anticipated might create some short-term disruption to trading.

 

Consequently, order intake for the fourth quarter is now expected to be significantly below originally predicted levels, with orders for Germany and the Far East, in particular, suffering delays heavily influenced by the global automotive slowdown.

 

There has been good progress in the UK business, where orders remain over 100% up on the prior year as well as continued good performance at the newly acquired CMS business, driven by its focus on healthcare and pharmaceuticals. Gross margins across the Group are also holding up well.

 

However, these positive factors will not be sufficient to make up the shortfall from the likely revenue reduction and as a result, the outturn for the full year is expected to be significantly below the Board’s previous expectations.

 

Despite the short-term end-market weaknesses and macroeconomic uncertainty, the Board continues to believe in the long-term fundamentals of the Group and the strategy in place to de-risk and diversify the business and remains optimistic for the long-term future.