The Board notes that it is no longer a regulatory requirement to issue Interim Management Statements and notes that 2 out of 5 FTSE 100 companies and 3 out of 5 FTSE 250 companies no longer release such reports. It has therefore been agreed that it is in the best interests of the Company to cease issuing Quarterly Interim Management Statements, thus enabling the Company to optimise its use of resources and continue to focus its efforts on longer term targets and productivity.
We appreciate that from a custom and practice standpoint that the Market may have been expecting some comment on the Company's first quarter performance so we are pleased to confirm that profitability for the period 1st May 2017 to 31st July 2017 is broadly in proportion to the full year profit figures recently published for the year ended 30th April 2017.
J. W. GOODWIN
Chairman