Bateman Engineering N.V.

('Bateman Engineering' or the 'Group')

Trading update

On 11 September 2008, Bateman Engineering announced its preliminary results for the year ended 30 June 2008. At that time the Group reported that it was operating in a favourable market environment and that the Group had made important strides in expanding its range of business lines, geographical presence and technological strength. It also reported that it had experienced further issues in closing out its legacy contracts.

Since then, the changed macro-economic environment has led the Group to experience a markedly more difficult trading environment with clients reassessing their capital expenditure programmes.

During the last few weeks the Group has experienced various contracts being placed on hold or cancelled and it appears that a significant number of prospective orders are now unlikely to come to fruition for the foreseeable future.  As at 31 October 2008, the Group's order book was in excess of USD 288 million. 

In addition the majority of the currencies in which the Group operates have deteriorated against the USD, which as a result is having an adverse translation impact on the Group's results.

Against this background, the Group continues to experience further difficulties with its legacy contracts and further costs to close out these contracts in excess of those previously provided will  be required in the current financial year. At this stage it is unclear the full extent of these costs and an exercise is currently underway to determine the level of additional provisioning that may be required.

Accordingly, the Board has now concluded that the Group's financial performance for the current year will be materially below current market expectations. The Board is undertaking a thorough review of all the Group's prospects, contracts and operations in light of the changed economic environment to ensure the Group is appropriately positioned to meet the challenges ahead and will provide further guidance once this exercise has been completed.

20th November 2008                            

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NOTE FOR EDITORS:

Bateman Engineering is a technology-driven engineering-project house serving the minerals and metals industries worldwide. Bateman Engineering's shares (Reuters: BATE.L / Bloomberg: BATE LN) are traded on AIM, a market of the London Stock Exchange. 

Further information on Bateman is available at www.BatemanEngineering.com