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22 April 2009

Flying Brands Limited

AGM & Interim Management Statement 

Flying Brands Limited ('the Group'), the Jersey based home shopping group is pleased to announce that all the tabled resolutions were passed at its AGM, held in Jersey earlier today.

Interim Management Statement

Flying Brands Limited announces its Interim Management Statement as required by the FSA's Disclosure and Transparency rules. The financial commentary covers the first thirteen weeks of Flying Brands' current financial year, from 3 January to 3 April 2009. 

Trading

The Group has made a positive start to the current financial year and order intake for the ongoing business is £12.7m, up 2.4% on a like for like basis against the same period last year, which is in line with the Board's expectations. We are focussing on tighter cost control and improving operational efficiency and the benefits of this are beginning to come through. However, we expect that the effects of these improvements will be more marked in the rest of the year. We have commenced a restructuring programme and we are targeting a reduction in salaried employee costs (which total approximately £3m) of more than 15%. Once again the full benefits of this programme will not be realised until the second half of the year. 

Flying Flowers' orders to 3 April 2009 were £3.1m compared with £3.3m in the equivalent period last year. However, we have improved margin contribution in this division and this will go a long way to making up for the decline in orders.

The Garden Division Spring 2009 season has started strongly and at 3 April the value of orders taken was £8.4m (2008: £7.8m). This improvement is attributable to a stronger performance from Gardening Direct and we continue to be encouraged by the response to our renewed customer recruitment activities in this area

Revenue for the Entertainment division was £1.3m, which is almost exactly level with the same period in 2008.

The closure of Greeting Direct continues as planned with revenue to 3 April 2009 of £0.8m (2008: £2.3M)  

Financial position

There has been no material change in Flying Brands' financial position in the period. The Group's net cash position at 3 April 2009 was £1.0m (2008 net debt: £1.5m).  The Group continues to pay down its debt on schedule and to comply with its banking covenants. 

For further information, please contact:

Flying Brands Limited                01245 228 300

Stephen Cook, Chief Executive

Graham Norton, Finance Director

Smithfield Consultants                020 7360 4900

John Kiely

Notes to editors

Jersey based Flying Brands Limited (LSE: FBDU) is a multi brand and multi channel home shopping specialist. Founded in 1981, it was admitted to the Official List of the London Stock Exchange in 1993. The Group operates the following divisions: 

• Gifts (Flying Flowers, the UK's largest flowers by post brand,)

• Garden (Gardening Direct, one of the UK's largest mail order bedding plants and gardening products operations; Garden Bird Supplies, a leading provider of food and accessories for birds and other wildlife)

• Entertainment (Listen2, a leading mail order audio books, nostalgic music, DVD and video publisher and distributor; Benham, the first day cover stamps and coins collectables specialist)

More information can be found at: www.flyingbrands.com

Cautionary statement 

This report contains forward- looking statements. These have been made by the Directors in good faith based on the information available to them up to the time of their approval of this report. The Directors can give no assurance that these expectations will prove to have been correct. Due to inherent uncertainties, including both economic and business risk factors underlying such forward looking information, actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward looking statements. The Directors undertake no obligation to update any forward looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

 

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