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For Immediate Release

29 July 2009

Morson Group PLC 

('Morson' or the 'Group')

Trading Update 

Morson, the UK's leading provider of technical engineering personnel and project design solutions, supplying highly skilled personnel to the aerospace, defence, nuclear, power and rail industries is pleased to provide a trading update ahead of its interim results for the six months ended 30 June 2009. The Group plans to announce its interim results in the week commencing 21 September 2009.

The overall performance of the Group in the first half of 2009 remained broadly in line with management expectations with most key accounts strong and no core contracts lost. However the Group has experienced significantly more challenging trading conditions in the second quarter of the year, most markedly in June, with both certain higher margin areas of temporary recruitment and permanent revenues being impacted most significantly. Also whilst new contract wins have been achieved it is normal for new contract awards to take time to develop and implementation costs are expected to have an impact on margin in the current financial year. 

Whilst it is too early to establish whether this trend will continue throughout the second half of the financial year, the Board believes that if it were to do so, the trading performance for the full year would be below their prior expectations.

The Group is pleased to advise that good progress continues towards the move into a new Head Office in Manchester, as described within the circular passed at the EGM in May 2008. It may be that the move into the new offices can be undertaken at the end of 2009 or very early in 2010, indeed logistically the Group would prefer a move around the New Year period. As such much of the capital expenditure in the fit-out of the new premises may fall into the current period. The Group will update further on this matter at the time of the interim results. 

Despite the current challenging trading environment the Board believes that the longer term outlook for Morson remains positive. We continue to capitalise on the strength of the Morson brand across the Group, most particularly within our core sectors where we expect to build upon our solid platform for the future. The Group has invested in and is well positioned to gain from a number of new contract wins and renewals that will commence during the second half of the current year and develop in future periods, chiefly in our aerospace and rail markets. 

ENDS

For further information, please contact:

Morson Group PLC
Ged Mason, Chief Executive	+44(0)161 707 1516
Paul Gilmour, Finance Director
Kevin Gorton, Managing Director
Brewin Dolphin (NOMAD)
Matt Davis	+44(0)845 213 4851
Alison Barrow
Buchanan Communications
Diane Stewart	+44(0)20 7466 5000
James Strong
Carrie Clement

                         

Notes to editors

Morson is the UK's leading provider of technical engineering personnel and project design solutions, supplying highly skilled personnel to the aerospace, defence, nuclear power, rail and other industries.

Established in 1969 Morson is the largest and one of the longest established technical staffing companies in the UK. The Group currently provides personnel on long term assignments for some well known major infrastructure/defence projects. These include the construction of the Olympic Games Development, CVF aircraft carrier, rail maintenance and upgrades for Network Rail, Metronet and also nuclear design, decommissioning and asset improvement. 

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