Luminar Group Holdings plc

Interim Management Statement

Luminar Group Holdings plc (the "Group") announces its Interim Management Statement for trading to 31st December 2009.

The general economic conditions, and in particular youth unemployment, continue to have a significant impact on our core customers and to affect the frequency of their visits to our venues.  Recently, this has been  exacerbated by extremely poor weather across the UK, which has a significant effect on footfall.

Within this context, we were very encouraged by much better sales on the key festive nights of Christmas Eve and New Years Eve, and by average sales per customer which were 1.5% higher in December than the previous year. 

The combination of these factors resulted in same outlet sales in December being 13.8% below last year,  broadly similar to the trend established in September, since when sales have been 13.4% below last year. Same outlet sales across the first 44 weeks of our financial year to 31 December have been 8.1% below last year.

In view of the prolonged weather impact and the continued sales trend the Group now expects profit before tax for the year to 25 February 2010 to be below market expectations.  

The Group is actively managing cash resources and has deferred capital expenditure plans such that  investment in the current financial year is now expected to be approximately £5m. Net borrowings continue to reduce, and were approximately £96m at the end of December within a borrowing facility of £175m.  The Group continues to trade within its banking covenants.

The Group also continues to actively pursue the sale of its investment in 3D Entertainment Group Limited, as reported in the Trading Update on 17 December 2009. 

Full year results for the year to 25 February are expected to be announced on 13 May 2010.

14 January 2010

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