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May Gurney trading in line with expectations


May Gurney reports on trading for the six months ended 30 September 2009, prior to entering its close period.

Trading for the first half of the year has been in line with expectations. May Gurney's business model, which is focussed on delivering essential front-line services in a cost effective and added value way to clients in the public and regulated sectors, continues to demonstrate resilience despite the current challenging economic environment.

More than 95% of May Gurney's business is derived from dependable long-term contracts which, together with a forward order book in excess of £1.25bn, provides a high level of forward earnings visibility.

Upon formally signing the recently announced new contact wins and extensions, the order book and visibility will be strengthened further. May Gurney is continuing to deliver consistent operational performance throughout the business and cash generation remains very strong.

The recently announced contracts include:

• The North Lincolnshire Building Schools for the Future (BSF) contract, worth £80m to May Gurney over the first five years of the 10 year contract, was signed over the summer as planned.

• May Gurney has recently been appointed preferred bidder for Lincolnshire County Council's highways term maintenance contract, worth up to £350m over an estimated 10-year period.

• All of May Gurney's long-term contracts for highways maintenance with Essex County Council have been extended (to 2012, valued at up to £30m); and its long-term relationship with Norfolk County Council has been expanded further to include highways maintenance in Norwich (to 2014, valued at up to £16m).

These significant contract announcements mean that May Gurney is the market leader in local authority highways maintenance, maintaining more than 37,000km of roads across the UK, and also gains a presence in the strategically important BSF market.


Looking forward, May Gurney has a healthy pipeline of future opportunities, not only in providing a wider range of bundled services to existing clients, but also by leveraging its experience and strong reputation to win further new business and expand our existing client base.

Philip Fellowes-Prynne (pictured), chief executive, commented: "May Gurney has continued to exhibit a high degree of resilience during the first half of the year, resulting from our consistent operational performance and strategic focus on providing essential services through stable and predictable long-term contracts.

"This encouraging performance, combined with our healthy order book, new contract wins and extensions, and robust bidding pipeline, provide us with confidence about our prospects for the current financial year and beyond."

Interim results for the six months to 30 September 2009 will be announced on 1 December 2009.