6 March 2025

Northern Bear plc

("Northern Bear" or the "Company")

Trading Update

Northern Bear (LSE:NTBR), the AIM quoted group of companies providing specialist building and support services headquartered in Northern England and serving customers across the UK, is pleased to provide a trading update in respect of the financial year ending 31 March 2025 ("FY25").

Unlike in FY24, the Winter months have, to date, been relatively mild and dry in FY25 and this has supported trading for our roofing division, in particular. We have also benefited from strong performance in our building services division following our investment in operations as described in the interim report.  This includes continued growth at Isoler, our fire protection business, after its relocation to new, larger, premises and some excellent contracts secured by MGM and Arcas Building Solutions ("Arcas").  

We are delighted that EBIT is likely to exceed market expectations and be in the range of £3.15m - £3.45m. Our order book remains strong and we are hopeful of a good end to the financial year.

We have made the decision to close our fit-out operation at H Peel & Sons ("H Peel") in Dewsbury. H Peel has been particularly impacted as its primary markets - Leisure and Hospitality - have struggled to recover from the COVID pandemic. As a result, we will integrate its business and ongoing contracts into Arcas, our specialist building solutions business in the North East of England. We have fully accounted for trading losses and expected closure costs in the EBIT expectation for the year to 31 March 2025 stated above.

As a result of the continued strong trading, we have repaid a further £500k off the term debt raised to facilitate the Tender Offer in November 2023. The balance on the term loan account now stands at £1.6m.

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The information contained within this announcement is deemed by the Company to constitute inside information as stipulated under the Market Abuse Regulation (EU) No. 596/2014 as it forms part of United Kingdom domestic law by virtue of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018.