v TRADING UPDATE The Group has achieved another year of consistent growth and so remains on track to meet market expectations. Overall, very encouraging operational performance has been achieved within what is best described as a 'mixed' market sector backdrop; however, Trifast's relentless on-going focus on profit growth has been reflected in the business' much improved cash generation, thereby underpinning the Board's confidence of achieving the KPI objectives detailed in the Group's last published Annual Report. The Group trades well within its banking covenants as net debt continues to fall since the HY-Report in November 2012. Since the year-end, Trifast has successfully negotiated an additional £5 million, three-year revolving credit facility and increased its Asset-based lending facilities to £18.3 million within the UK. v MAIN BOARD APPOINTMENT - ADDING NEW SKILLS TO THE LEAD TEAM The Group is pleased to welcome Scott Mac Meekin to the business - he joins with effect from today (25 April 2013) as an Independent Non-Executive Director. Scott, aged 55 brings a wealth of experience gained over a 20-year career in both commercial and corporate structures across all major continents and cultures. These skills will complement both the current Executive and Non-Executive Directors' skills base and provide extra impetus to our expansion aspirations. After driving the expansion of US distributor, Porteous Fastener Co. between 1988-1995, Scott began his successful career with Bossard AG Switzerland; here, he created a new logistics strategy which was implemented across the global organisation; From 1996-2009, he was CEO at Bossard Asia Pacific achieving in that time from a greenfield start-up, a market leading position in the Asia; concurrent to this, he had a similar role with Bossard North America. From 1998 he was also a member of Bossard AG's Executive Committee playing an important role in Bossard's transformational initiatives which created a global industrial business. In May 2009, Scott moved into a corporate environment joining with Wells Fargo as an industry advisor and in 2008, founding in partnership, Truformance Equity Partners whose focus is the SME B2B sector. There are no additional disclosures to be made under LR 9.6.13 v SUMMARY On 1 June 2013 Trifast celebrates its 40th Anniversary since being founded as TR Fastenings Ltd in 1973. TR has since played a major part in the transformation of how high volume/variety small lower value assembly components are delivered, creating 'just in time' & supply chain management logistics programmes to its customer base initially from one office in Sussex, and then driven by multinational customer demands, going on to establish an international footprint now serving over 50 countries, delivering over 150 million components worldwide each day by a highly motivated network of TR business teams. 30% of the Group's revenue now derives from its own Asian manufacturing base. As we have previously stated, the Directors and TR teams, remain optimistic that the Group's structure and focus will enable further organic growth; and when combined with new business expansion opportunities, feel confident in their ability to deliver strong results through 2013/14, and into the future. We look forward to updating stakeholders further in June when we release the Group's Annual Results, and at the same time, updating on our strategic objective and goals. |
