13 May 2004

At today's Annual General Meeting of support services group Interserve Plc, Chairman Mike Bottjer said:

Last year was a period of re-structuring of the business with the closure of activities which were either loss-making or unlikely to produce acceptable future returns. These actions were taken to enhance future prospects through greater focus on the Group's core operations.

I am pleased to report that four of our five principal operating divisions, namely Facilities Services, Project Services, Industrial Services and Investments, have started the year well. In the remaining division, Equipment Services, trading started more slowly than expected but  is now picking up well.

Against this background we anticipate that overall Group trading at the half year will be in line with expectations and will show satisfactory progress over the same period last year.
 
At the turn of the year we had a record future workload of £4.3 billion, representing a significant increase on the figure that I reported at last year's AGM. Since then we have continued to win work in each of our businesses and our markets continue to provide attractive opportunities which, together with our order book, firmly underpin the Group's long-term growth prospects.

At the AGM last year I announced a number of changes to the Board that were expected to take place during the year. These included splitting the combined role of Chairman and Chief Executive, a position which had been held by me since 1996. As planned, Adrian Ringrose was promoted to Chief Executive, Tim Jones joined us as Group Finance Director and I have continued as Non Executive Chairman. John Padovan became Deputy Chairman and Senior Independent Director.  One non-executive director retired and two new, independent non-executive directors joined the Board, namely Nicholas Keegan and David Trapnell. Two executive directors also retired. The Board therefore now comprises myself as Chairman, five executive directors and four independent non-executive directors.