11 Jan 2008

Interserve Plc, the services, maintenance and building group, today provides an update on 2007 trading in advance of announcing its preliminary results on 11 March 2008.

Trading throughout 2007 has been very strong:

In Facilities Management we made good progress through a combination of growth from both new and existing clients, turnaround in our industrial operations and the full-year impact of integration benefits arising from the MacLellan acquisition in 2006.

In Specialist Services our security and engineering operations continued to trade well. Following a difficult year, our HVAC and working-at-heights operations have been repositioned and are expected to benefit during 2008.

In Project Services, continued strong demand in both our UK and Middle Eastern markets has underpinned a greater-than-anticipated increase in activity levels across all sectors. 

In Equipment Services we made better progress than expected resulting from continued buoyancy in the Middle East, together with strong growth in Europe and some encouraging signs of recovery in Australia. 

Our PFI business continued to benefit from demand for social infrastructure projects and from our expertise in delivering services particularly in the education, justice and health sectors.

The Group continues to focus its operations in markets which offer sustainable growth opportunities, delivering critical services to social infrastructure, commercial and industrial assets at each stage in their life cycle.  Established client relationships in our core markets, together with our growing exposure to international markets, are fundamental to the Group's strategic positioning, offering good visibility and providing stability throughout the economic cycle. 

The Board remains very encouraged by the long-term prospects in its markets and is confident that the Group should continue to demonstrate good progress in 2008.

Interserve is also issuing a separate announcement today concerning the appointment of two existing divisional managing directors to the Board.