William Sinclair Holdings plc : Trading update

29 July 2013
WILLIAM SINCLAIR HOLDINGS PLC ("William Sinclair" or The Company") Trading Update
William Sinclair, one of the UK's leading suppliers of growing media, announces a trading update.

Horticulture sales

The interim results to 31 March 2013, announced on 10 June 2013, highlighted a significant shortfall in horticulture sales as a result of the coldest Spring in more than 50 years. We anticipated some recovery of this shortfall in the second half year. Although sales in May were good, and our sales into the retail market in June and July were double those achieved in the same months in 2012, we have not fully reached our forecast revenues for the third quarter. There is little scope to achieve
any further sales recovery in the final quarter. This is because our sales are largely based on growing media, which is primarily a Spring product. The recent good weather, whilst very helpful for our important retail customers, will have only a limited impact on our own sales. Our full year sales are therefore now expected to be lower than previously forecast.

SuperFyba

SuperFyba operations at the Company's flagship site at Ellesmere Port continue to produce encouraging results. However processing difficulties have persisted and as a result the Company has incurred additional expenses and will not produce as much SuperFyba in the second half year as it had previously forecast. This means significantly more production costs will be taken to operating costs instead of being recovered into stock.
The Company believes that the current difficulties are a direct result of the pressure to accelerate SuperFyba production in response to the poor peat harvest in 2012. This meant there were some compromises in the production process which have not proved reliable. We recently engaged a consultant engineer to address these issues and solutions have now been identified. The consultant has recommended a reduction in volumes while the solutions are implemented over the next six months. The much improved peat harvest in 2013 means that the short term pressure to produce SuperFyba in large volumes has abated, giving the Company the opportunity to accept these recommendations and to concentrate on improving the production process for SuperFyba which is the horticulture market's leading alternative to peat.
As a result of the above two issues the Company is unlikely to meet current market expectations.

For further information:

www.william-sinclair.co.uk

William Sinclair Holdings Plc	Tel: [phone]
Peter Williams, Finance Director	Tel: [phone]
Mark Way, Corporate Communications	Tel: [phone]

WH Ireland Limited

Andrew Kitchingman Tel: [phone]