21 September 2017

Park Group plc

("Park" the "Company" or the "Group")

AGM Statement

At the Company's Annual General Meeting, to be held today at 11am in The Pulford Suite and Veranda, Thornton Hall Hotel, Neston Road, Thornton Hough, Wirral, CH63 1JF, Laura Carstensen, Chairman of Park Group plc, will make the following statement:

"In my statement of 13 June, as part of a strong set of results for the year to March, I commented that the current financial year had started well, giving us confidence in delivering another strong performance. I am pleased to report that this momentum has continued on both the Corporate and Consumer sides of our business.

Corporate

Our Corporate business, Love2shop Business Services, supplies an extensive range of gift cards, vouchers, digital reward and incentivisation products to some 31,000 organisations. Last year's progress has been maintained with continuing growth driven by ongoing product enhancement and innovation. 

'Evolve,' our exciting new digital reward platform, launched in 2016, continues to be adopted by large blue-chip brands and small to medium-sized enterprises alike.  211 client organisations now use the portal, an encouraging increase, as this figure stood at 165 clients just three months ago.

Building on this success, we have developed the 'Evolve' proposition even further by adding an international capability.  In June, Love2shop Worldwide was launched, an innovative product allowing Park to provide its reward, recognition and benefits services to the global employee and customer engagement markets.  This has proved especially attractive to international organisations with customers, offices and subsidiaries overseas. 15 corporate clients are already using Love2shop Worldwide and there is a pleasing pipeline of potential new customers.

Consumer

Our Consumer division enables customers to plan for Christmas in a controlled and structured way.  Customers make regular payments over a 45 week period and receive their gift vouchers, gift cards or gifts in time for the festive season.  This division continues to perform well, with customer numbers and average order values ahead and an order book running more than four per cent above the same period last year.

As part of our commitment to ongoing product development and excellent customer service, in January, we launched a mobile application (app) for our Christmas savings customers, reflecting their preference for this means of communication. The app is proving very popular and the feedback we receive from customers allows us to further improve its appeal and functionality.  We will continue to develop and enhance the app to the benefit of customers and subsequently, Park itself.

Our relationship with Mastercard continues to strengthen and in January 2017 we became a licensed issuer of Mastercard prepaid cards. This was an important strategic development and the first product to be offered was a digital card, issued to customers for online use at a select number of retail outlets including John Lewis and Argos.  As planned, we have now extended this offering to include both digital and physical cards which can be used at any retailer accepting Mastercards, both in-store and online, across the UK and in Ireland.

Outlook

Park is a cash generative business with a strong, debt-free balance sheet. Total cash balances continue to increase and are again ahead of the same period last year. This progress is significant as it highlights the growth in our order books, principally for the consumer business, where orders are booked in the first half of the year for dispatch in the second half, in time for the festive season.

The seasonality of Park's business means that the majority of orders are delivered in the final quarter of each calendar year. We approach our busiest period with robust systems and a proven track record in order execution.  Our order books continue to grow and our commitment to excellent customer service gives us a loyal and expanding customer base.

Trading is in line with expectations and we look forward to the future with confidence."

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