Chairman's Stmt-Replacement

Anglian Group PLC 25 July 2000 The issuer has made the following amendment to the Chairman's Statement announcement released today at 14.24 under RNS No 4163O. In the penultimate paragraph, the date that the shares were bought back for cancellation should read 27 June and not 17 May as previously stated. All other details remain unchanged. The full corrected version is shown below. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Contact: Eddie Boss, Chief Executive Anglian Group PLC Tel no: 01603 787000 Robert Aitken, Finance Director Tom Baldock Financial Dynamics Tel no: 020 7831 3113 Chairman's AGM Statement Speaking at the company's Annual General Meeting today, David Perry, Anglian Group's Chairman said: Underlying profit on trading was in line with market expectations immediately following the trading statement on 2 February, but final operating profits benefited from recoveries of £1.8m under insurance claims primarily related to the power supply interruption last August. With £44m of cash returned to shareholders in May 1999, profit before tax was inevitably affected by a significant drop in interest income, though earnings per share benefited from the improved capital structure. Cash generation for the year was better than expected and the group closed the year with £13.5m of cash. The supply and installation issues last year created a break in our three year record of 20% plus per annum earnings per share growth. These issues were overcome towards the end of the financial year, and we have since improved customer service with a greater specialist focus on product categories in consumer home improvements, with a new warehouse facility for the new house build market and a return to full capacity for tendering public sector refurbishment. Turning to the current year, as outlined in the Group's preliminary statement on 6 June 2000, we expect the trading environment for the coming year to be challenging. Cumulative order intake remains below last year's buoyant levels and, as we warned, cost inflation continues to have an impact. We continue to drive for increased efficiency across all our activities with particular emphasis on our manufacturing to achieve cost, quality and service improvements and to mitigate competitive and inflationary margin pressure as far as possible. We remain cash generative and, with last year's production problems now firmly behind us, look forward to re-establishing profitable growth in due course. As part of our continuing commitment to delivering shareholder value, on 27 June we bought back for cancellation just over 7 million shares at £1.50 each, under the mandate given to the board at the last AGM, thus reducing the share capital to just over 64 million shares. Finally, I would like to thank our employees and suppliers for their continued commitment to our company's success.