20^th December 2023

The Mission Group plc

("MISSION" the "Company" or the "Group")

BUSINESS AND TRADING UPDATE

The MISSION Group plc (AIM: TMG), creator of Work That Counts^TM, comprising a group of digital marketing and communications Agencies, wishes to provide a business and trading update since the Group's last update on 23 October 2023 (the "Update") for the remainder of the 2023 financial year to 31 December 2023 ("FY2023").

Trading for FY2023 is currently expected to be in line with the Board's revised outlook, as outlined in the Update.

VALUE RESTORATION PLAN

As outlined in the Update, in response to the impact of the more challenging trading conditions on the business, the Group has started to implement a "Value Restoration Plan" comprising of a series of significant cost saving initiatives, margin improvements and selected possible business disposals, to restore value to MISSION shareholders.

This plan is now well underway and a total of £5m of cost savings have been identified. An initial £2m of annualised costs savings relating to headcount reduction in certain of the Group's business units have been delivered at a cost of £0.4m. A further £3m of annualised non-agency cost savings have been targeted and are being implemented at a cost of £0.3m. 

Progress has been made on the disposal of two non-core businesses in line with the Group's strategy. In each case, a letter of intent has been received.  These discussions are ongoing and either, or both, of these may complete in the coming months, but at this stage there can be no certainty that they will progress to a completed transaction.

A further update on the Group's progress against the Value Restoration Plan will be provided with the FY2023 trading statement in January 2024. 

FINANCIAL POSITION

Our long-standing lender, NatWest has agreed to waive the December covenant. We remain in constructive dialogue with respect to covenants and maturity of facilities and are confident that through this ongoing support from our Bank, we will have the liquidity and headroom to deliver upon our medium-term strategy.

We are actively managing our net debt position together with that of our trade and other creditors to ensure that we have as much flexibility as possible. At this stage, the Group's net debt at 31 December 2023 is expected to be unchanged from that set out in the Update, being approximately £24.0m.  

ENDS

ENQUIRIES:  

NOTES TO EDITORS

MISSION is a collective of digital marketing and communications Agencies employing over 1,000 people across 29 locations and 3 continents. The Group successfully combines its diverse expertise to produce Work That Counts TM for Clients, whatever their ambitions. Creating real standout, sharing real innovation and delivering real growth for some of the world's biggest brands. www.themission.co.uk

The person responsible for arranging the release of this announcement on behalf of MISSION is James Clifton.

The information contained within this announcement is deemed to constitute inside information as stipulated under the Market Abuse (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019. Upon the publication of this announcement, this inside information is now considered to be in the public domain.