Experian remains confident
The company has issued a positive update on trading in the three months to 31st December 2006.
Sales from continuing activities in the UK and Ireland increased by 22 per cent in the third quarter at constant exchange rates. Organic growth was 7 per cent, with acquisitions, mainly FootFall (acquired in December 2005), ClarityBlue (acquired in January 2006) and Eiger Systems (acquired in June 2006) contributing the balance.
Both Credit Services and Marketing Solutions showed low single-digit organic sales growth in the quarter, reflecting continuing difficult conditions in the UK credit market. Sales at Consumer Direct in the UK nearly tripled.
Decision Analytics performed well, being reinforced by the renewal of a five-year contract for running the UK’s national fraud data sharing system (National Hunter). Experian also signed a new contract with Royal Bank of Scotland to prevent application fraud across its UK banking and insurance activities.
Commenting on the performance of Experian, Don Robert, Chief Executive Officer, said,”We are pleased with the way our businesses have performed around the world. There was particularly strong organic growth in the quarter, helped by exceptional results from Consumer Direct and PriceGrabber.com. Looking forward, while we continue to face specific challenges in some of our markets, we remain confident about the outlook for the full year.”
Experian will issue its Second Half Trading Update on 17 April 2007. Its Preliminary Results will be announced on 23 May 2007.
