Flying Brands Ltd. : Flying Brands Limited - Trading Statement

24 January 2012

Flying Brands Limited

Trading update

Today Flying Brands is issuing a trading update for the final quarter of the Company's 2011 financial year.

Christmas broadly in line with expectations

Trading during this quarter is dominated by the Flower Division's peak Christmas selling season. In light of the general economic climate and our recent performance at Christmas, we took the decision to cut back on up-front marketing expenditure. This meant that sales were considerably down on last year (£3.29m versus £4.47m in 2011) but a combination of higher margins, lower marketing costs and a greatly improved refunds and replacements performance meant that we expect contribution to be significantly ahead of last year and broadly in line with management's expectations. We were very pleased to see our complaints rate at Christmas fall below 2%, which is our best performance for several years.

During the last quarter order intake in Gardening Direct was £0.34m compared to £0.32m in 2011, which was ahead of management expectations. Sales in gardencentreonline.co.uk were in line with management expectations at £0.21m (2011:£0.27m) whilst sales in Garden Bird Supplies were affected by the very mild weather and were below our expectations at £0.64m (2011: £0.91m). Sales in Listen2 were in line with management expectations at £0.35m (2011: £0.46m).

Overall sales for the period were £4.83m compared to £6.43m in 2011. Further to our announcement of 20 December 2011, we confirm that we remain in discussions regarding the possible sale of certain of the Company's businesses and will make a further announcement in due course.

For further information, please contact:

Flying Brands Limited01245 228 300

Stephen Cook, Chief Executive

Stuart Dootson, Group Finance Director

Smithfield Consultants020 7360 4900
John Kiely

Notes to editors

Jersey based Flying Brands Limited (LSE: FBDU) is a multi brand and multi channel home shopping specialist. Founded in 1981, it was admitted to the Official List of the London Stock Exchange in 1993. The Group operates the following divisions: 

·              Gifts(Flying Flowers, Flowers Direct and Drake Algarmaking the company one of the UK'sleading florists)

·              Garden(Gardening Direct, one of the UK's largest mail order bedding plants and gardening products operations; Garden Bird Supplies, a leading provider of food and accessories for birds and other wildlife; Garden Centre Onlinean internet retailer of garden hardware products)

·              Entertainment(Listen2, a mail order audio books, nostalgic music, DVD and video home shopping retailer)