Interim Announcement

Interim dividend maintained, the Board’s FY PBT expectations unchanged

Alumasc (ALU.L), the premium building and engineering products group, announces another resilient performance in the six months to 31 December 2009, in line with the Board’s expectations, against a continuing background of challenging market conditions.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue down 27% at £44.5m (2008: £60.7m)
• Underlying* pre-tax profit 47% lower at £1.9m (2008: £3.5m) and underlying* EPS 47% lower at 3.6p (2008: 6.8p)
• Underlying* pre-tax profit 14% better than in the second half of last year
• Reported PBT down 39% at £1.6m (2008: £2.7m) and basic EPS down 35% at 3.1p (2008: 4.8p)
• In the period, net debt was reduced by £1.1m to £9.2m, even though a first half increase is usual due to seasonal factors
• The interim dividend per share is maintained at 3.25p

Commercial Highlights

• Building Products’ revenues of £33.3m were down 22% on the first half of last year and 7% on the second half of last year
• Following last year’s record performance, Levolux, the UK’s leading solar shading company, has remained strongly profitable, despite the short-term decline in larger project work
• Engineering Products’ revenues of £11.7m were down 38% on the first half of last year and 9% on the second half of last year
• Progress in the business recovery programme under the new management team at Alumasc Precision has been encouraging

* excluding restructuring costs, brand amortisation and, in the year ended 30 June 2009, impairment charges

Paul Hooper, Chief Executive, stated “Alumasc has again delivered a resilient performance, in line with the Board’s expectations, against a continuing background of challenging market conditions. The group’s sustainable building product businesses have continued to perform relatively well, progress in the performance improvement programme at Alumasc Precision has been encouraging and total fixed cost and efficiency savings delivered since the start of the recession now amount to £7 million, some £1 million ahead of previous expectations.”

When compared with the second half of last year, these first half results demonstrate that the actions taken by management to improve margin performance and control costs have begun to yield a recovery in group profits. Although revenues reduced by a further 8%, underlying profit before tax was 14% better than in the second half of last year and operating margins improved from 4.8% to 6.2%.Short-term market conditions are expected to remain challenging and there are uncertainties as to the level of public sector expenditure that can be sustained after the forthcoming UK general election. However, the second half should benefit from a variety of new product and business development initiatives, the seasonal bias that tends to favour the group’s second half trading and the actions already taken to reduce costs. The latter are now targeted to yield a further £1 million of savings in the second half, in addition to the £7 million already delivered. Accordingly, the Board is pleased to report that overall expectations for the group’s full year performance are unchanged.

Presentation:

Today, a presentation will be made to institutions, broker’s analysts and private client brokers by Paul Hooper (Chief Executive) and Andrew Magson (Group Finance Director), with John McCall (Chairman) in attendance. The meeting will commence at 13.00 and end at approximately 14.00. It will be held at the offices of KBC Peel Hunt, 111 Old Broad Street, London, EC2N 1PH. Those who wish to attend and have not yet responded are asked to email rose.oddy@bankside.com by 11.00