AGM Trading Update

Keller Group plc ('Keller' or 'the Group'), the world's largest geotechnical specialist contractor, issues a trading update for the first four months of the year (the 'period') ahead of its Annual General Meeting to be held at 10.00am today.

The strong momentum cited at the Group's full year results in March 2024 continued through the period, with overall performance materially ahead of prior year. This momentum, combined with a strong order book and recent contract wins, gives us good visibility and enhanced confidence in performance for the remainder of the year. Accordingly, we now anticipate full year performance to be materially ahead of the Board's original expectations.

In North America, trading continued to be strong, driven by ongoing infrastructure spend and the sustained improvement in the operational performance of the foundations business. Suncoast also performed well and is ahead of prior year, despite the expected softening of market conditions in the residential segment, although its momentum is still anticipated to moderate during the rest of the year.

In the Europe and Middle East Division, weak demand persisted in the residential and commercial sectors across Europe, whilst the infrastructure sector remained more resilient. In the Nordic region, performance of the challenging projects in the prior year is improving as a result of management actions, although one project remained loss-making in the period.

In APAC, Austral traded profitably and in line with plan, with no contract losses following the turnaround of the business in the second half of 2023. Keller Australia had a strong start to the year, albeit, as anticipated, trading in the period was lower than the prior year. In ASEAN, continued market softness persisted, with low levels of activity, whilst Keller India performed well.

The Group's strong cash performance continued in the period and we expect the Group's net debt/EBITDA leverage ratio to be at the bottom end of the 0.5x - 1.5x range at the half year (H1 2023: 1.2x).

The Group will announce Interim Results on 6 August 2024.