As indicated in our Preliminary announcement in April, sales started slowly in 2005, hampered by the lack of leadership following the departure of the CEO and two regional sales managers. The new CEO Tim Haines was announced in May, and will join Whatman on 1st September.

In May, Toshio Iguchi, formerly with Johnson & Johnson, was appointed VP Japan, and Jerome Jeanneret joined as Manufacturing Director from Covance. This month, Martin Tricarico, previously with GE Healthcare, starts as VP Business Development and Paul Chung, formerly with Abbott, joins as VP Asia.

Under the new leadership, the sales teams of Whatman and Schleicher & Schuell have been integrated and cross trained, and sales performance is expected to improve in the second half. This was evidenced by a strong end to Q2. For the first half as a whole, sales of £55.8m are broadly flat on 1H 2004, restated for the acquisition of Schleicher & Schuell and excluding the effect of exchange.

The elimination of costs in the enlarged group is progressing well and is delivering savings ahead of schedule. The synergy benefits in 2005 are expected to be materially greater and to cost less than previously announced.

Commenting on today’s announcement, Bob Thian, Chairman of Whatman, said:

“Although revenues and profits in the first half were lower overall than we hoped, we saw an encouraging end to the half with a much improved performance in June and we are beginning to see the benefits of the recent senior management appointments. With the additional cost savings coming through well ahead of schedule and the infrastructure now in place to drive sales growth, we remain on track to meet our targets for the full year, though with a greater contribution coming in the second half.”

Whatman will be announcing its interim results on 12 September.

A conference call for analysts will be held at 09.00 (GMT). Please call Mo Noonan at Financial Dynamics on + 44 (0) 207 269 7116 for details.

Enquiries:
Whatman Plc
Bob Thian, Chairman	Tel:	020 7581 0788
Financial Dynamics
Lucy Briggs / Ben Atwell	Tel:	020 7831 3113