14 July 2020

Somero Enterprises, Inc.

("Somero" or the "Company")

Trading Update

Somero is pleased to provide an update on trading ahead of its interim results announcement scheduled to be released on Wednesday, 9 September 2020.

Trading for H1 2020 ended in line with the level detailed in the Company's announcement of 5 June 2020, approximately 25% below levels required to achieve the market expectation at the start of the year of US$ 90.0m in 2020 revenues. 

Following the cost reduction actions implemented by Management, the Company remains profitable and cash generative at current volumes and the Board remains confident the Company would continue to be cash generative even in the scenario where revenues fall an additional 20% from current levels. The cost saving actions taken by Management were specifically designed to not impact investment in new product development, a key element to the Company's long-term growth strategy.  New product development activity remains at a high level and the Company continues to add to its product offering. The latest examples are the SRS-4 compact Boom Laser Screed® Machine launched in H1 2020 that has quickly gained encouraging market interest and contributed meaningfully to H1 2020 sales, and the introduction in late June 2020 of the innovative Somero Broom + Cure™ machine that replaces manual effort in the broom and cure process on exterior concrete slabs with efficient, consistent machine application. 

The Company's financial position remains secure, highlighted by net cash as at 30 June 2020 of at least US$ 28.0m, exceeding the conservative US$ 24.0m net cash expectation outlined in the 5 June 2020 update. The strong operational cash flow performance reflects effective working capital management driven by healthy trade receivable collections to end the first half of the year. 

The uncertainty around the scale, duration and impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Somero's end markets in the non-residential construction industry continues to make it difficult at this time to provide further guidance on the Company's financial performance in the rest of 2020 and beyond. While extended project backlogs reported by our customers prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly in the US, indicate the non-residential construction market was active and healthy entering this period, financial performance for 2020 and beyond will depend on a number variables over which the Company has no control.  The Company will provide updates as appropriate regarding the outlook for the business once greater clarity is attained.

The information communicated in this announcement contains inside information for the purposes of Article 7 of the Market Abuse Regulation (EU) No. 596/2014.