PA Group Annual Report 2007
CHAIRMAN’S STATEMENT
As I mentioned in my report last year, I equip a ‘state of the art’ operations
will be retiring from the PA Group board centre in Howden, East Yorkshire, and
after the 2008 AGM having completed later to set up a data processing centre
20 years’ service as a director and (now two) in India to meet the ever-
13 years as Chairman. In that time I increasing workload.
have seen many changes and much Throughout this period PA Group
progress. has been a 50% shareholder in CNW
When I joined the board in 1988, the Group, a very well managed company
business operated on the cooperative which is the leader in the Canadian
principle, concentrating on the wire newswire distribution market. CNW
service and practically all the equity was Group has provided a revenue stream
owned by regional press publishers. without which the expansion to which
The launch of UK News in I have just referred would have been
1994, jointly owned by Northcliffe much more difficult.
Newspapers and Westminster Press Our controlling interest in MeteoGroup,
(both shareholders), was a wake-up the largest private weather forecasting
call. When Westminster Press and company in Europe, also now provides
EMAP announced they were selling very good profits for PA Group and
their shares, I was very pleased that we are confident of further growth as
Robert Simpson (then Chief Executive), MeteoGroup develops its innovative
Paul Potts (then Editor) and myself products in the shipping, oil and energy
were able to persuade Mirror Group industries and expands into Eastern
and News International to build up their Europe and Scandinavia.
shareholding and to convince Express PA Sport has grown at a very rapid
Newspapers and Daily Mail and General rate over the last eight years. In addition
Trust to retain their shares. to the sports wire we provide to our
As a result the business had four customers in the UK, PA Group now
major shareholders and a stable equity owns PA SportsTicker in the USA, has
structure which provided a base for a 33% interest in Sportal in Australia,
expansion of its services. and operations in South Africa, Hong
We resolved to run the wire service Kong, Singapore, Beijing and Mumbai.
at the highest possible level of quality At the time of writing this report the
whilst undertaking not to increase the board is considering how it can take
tariff at a rate greater than the rate advantage of the emerging trends in
of inflation – an undertaking we have the sports industry whilst ensuring that
never broken. This meant we had to any initiative is in the best interest of
generate revenue and profit from our shareholders.
other activities. These included the Looking back I am extremely proud
development and sale of Ananova, that over the period we have managed
the expansion of our editorial services, to maintain our wire service at the
including TV listings, page-ready highest quality whilst expanding our
material and copy taking, and also activities and delivering £233 million in
the growth of PA Sport. dividends to our shareholders.
To support this expansion, investment
in both technology and facilities was
required and we decided to build and Sir Harry Roche, Chairman
4
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