Deal Group Media PLC 23 September 2005 Press Release 23 September 2005 Deal Group Media plc ("dgm" or "the Company") Trading statement The Company expects that its profit before tax for the year to 31 December 2005 will show no increase on the same period last year and will therefore fall significantly short of market expectations. The primary reason for this is that there has been a fundamental change in the terms of trade with a major long-standing client in response to external factors within its own industry. This particular client accounted for some 30% of high margin gross profit. The Company was informed of this change of terms at a meeting yesterday afternoon, 22 September 2005. The impact is exacerbated by the seasonality of the client's business which is weighted towards Christmas sales. The key change in terms of trade relates to the methodology that the client uses to recognise a sale introduced by dgm's affiliate network. dgm continues to trade with the client, albeit on a much reduced basis, and will be less reliant on any single client for revenues or profit going forward. Two other issues contributed marginally to the shortfall indicated above. A supplier of advertising space has decided to market directly to advertisers and, secondly, the conversion time of new leads to sales across the Company is slightly behind expectations. Adrian Moss, Chief Executive, said: "It is very disappointing to lose revenue and contribution to profit, but the cause is client specific rather than a flaw in the overall business model, which remains robust and cash generative. Excluding this specific revenue loss, sales continue to grow. "The Company has augmented the management team recently with additional high calibre executives and the business continues to be driven forward. The implementation of dgmPro, the Company's new proprietary tracking technology, remains on target and is an extremely important step forward for the Company. "We are confident of maintaining our position as the UK's leading online marketing group in a marketplace that is seeing year-on-year growth." - Ends - For further information, please contact: Media enquiries: Abchurch Communications Ariane Comstive / Julian Bosdet Tel: +44 (0) 20 7398 7700 ariane.comstive@abchurch-group.com www.abchurch-group.com Enquiries: Deal Group Media plc Adrian Moss, Chief Executive Tel: + 44 (0) 20 7691 1880 Andrew Dickson, Finance Director www.dealgroupmediaplc.com Panmure Gordon & Co Richard Swindells Tel: +44 (0) 20 7459 3600 richard.swindells@panmure.com www.panmure.com This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange