Annual Reports & Accounts 2011

10 General and administrative expenses

	2011 USD’000	2010 USD’000
Staff costs (Note 11)	34,200	20,224
Legal, professional and consultancy fees	10,516	1,457
Depreciation (Note 17)	4,301	3,534
Amortisation of intangible assets (Note 18)	3,887	88
Utilities and communication	3,706	2,356
Others	6,253	4,868
	62,863	32,527

During 2010, the Group incurred total expenditure of USD 1.4m for the closure of the LAL operations in Thailand, of which USD 0.8m is included in “General and administrative expenses” and USD 0.6m in “Other gains/(losses)” (Note 13).

Exceptional items

Items that are material either because of their size or their nature or that are non-recurring are presented within their relevant consolidated income statement category, but highlighted separately in the consolidated income statement. The separate reporting of exceptional items helps provide a better picture of the Group’s underlying performance.

An analysis of the amounts presented as exceptional items in these financial statements which relates to costs incurred in relation to the acquisition of MIS (Note 35) is given below:

–

	2011 USD’000	2010 USD’000
Financial advisory fees	5,024	–
Legal fees	1,781	–
Professional fees	1,220
Post-acquisition charge of cash cancellation of MIS share options (Note 9)	1,919	–
Other expenses	600	–
	10,544	–