African Battery Metals Issue Annual Loss Widens On Higher Costs

15th Mar 2018 14:14

LONDON (Alliance News) - Cobalt and copper exploration company African Battery Metals PLC on Thursday reported a widened annual pretax loss due to higher operating expenses and costs resulting from the issue of shares.

The company recorded a pretax loss of GBP3.9 million for 2017, compared with a pretax loss of GBP1.8 million in prior year period. No revenue was generated in either financial period.

The widened loss was attributed to higher operating expenses and to GBP633,000 of finance costs recorded in the period. Operating expenses for the period totaled GBP3.3 million, up sharply from GBP1.8 million a year ago.

The company said that it funded its exploration activities during the financial year through the issue of shares to either raise cash, or in lieu of fees. In aggregate, 2.2 billion new ordinary shares were issued during the financial year resulting to the raising a total of approximately GBP4.3 million of cash before placement costs, in comparison to last year 4.8 million share capital was issued for cash.

"2017 was a year of significant change for ABM, culminating in the recent change in its name to African Battery Metals. In 2018, we expect to significantly advance our exploration activities in battery metals, especially cobalt. Cobalt is integral to the make up of the batteries and the strong global drive to move away from internal combustion engines and to replace these with electric vehicles powered by batteries is underway and will not be derailed," African Battery Metals CEO Roger Murphy said.

African Battery Metals ended the year with a cash balance of GBP100,000, versus GBP200,000 a year ago. Shares were 22% at 0.06 pence on Thursday afternoon.

---

Related Shares:

ABM.L