21st Feb 2014 08:33
LONDON (Alliance News) - Airea PLC said Friday that pretax profit and revenues fell during the half-year, as it continues restructuring plans amid ongoing "hostile market conditions."
In its interim results for the six months to December 31 2013, Airea said that the period has proved challenging as it continues to work on the reshape of its business toward a goal of sustainable profitable growth.
Revenue for the period fell to GBP11.6 million from GBP13.5 million last year, and operating profit followed suit, coming in at GPB222,000 from GBP359,000 in 2012.
Pretax profit declined to GBP24,000 from GBP270,000 last year and from GBP533,000 on the previous six month period.
The firm warned in its annual report that that it could not see any reliable signs of an upturn in market conditions and this continued to be the case throughout the period. Six months later, while discerning some marginal improvement in demand for its residential carpet range in the final quarter of the calendar year, this was patchy and volatile, said Airea.
Demand in the contract flooring market remained weak during the period, and the non-residential construction sector continued to be subdued. Airea said its revenue results reflect the current general market picture, adding that it was further impacted by timing issues on larger contracts and stocking deals.
Despite the hit to its balance sheet and weaker demand, Airea said the business has demonstrated financial resilience, "Margin improvement, resulting from the work done on product engineering and price management, and a lower cost base kept the business in profit and we have maintained the financial headroom to allow us to operate debt free," said the firm.
Due to the continuing challenges facing the market, and the firms' current trading position, the board will not be making an interim dividend payment, it said.
Airea fell to the bottom of the AIM market Friday morning, its shares were trading down 26.90% at 10.6 pence per share.
By Alice Attwood; [email protected]; @AliceAtAlliance
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