30th Jun 2015 08:55
LONDON (Alliance News) - Arria NLG PLC Tuesday posted a narrowed pretax loss for its first half due to lower amortisation and other administrative costs, and said its focus in the second half will be on transitioning new clients into licensing revenue.
The software and technology company posted a pretax loss of GBP2.5 million for the half year to end-March, narrowed from a pretax loss of GBP5.2 million a year before, as revenue rose to GBP904,000 from GBP330,000, and it posted lower amortisation and other administrative costs related to its listing did not recur.
Arria NLG attributed its revenue growth to a full period of its contract with a unit of FTSE-100 listed Royal Dutch Shell PLC. It lost this contract in April, and the company said that whilst the loss of this contract was a "serious and unexpected setback" it "must not overshadow the significant progress" it made during the half year.
On Monday the company raised GBP3.75 million in the first phase of its funding plan. It had been in funding talks in April, but the plans were terminated after it lost the contract with Shell.
"I am delighted we have concluded this next stage of our capital raising, which provides stability and support to our current operations as it directly addresses our near- to medium-term working capital requirements. Such strong support of Arria NLG's business direction is indicative of the participating shareholders' belief in the long term value proposition of Arria's Natural Language Generation technology," said Chairman and Chief Executive Stuart Rogers in a statement.
During the period the number of clients contributing revenue more than doubled to five from two in the previous year, and it entered two software partnerships, including one with IBM Watson Group.
Shares in Arria NLG are trading up 5.4% at 19.50 pence Tuesday morning.
By Hana Stewart-Smith; [email protected]; @HanaSSAllNews
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