25th Oct 2018 10:13
LONDON (Alliance News) - Braemar Shipping Services PLC on Thursday said it swung to a loss in the first half of its current financial year following two major acquisitions.
The broking, financial and consultancy services provider recorded a pretax loss of GBP3.8 million in the six months to the end of August, having reported a pretax profit of GBP492,000 for the same period a year ago.
The result was hurt by one-off acquisition related charge of GBP6.1 million, relating to the purchase of Braemar NAVES Corporate Finance GmbH in September last year and Braemar Atlantic Brokers Securities Holdings Ltd in February.
On an underlying basis, pretax profit grew by 11% to GBP2.5 million from GBP2.3 million. Revenue in the first half rose 11% to GBP71.6 million from GBP64.5 million.
Braemar declared an interim payout of 5.0 pence, unchanged year-on-year.
The company said its ship broking division performed well during the first half with most sectors being more profitable year-on-year.
Total forward order book grew to USD46.0 million from USD44.0 million at the start of the year. Braemar expects to deliver USD21.7 million of these orders in the second half of the year.
Meanwhile, the financial division, which was created after the acquisition of NAVES, performed ahead of the company's expectations. For the six months to the end of August, the unit generated revenue of GBP4.4 million, up from GBP3.7 million delivered in the five months to February-end.
"An improving performance in our Shipbroking and Financial divisions continued to drive the group's results," said Chairman David Moorhouse.
"We expect a stronger second half performance compared with the first half of our financial year supported by an increased forward order book in Shipbroking and a strong pipeline in our Financial division," added Moorhouse.
Braemar shares were down 5.5% on Thursday at 222.00 pence each.
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