19th Feb 2015 14:17
LONDON (Alliance News) - Eco City Vehicles PLC, the troubled developer and supplier of the London-licensed Mercedes Vito taxi, which is now turning into an investment company, finally Thursday published its financial results for the half-year to end June 2014.
Eco City Vehicles, which converted and sold Mercedes Vito vehicles for the London taxi market, fell into administration last October after suffering a sharp sales decline and losing its deal with Mercedes. However, the company exited administration in December and entered into a company voluntary agreement, with management and control of the company being handed back to directors. Last month, the company said that it was hoping its shares would return to trading on AIM following the publication of its first half results.
At the time, it also said it had received GBP250,000 in subscriptions for convertible loan notes, GBP143,000 of which would be used to fund the company voluntary agreement.
In a statement Thursday, Eco City Vehicles released its first-half results for the six months to end-June 2014, reporting a pretax loss of GBP2.0 million, compared with a GBP301,000 loss the year before, as revenue fell by 36% to GBP10.9 million, hit by increased competition in the market.
The company blamed taxi booking app Uber and London Mayor Boris Johnson for causing its market to remain challenging, and for causing the Vito taxi's share of the new London licensed taxi market to fall dramatically. The London taxi industry is facing uncertainty after Johnson announced in January last year that all new taxis should be capable of zero emissions from 2018.
Following the implementation of the company voluntary agreement, Eco City will now become an investment company, focusing on the telecommunications, media and technology sectors.
"The placing of the convertible loan notes was successful and the share reorganisation will be implemented once the suspension of trading in the company's ordinary shares on AIM is lifted, which the board hopes will occur shortly after the publication of these results," the company said Thursday.
By Rowena Harris-Doughty; [email protected]; @rharrisdoughty
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