3rd Aug 2015 07:46
LONDON (Alliance News) - AIM-listed Fox Marble Holdings PLC on Monday said a fire has destroyed equipment that was meant to be shipped to it by Prometec SrL, which will result in a further delay to the start of operations while the company sources alternative machines.
The marble quarrying and finishing company completed the construction of its marble processing factory building in May, when it said a shipment of two gangsaws would leave Italy within that month for installation. According to the company's annual report for 2014, "unexpected adverse weather" had previously delayed completion of the factory at Lipjan, Kosovo.
Fox Marble said that Prometec SrL is the company responsible for supplying and refurbishing "two major pieces of machinery" due to be installed at the factory.
"The fire has destroyed the entire Prometec SrL stock, including the equipment due to be shipped to Fox Marble. By cost this amounts to just under 25% of the budgeted machinery for the factory. Whilst the direct financial loss to the company is expected to be minimal, as the equipment is insured, this will cause further delays to the start of operations at the factory while alternative machines are sourced," Fox Marble said.
"This, in turn, will impact the expected full year revenues for 2015. In the meantime, plans have been made and implemented to process block marble into slabs at processing plants in Macedonia at specially reduced rates with particular reference to local production of Sivec. The first slabs of Sivec from this arrangement are available for collection by the customer," Fox Marble said.
The company said it now expects to realise EUR1.4 million of its current EUR2.8 million order book within 2015. On May 14, the company had said it expected to realise EUR2.0 million of its order book, which amounted to EUR2.8 million at that time.
It said revenue for the first half of 2015 is lower than expected, at EUR110,000.
"This shortfall of half year revenues against expectations is due to slower than expected completion of deliveries of our order book as a result of delays in accessing the new Malesheva quarry containing supplies of Illyric White marble and slower than expected development of our Sivec quarries," Fox Marble said.
Chief Executive Chris Gilbert said the company is confident in its objective of becoming a "major international supplier of high quality marble".
"In order to underpin the development of our sales channels we have appointed three additional experienced marble sales staff over the last few months, and we expect that this will also bear fruit as we bring on the production of Illyric White marble from Malesheva 2 and larger volumes from the Sivec quarries in Macedonia," he said.
Fox Marble shares were down 17% at 18.3 pence on Monday morning.
By Samuel Agini; [email protected]; @samuelagini
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