8th Jun 2016 09:32
LONDON (Alliance News) - Grafenia PLC Wednesday reported a swing to a loss for its most recently ended financial year, as it restructured its business following the sale of its Dutch business in late 2015, and opted not to pay a final dividend as it pursues acquisitions.
The printing software business sold its Dutch subsidiary Grafenia BV in October 2015, and since then has restructured and scaled back its cost base. It expects these cost reductions to be realised in its current year.
For the year to end-March Grafenia reported a pretax loss of GBP260,000, swung from a pretax profit of GBP532,000, as revenue slid slightly to GBP10.8 million from GBP11.0 million, mostly due to restructuring costs of GBP308,000.
Grafenia has opted not to pay a final dividend, which means its total dividend for the year comprises its interim dividend of 0.25 pence, reduced from 1.50 pence the previous, as it has chosen to shift funds towards pursuing acquisition opportunities.
The company said it will continue to assess market conditions and may opportunistically buy shares when the gap between price and value is deemed large enough.
Grafenia said that trading conditions remain challenging, and since the start of its current year sales across all channels have been softer than budgeted, albeit ahead of the same period in the previous year.
The company noted that its customers are principally small businesses, whose confidence may be hit by the outcome of the upcoming referendum into the UK's membership in the EU; however, it said that the trade print market is expected to grow as more printers look to outsource their production, and it expects growth despite these potential headwinds.
Shares in Grafenia were down 3.5% at 15.92 pence Wednesday.
By Hana Stewart-Smith; [email protected]; @HanaSSAllNews
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