26th Sep 2019 12:28
(Alliance News) - Hawkwing PLC said Thursday its pretax loss for the first half of 2019 narrowed on falling costs, even as revenue declined heavily.
Hawkwing is an AIM Rule 15 cash shell, formerly known as sports marketing and player representation business TLA Worldwide.
The company changed its name after selling its Australian business in early September, and closing down its events activities in November last year.
Also Thursday, Hawkwing said it has appointed Dwight Mighty as non-executive director with immediate effect.
Mighty was formerly chief operating officer at Hawkwing, when it was known as TLA Worldwide, for eight years from 2011 to 2019, before becoming company secretary at Hawkwing.
For the six months to the end of June, Hawkwing's pretax loss narrowed to GBP749,000 from GBP2.8 million a year before, as operating expenses fell on lower loan financial costs and the lack of a one-off impairment on loans in other ventures.
However revenue dropped by 55% to GBP10.6 million, due to the discontinuing of its Baseball Player Representation unit during the period.
Sports Marketing, which is a discontinued operation with effect in September, saw revenue drop by 38% in the period due to the sale of Hawkwing's US businesses in December, and no following events.
Looking ahead, Hawkwing is looking to make an acquisition constituting a reverse takeover under AIM rules. The company said the process of identifying such a business for acquisition has started.
"In the first half of the year, our focus was on progressing the disposal of the Australian business and we are pleased to have completed the disposal in September," said Interim Chair Keith Sadler.
"The group's strategy is to pursue an acquisition and we intend to identify a business with the prospects of being profitable and cash generative. We have started the process of identifying such a business and look forward to updating the market as appropriate," Sadler added.
Shares in Hawkwing were up 13% at 1.47 pence on Thursday in London.
By Dayo Laniyan; [email protected]
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