30th Oct 2014 10:46
LONDON (Alliance News) - J Smart & Co PLC Thursday reported a higher pretax profit for its last financial year as it booked a smaller unrealised deficit in revalued property, but excluding that, its profit fell as last year's figure was buoyed by profits on property sales.
The construction contractor reported a GBP1.2 million pretax profit for the year to July 31, up from GBP533,000 a year earlier, as it booked a GBP782,000 unrealised deficit on revalued property, down from a GBP3.1 million deficit a year earlier.
Excluding the deficits on the revalued property, underlying pretax profit was GBP1.7 million, down from GBP3.7 million in the prior year. It booked a GBP1.3 million profit from the sale of its listed stock market investment portfolio in the most recent year, compared with a GBP2.2 million profit from property sales in the prior year.
On a trading basis, revenue rose to GBP24.8 million, from GBP20.6 million, as construction activities it carried out, including private residential sales, increased by 20%. Disregarding private residential sales, construction activities decreased by 26%.
"As forecast, turnover in contracting was substantially less than last year and a loss was again sustained. Private residential sales were well up on last year. Sales in precast concrete manufacture increased and the loss was reduced," it said in a statement.
Looking ahead, it said work in hand in contracting is substantially more than at this time last year, albeit obtained at highly competitive rates, while private residential sales will be considerably less than last year.
"Phase 1 of our industrial development at South Gyle, Edinburgh is now complete and has current interest. Property values continue to hold up, however should we fail to reduce the rental voids in our office properties further write downs in value will be inevitable," it added.
It will pay a final dividend of 2.04 pence for its last financial year, bringing the total for the year to 2.96p, up from 2.93p in the previous year.
J Smart shares were up 4.6% at 90.96 pence Thursday morning.
By Steve McGrath; [email protected]; @stevemcgrath1
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