26th Mar 2014 11:38
LONDON (Alliance News) - Leaf Clean Energy Co Wednesday said it swung to a pretax loss in its first-half and noted that Crystal Amber Fund has withdrawn its calls for a general meeting after two Board members resigned.
The clean energy resources investment company posted a pretax loss of USD1.7 million for the six months ended December 31 compared to a pretax profit of USD2.0 million the previous year.
The company noted that its non-executive Chairman Peter Tom and Chief Executive Bran Keogh have resigned from the company with effect from May 31 and Stephen Coe and Mark Lerdal will be appointed as directors of the Company with effect from April 1.
As a result of the resignations, Crystal Amber Fund, which has a 10% stake in Leaf Clean, announced that it has withdrawn its requisition for Leaf to hold an extraordinary general meeting to change the board and the investment strategy.
Earlier in March, Crystal Amber called for the the company to be placed in an orderly run-off mode, and that its Chief Executive Keogh should stand down stating that it has concerns over Leaf's use of discounted future cash flow forecasts to value businesses that are not currently cash generative, and it said it is baffled by the scale of running costs at Leaf, given that all but three of Leaf's investments are passive.
In response, Leaf said in January that it is attempting to deal with the current discount to its NAV and it continues to be focused on cost reduction.
The company said on Wednesday that its net gains on investments at fair value through profit or loss during its first-half fell over 90% to USD358,000 from USD4.0 million the previous year as clean energy markets struggled during 2013.
Leaf Clean said global clean energy investment fell 11% to USD254 billion through 2013 due to a major pullback in European investment, where uncertainty surrounded renewable energy subsidies in key countries.
The company also noted that whilst it achieved a higher interest income on investments at fair value through profit or loss of USD751,000 rather than USD588,000, this was offset by an increase in administrative expenses to USD2.8 million from USD2.7 million the previous year.
Leaf Clean said that although the renewable electricity market, in the US particularly, is improving, fundraising for investee companies from venture capital and private equity investors remains very challenging.
The company said it is now continuing to focus on cost reductions for the upcoming year, after reducing director costs 73% during the period.
Leaf Clean shares were down 0.7% to 54.10 pence Wednesday.
By Tom McIvor; [email protected]; @TomMcIvor1
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