30th Sep 2013 13:25
LONDON (Alliance News) - Petards Group PLC, a security and surveillance systems company, said Monday that it would need to find additional working capital in order to grow as it saw reduced revenues and swung into a pretax loss.
For the half-year ended June 30 the company posted revenues of GBP3.6 million, down from GBP4.7 million in the previous year. It swung into a pretax loss of GBP338,000, after recording a pretax profit of GBP22,000 for the comparable period.
The company said that it was currently reviewing options for raising additional equity and debt in order to sustain and grow the business. It would also consider forming strategic alliances with financially stronger partners, Petards said, but it would be reluctant to do so at this stage in its development.
Orders had been slow, Petards said, but it had seen signs that order intake will improve in the second-half. However, 2014 will see the most benefit of this trend, said the firm.
Difficult trading conditions for the first-half had caused order intake to fall across most areas of the company's business, falling below expectations due to delays, the company said. Budgetary constraints within law enforcement agencies affected orders for its emergency services products. Reduction in revenues in the company's defence products had been partially offset by strong demand for communication systems from the UK Ministry of Defence.
Shares in Petards were trading down 8% at 11.52 pence Monday afternoon.
By Hana Stewart-Smith; [email protected]; @HanaSSAllNews
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