29th Apr 2014 16:40
LONDON (Alliance News) - Pires Investments PLC Tuesday said it swung to a loss in its last financial year, mainly due to an exceptional credit that it booked in the previous year related to its company voluntary arrangement.
The company became an investing company following the voluntary arrangement, and made its first investment early this year when it invested in newly-listed Rame Energy PLC. Rame, a UK-based specialist energy producer with a strong presence in Latin America, in particular Chile, was admitted to trading on AIM earlier this month.
Pires Investments, which invests in the resources and energy sectors, posted a pretax loss of GBP352,634 for the year to end-October, 2013, compared with a profit of GBP1.2 million a year earlier. It booked a loss on investments held at fair value of GBP45,939 and the previous year's results were boosted by a GBP1.5 million exceptional credit arising from the company voluntary arrangement.
Revenue crept to GBP29,377, up from GBP29,335, as investment income rose to GBP4,327 , from just GBP835 a year earlier.
Pires' initial investment in Rame Energy was a GBP410,000 convertible loan note which was convertible at a minimum 25% discount to the IPO placing price.
Pires said it believes that its investment in Rame will set the pattern for its future investment.
"Our objective is to provide capital at the pre-IPO stage to well-established companies that are seeking to come to the market in the near term and where the board believes that the company's funding and assistance can hasten this process," Chairman Peter Redmond said in a statement.
"Although we are looking at other resource and energy projects currently, we are also reviewing opportunities outside of this sector," he added.
Financially, the firm said it has cash resources of GBP1.2 million down slightly from GBP1.3 million
However, looking ahead, Pires said it remains "mindful" of the need to restrain costs and generate additional income streams.
The stock last traded at 0.056 pence.
By Anthony Tshibangu; [email protected];
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