15th Oct 2015 09:07
LONDON (Alliance News) - Pure Wafer PLC Thursday said its pretax profit fell in the last financial year following the major fire at its Swansea facility in 2014, but said it will return between 140.0 to 145.0 pence per share to shareholders following the pay-out from the insurance company.
The provider of silicon wafer reclaim services reported a fall in profit to USD1.4 million in the financial year ended June 30, from the USD2.1 million profit made a year earlier despite revenue experiencing a tiny lift to USD15.4 million from USD15.2 million.
Profit fell as a result of administrative expenses rising to USD4.2 million from USD3.5 million, which included USD310,000 of exceptional items related to redundancy payments and costs related to the fire at its Swansea plant in the period that were not booked in the previous year.
"It was a significant relief to learn that all staff present at the facility when the fire broke out were successfully evacuated with no reported injuries. Up until the point of the fire on December 21, 2014, Swansea was trading in line with market expectations," it said.
That fire, which started outside of the plant, was caused by an electrical fault with a heating element contained within a chemical storage tank. The insurance company agreed to pay-out over the fire and the company decided not to reinstate the Swansea facility due to the cost and amount of work needed to get the facility back up and running.
Pure Wafer disposed of the Swansea facility in August, which it called an "excellent outcome" for the company.
More importantly, the company suspended its dividend after the fire but once the insurance company agreed to pay-out said it would return surplus funds to shareholders once the company's liabilities had been settled.
"The company will make a further announcement in the near future on the quantum and arrangements for returning surplus funds to shareholders. Based upon current information, the board estimates the surplus from the insurance settlement to be in the region of 140p to 145p per share," said Pure Wafer.
Due to the fire, all of its operations were moved and handled by its Prescott site in Arizona, in the US, following the fire.
"I would like to emphasise that the company's facility in Prescott, Arizona has continued to operate successfully and is unaffected by the events in Swansea. Indeed the company continues to make further investment in this facility, which was responsible for approximately 44% of group turnover in the period before the fire," said Pure Wafer.
"Following the Swansea fire a few customers have proceeded with the qualification of Prescott so that production can be switched. Due to the comprehensive and time consuming nature of qualification processes the incremental volume did not materialise until the end of the year," it added.
Pure Wafer shares were trading up 1.2% to 170.04 pence per share on Thursday morning.
By Joshua Warner; [email protected]; @JoshAlliance
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