28th Jul 2020 15:56
(Alliance News) - Quarto Group Inc on Tuesday reported a first half revenue decline, with falls of equal measure seen in its children and adult book categories.
In the six months to June 30, the book publisher posted revenue of USD46.8 million, down 17% annually from USD56.4 million.
Its pretax loss narrowed ever-so-slightly to USD4.0 million from USD4.1 million, however.
Distribution costs fell 17%, administrative expenses were down 8.6% and finance costs tumbled 46%.
"The drop in revenue due to the Covid-19 pandemic, has led us to initiate a number of cost management initiatives to tightly manage our cash flow. In what is our seasonally weak first six months, we managed to limit our operating loss and significantly reduce our debt," Chief Executive Chuk Kin Lau said.
Both its children and adult publishing arms had a 17% fall in revenue.
"The book trade market remains soft in both the US and UK markets as consumer confidence takes time to recover. As a result, the Group expects the trading environment in the second half of the year to remain challenging," Quarto said.
Quarto shares were untraded in London on Tuesday afternoon, last quoted at 52.00 pence each.
By Eric Cunha; [email protected]
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