Light Science Tech Holdings PLC on Friday said it expects annual revenue to be below market expectations and its loss to widen, despite its strong sales pipeline.

Shares were down 14% at 3.66 pence each on Friday morning in London.

The Derbyshire, England-based agricultural lighting and monitoring systems provider said its sales pipeline of quoted work is over £60 million as of Friday.

Light Science said forward orders and contracts are worth £18 million. It added that the most important factor contributing to the strong sales pipeline is the ‘pressing need for food security and to grow more produce locally, sustainably and energy efficiently’.

The company also expected revenue for the financial year that ended on November 30 to have grown by 11%. Group sales were £7.4 million in financial 2021.

However, Light Science said the positive pipeline has been ‘negated by an elongation of the sales cycle, predominantly driven by input inflation experienced by growers which cannot currently be passed on to customers, leading to growers delaying capital expenditure’.

Additionally, it said gross margins at its Contract Electronics Manufacturing division have been diluted through the second half of the year, driven by significant price volatility in the global electronics component market.

Hence, for financial 2022, the company said it expects revenue to be about 13% below market expectations, and pretax loss is anticipated to be £850,000 higher than guidance. It recorded a pretax loss of £2.3 million for financial 2021.

In August, the company had said its pretax loss widened to £1.3 million for the six months ended on May 31, from £881,000 a year before, even as revenue rose 4.2% to £3.6 million from £3.4 million.

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