The following is a round-up of earnings and trading updates by London-listed companies, issued on Monday and not separately reported by Alliance News:
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Brand Architekts Group PLC - London-based beauty sector challenger brand business - Reports revenue in the six months to December 31 fell to £8.7 million from £10.6 million the year prior. Pretax loss narrowed to £800,000 from £1.8 million. Basic loss per share totalled 2.6 pence compared to 6.1p. Explains sales fall was driven by a softening in the self-tan category and a reduction in discontinued brand sales. Also notes the reduction in revenue reflects the planned strategy to exit underperforming and less profitable brands and focus on fewer, bigger, margin accretive brands. Says trading conditions remain ‘challenging.’
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Goldplat PLC - London-based gold miner and producer - Says revenue in the six months to December 31 was £37.4 million, jumping from £20.6 million the year prior. But pretax profit fell to £1.6 million from £2.5 million as cost of sales near doubled to £32.9 million from £16.7 million. Diluted earnings per share decreased to 0.70p from 1.02p. Says revenue at Ghanaian recovery operations more than doubled while the South African operations posted a 9% fall.
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Leeds Group PLC - West Yorkshire, England-based textile manufacturing company - Enters loan agreement for €2.0 million with Bronsstadet AB, a company controlled by Peter Gyllenhammar, a substantial shareholder, and CA Fastigheter AB, a company controlled by Johan Claesson, a non-executive director. Explains this will be used as a bridge loan to pay in full a loan guarantee to KSK Bank of €1.1 million and withholding tax of €0.8 million. Further, expects sale of Hemmers to complete on Tuesday.
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Supernova Digital Assets PLC - looks to identify investment and business building opportunities in the Solana and cryptocurrency ecosystem - Reports pretax loss in year to October 31 of £7.0 million, widened from £2.0 million loss the year prior. No revenue. Sees loss on disposal of investments of £3.8 million compared to zero the year before. Diluted loss per share mounts to 0.58 pence from 0.16p. During the year, decided to focus on the Solana cryptocurrency ecosystem. Believes there are considerable value accretive opportunities there.
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Henry Boot PLC - Sheffield, England-based property developer - Revenue in the year to December 31 rises to £359.4 million from £341.1 million. Pretax profit falls 18% to £37.3 million from £45.6 million. Raises final dividend 10% to 4.40 pence per share from 4.00p, total dividend amounts to 7.33p, up from 6.66p. Says planning uncertainties and delays continue to be problem. Chief Executive Tim Roberts says: ‘We are not immune from the challenges that the UK economy presents to the near-term trading environment and as previously reported, we expect a lag in performance in the year ahead. However, the outlook for both inflation and interest rates is improving and it’s beginning to feel as though the UK economy has turned a corner, with recent reductions in mortgage rates also pointing towards a hopefully brighter future.’
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RTC Group PLC - London-based recruitment company - Revenue in the year to December 31 rises to £98.8 million from £71.9 million. Swings to pretax profit of £2.5 million from loss of £455,000. Net asset value per share increases to 54 pence from 41p, pays final dividend of 4.5p compared to zero the year prior, takes total payout to 5.5p versus zero. Chair & Chief Executive Andy Pendlebury says: ‘All subsidiary businesses performed exceptionally well which, given the difficulties being faced by many companies across the recruitment sector, is sound reassurance for our shareholders that our business model delivers sustainable revenue generation and profit capture across each of our market sectors.’
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Ocean Harvest Technology Group PLC - Theale, England-headquartered producer of seaweed-based ingredients for animal feed - Revenue increases to £3.4 million from £3.0 million. But pretax loss widens to £3.5 million from £2.9 million reflecting £763,000 initial public offering costs. Describes outlook for 2024 as solid with sales growth expected from a number of channels.
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Lexington Gold Ltd - gold exploration and development company - Provides operational update on its drill programmes at both the Jennings-Pioneer project in the US and the Bothaville project in South Africa. States diamond drilling activities at Jennings-Pioneer have started and are expected to take around a month to complete. The drill programme is targeting gold mineralisation adjacent to the Barite Hill Main open pit. In South Africa, says drilling activities have been successfully completed for a total of 2,355m comprising a total of four mother holes and five deflections. Initial observations indicate the potential presence of mineralisation in three of the mother holes, company says.
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Gore Street Energy Storage Fund PLC - investor in utility-scale energy storage projects - Increases its Irish asset base by buying the remaining 49% in two existing Irish projects alongside the addition of Project Mucklagh, a 75 megawatt asset in the Republic of Ireland. The total consideration for the deals was settled by the issue of 9.7 shares at 111.0 pence each. Two projects involved are Porterstown, a 90MW asset, and Kilmannock, a 120MW construction asset.
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Oriole Resources PLC - Gold and base metal explorer focused on West Africa - Provides update for 82%-owned Bibemi orogenic gold project in Cameroon. Says further interpretation of geophysics data from mineral resource estimate has identified eight point targets and six elongated targets across the survey area. Says the elongated targets are parallel to the known shear zones and largely represent untested zones along-strike of known mineralisation trends. A further 2,500 metres in 25 holes has been planned largely to test two areas. Mobilisation of the drilling equipment is currently underway and phase 5 diamond drilling programme is scheduled to commence in the second quarter of 2024.
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