Ashley House FY10 Pretax Profit Down 69% On Project Delays

6th Jul 2010 09:09

LONDON (Dow Jones)--U.K. primary care infrastructure company Ashley House PLC (ASH.LN) Tuesday posted a 69% fall in fiscal-year pretax profit, citing a difficult year characterized by "exceptional delays" to projects due to political uncertainty and budget concerns. The company, which designs and builds clinics and provides property services to doctors, said the factors which caused profit to fall in the 2010 fiscal year shouldn't be repeated next year. For the year ended April 30, Ashley House posted pretax profit of GBP1.7 million compared with GBP5.5 million a year earlier. Revenue rose to GBP24.9 million from GBP23.8 million and the firm announced a final dividend of 3 pence a share, taking the total flat with the 4 pence declared in the fiscal 2009. Ashley House said it expects a significant number of schemes to reach financial close in the 2011 fiscal year, including three from the pipeline of Sapphire and one from Strategic Partnership Solutions--the two companies it acquired in November and May respectively. It also anticipates profit on the schemes it was unable to sell to its property partner AH Medical Properties PLC (AHMP.PM) at the end of the fiscal year. -By Rachael Gormley, Dow Jones Newswires; 44-20-7842-9308; [email protected] (END) Dow Jones Newswires July 06, 2010 04:09 ET (08:09 GMT)