Grafenia warns of extremely tough market in interim results

8th Nov 2016 12:08

(ShareCast News) - Grafenia posted its unaudited interim results for the six months to 30 September on Tuesday, with turnover falling year-on-year to £5.14m from £5.28m.The AIM-traded company's EBITDA was also down, to £0.46m from £0.59m, while its operating loss before restructuring costs grew to £0.38m from £0.1m.Its loss before tax reached £0.41m, compared to £0.2m a year ago, while the losses per share were 0.56p, widening from 0.02p.The board of Grafenia posted no interim dividend, compared to the 0.25p payment made at the interim point last year.Its capital expenditure was down significantly, however, to £0.44m during the period from £1.09m, while total cash was up to £0.5m from £0.34m.Net cash was £0.2m."In our last update to the market on 14 October, we stated that trading had been challenging," said CEO Peter Gunning."After a good start to the month, trading in October ended below our internal budgets and did not reflect usual seasonality patterns."Gunning said in a typical year, Grafenia's results are usually weighted in favour of the second half and the board expected this to continue in the current financial year."Given the sporadic trading pattern of the first half, coupled with early trading in the second half and future economic uncertainty, we cannot forecast transactional print volumes with a high degree of certainty."As we expand our brand partner base, our aim is to grow more predictable revenues."Gunning explained that whilst the board is allocating more resources to its partner acquisition strategy and anticipated growing both its Nettl and printing.com brand partner networks, the company must remain cautious on the outlook for the second half of the year."If transactional print revenues continue to perform below our internal budgets, it is likely that our full year results will be significantly below market expectations."