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(Alliance News) - Accesso Technology Group PLC on Wednesday swung to a loss for 2019 due to a large impairment charge and lower-than-anticipated new customer wins.
The company, which provides software solutions to the leisure and entertainment markets, said that coronavirus was impacting its transactional-based revenue.
As a result, Accesso has undertaken immediate cost-savings measures, it said. These include mandatory salary reductions across all US staff and voluntary salary reductions for non-US based staff, elimination of discretionary expenses, and suspension of matching contribution to the 401K pension program for US-based staff.
"Should the impacts from Covid-19 extend into the European and North American summers, an extension of these measures along with additional actions will be required," Accesso warned.
The company also refrained from providing a definitive trading outlook for the 2020 due to the "extreme fluidity of this situation".
Accesso shares were down 22% at 125.00 pence each in London on Wednesday at midday, having dropped to 82.51p at the open.
For 2019, the company reported a pretax loss of USD57.6 million versus USD4.2 million profit in 2018, mainly due to a non-cash asset impairment charge of USD53.6 million against the carrying value of goodwill, acquired intangibles and development costs related to past acquisitions.
Revenue was USD117.2 million, down 1.2% from USD118.7 million and below the company's estimates, due to lower-than-expected new customer wins and a reduction in non-repeatable revenue recognized in 2019.
Cash earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation - the company's principal operating metric - fell 48% to USD7.1 million from USD13.7 million due to the reduced revenue and continued investment in product development and systems integration along with higher overheads.
For 2020, Accesso plans to focus on building its recurring revenue base and supporting its customers through the Covid-19 situation.
By Tapan Panchal; tapanpanchal@alliancenews.com
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