LONDON (Alliance News) - AIM-listed Ambrian PLC, which sources and supplies industrial metals and minerals, on Wednesday said it encountered "challenging conditions" in the commodities sector in 2015, which translated into reduced volumes traded in its metals activities combined with a sharp drop in the premiums for most of the products it trades.
"We have taken steps to ensure that our service-like margin based business model going forward is resilient," Non-Executive Chairman Robert Adair said in a statement.
"Our cement plant in Mozambique was commissioned in October 2015, leading to commercial sales of cement shortly before year-end and this resulted in a positive contribution to the group for the year. Our focus will be to secure market share without being disruptive in an increasing competitive environment and the uncertain economic situation currently prevailing in the country," Adair said.
The chairman's comments came as Ambrian reported a pretax loss of USD9.4 million in 2015, versus a pretax profit of USD1.1 million in 2014, citing challenging conditions in metals marketing, with revenue falling to USD1.9 million from USD2.9 million.
Shares in Ambrian were down 5.7% at 3.30 pence Wednesday.
By Samuel Agini; samagini@alliancenews.com; @samuelagini
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