LONDON (Alliance News) - Arden Partners PLC Thursday said its pretax loss widened in the first half, citing the "extremely slow" delivery of its corporate pipeline of transactions due to uncertainty caused by the UK's General Election in May.
In a statement, the institutional stockbroker said it made a GBP1.2 million pretax loss in the six months ended April 30, compared with a GBP474,000 pretax loss in the corresponding half the prior year. Revenue was down 22% at GBP2.7 million, and operating expenses were slightly lower. Arden did not pay an interim dividend, as was the case last year.
The company said the slowness experienced in corporate transactions was due to market uncertainty ahead of the May election, which resulted in a surprise majority victory for the Conservative Party. Revenue at Arden's equities division was in line with that generated last year at GBP1.3 million, including a GBP122,000 decline in the mark-to-market book values of some long term investments in the first half.
"We are encouraged by revenues booked to date in H2 and by the current levels of trading, particularly in the Corporate division. The mix and depth of mandated transactions on which we are now focussed, is in part reflective of our recruitment activities over the last 12 months and of the recent restructuring of our corporate finance area," Chief Executive James Reed-Daunter said in a statement.
"Market conditions depending, we expect at this stage, to produce a positive result in the second half," Reed-Daunter added.
Arden shares were down 17% at 35.00 pence on Thursday morning in London.
By Samuel Agini; samagini@alliancenews.com; @samuelagini
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