C21.L Share News (C21)

LONDON (Alliance News) - 21st Century Technology PLC said on Wednesday that it achieved "significant" progress over the year, as loss narrowed sharply on completed consolidating operations programme.

The closed-circuit television provider posted a pretax loss of GBP364,000 for 2017, significantly narrowed from GBP2.3 million it made the prior year. This was after administrative expenses reduced to GBP5.3 million from GBP7.0 million and reorganisation costs dropped to GBP88,000 compared with GBP534,000 in 2016.

The results were helped by new head office launch in January, which delivered GBP1.4 million savings. This was a part of the group's cost base restructuring and centralisation programme.

Revenue rose slightly to GBP11.8 million from GBP11.6 million year-on-year, reflecting the change in business mix.

Fleet sales increased 8% to GBP7.5 million from GBP4.9 million, but were partly offset by passenger sales, which declined to GBP4.3 million from GBP4.7 million the year earlier.

Looking ahead, 21st Century Technology said it signed a contract with the UK fleet operator, worth GBP1.0 million, for the provision of safety systems engineering. The company said it has already started the installation programme and scheduled to complete the project within the current financial year.

"We've made enormous progress in the last year in our strategy to return the Group to profitability," said 21st Century Technology Chief Executive Officer Russ Singleton. "Having started the year with a far stronger order book than last year, I expect our progress to continue".

The stock was trading 1.7% higher at 3.00 pence per share on Wednesday.