Earthport Share News (EPO)

Surfers' fashion label Hot Tuna blamed a lack of funds to make clothes and tough retail conditions for a sharp fall in revenues in 2009.Revenues fell to £271,000 from £619,000 the previous year, though pre-tax losses narrowed to £543,000 from £688,000. The company also announced that it raised £1.5m through an equity placing with new and existing investors including the directors to increase production.Shares in civil engineering consultant Hyder jumped after it said adjusted profit before tax for the year ending 31 March 2010 is expected to be ahead of both market expectations and the prior year. 'With over 70% of revenues and c.80% of operating profits derived from overseas, we are confident of strong performance in the year ahead,' the company said.Upmarket department store Liberty performed well in the recession, seeing pre-tax losses in the year to December 31 narrow to £4.5m from £7m the previous year as revenues climbed to £59.6m from £49.9m.'Liberty has demonstrated its ability to buck economic and retail trends by returning to profitability during one of the worst downturns in recent retail history,' said Geoffroy de La Bourdonnaye, chief executive of the company, whose store is based in London's West End.Elsewhere in the world of upmarket companies, specialist and luxury travel group Western & Oriental raised nearly £2m through a placing to fund marketing initiatives for its companies and to improve its balance sheet and working capital position. The company added that like-for-like sales in the five weeks to February 28 have been ahead of expectations.Altona Energy said it will raise £3m via a share placing to fund it for 18 months while it completes a bankable feasibility study for the Arckaringa project in Australia. Global payments provider Earthport conceded its results for the second half of 2009 were 'below the levels of expectation within the group and the capacity that the platform is capable of delivering.'The loss before tax in 2009 expanded to £3.61m from a loss of £2.16m the year before on revenue that grew to £0.97m from £0.75m in 2008. Most of the increase in revenue was due to increasing transactional volumes, with the remainder due to an increase in new client integrations. Transactions for the period rose by 28.2%.Laser eye surgery system group CustomVis says the low sales performance in the third quarter of the financial year has placed considerable pressure on the cashflow of the company. The directors are currently pursuing various options including the option to raise additional working capital. The group made a profit of £1.1m for the six months ended December 2009 including a big currency gain. Sales revenue fell 16% to £761,000. We are witnessing a sharp increase in marketing efforts by our excimer laser competitors. We are also continuing to see negative marketing directed towards us by anonymous parties assumed by the directors to be associated with the July 2009 EGM, which is having an adverse effect on our sales performance, it added.Oak, the developer of the £350m YES! Project leisure-based resort in South Yorkshire, returned to profits of £327,000 in the year to October. Publisher Touch's turnover in 2009 slumped 25% to £4.7m, causing a loss for the year of £1.6m.Digital services group cScape swung back into an interim profit of £183,000 (2008 - a loss of £331k) including £250,000 of gains on the disposal of ITM Graphics Ltd in November Revenues of £2.5m were down from £3.46m. "We expect cScape's business to improve in the second half as the economy comes out of recession and the demand for SharePoint, particularly in the private sector, increases," it added.