LONDON (Alliance News) - New Trend Lifestyle Group PLC Wednesday reported a narrowed pretax loss in the first half of 2015 as it improves its cost base, but revenue fell in a tough trading environment hit by a slowdown in the Singaporean housing market.
The Singapore-based feng shui products and services group said that its pretax loss in the six months to June 30 narrowed to SGD594,000 from SGD863,000 the year before, although revenue fell 15.2% to SGD3.9 million from SGD4.6 million.
New Trend said that its cost reduction programme implemented earlier in the year helped to improve losses, but that trading conditions continued to be poor due to measures by the Singaporean government to "cool the local economy". This led to a slowdown in the housing market and therefore in the demand from householders for feng shui products and services traditionally associated with moving house.
"The company continues to be faced with very difficult trading conditions in Singapore and, despite the almost complete curtailment of further investment in China, NTLG continues to operate at an overall loss. A rationalisation programme, especially of overheads, was announced earlier in the year and is now well in place and designed to restore profitability," Chairman Robert Goddard said in a statement.
New Trend said is expects to return to profitability by the end of 2015.
Shares in New Trend last traded at 0.5 pence but were untraded on Wednesday.
By Karolina Kaminska; karolinakaminska@alliancenews.com @KarolinaAllNews
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