LONDON (Alliance News) - Electrical engineering firm PipeHawk PLC said Friday its half year loss narrowed on cost cuts despite revenue falling amid temporarily stuttering order flow as international business continues to grow.
For the six months ended December 31, pretax loss narrowed to GBP118,000 from GBP180,000 the year prior. This was despite revenue falling to GBP2.3 million from GBP3.0 million the year before.
Profit performance was helped by a fall in costs as well as profit from the disposal of a joint venture stake. Costs fell to GBP2.5 million from GBP3.1 million the year before and PipeHawk booked a GBP143,000 gain on the disposal. This was after it sold its 28.4% stake in SUMO Ltd.
PipeHawk does not pay a dividend.
"This has been a most peculiar six months for all divisions of the group," PipeHawk Chairman Gordon Watt said, "the level of enquiries and indications that we would be awarded orders has never been higher, however the orders, whilst not going away, simply did not happen during the period with consequent effect on underutilisation of staff - and hence profitability."
Watt emphasised the effect of the lower revenue was offset by "careful control of costs and overheads."
"Nevertheless," Watt added, "since the period end the orders have flowed in and we are now extremely busy."
"For PipeHawk Technology challenging trading conditions in the UK construction & utilities sectors contributed to GPR sales performing below expectation through the second half of 2017, however the lack of growth in the UK was not echoed in other markets and our international sales continue to show growth particularly on the back of our pre-Brexit push into Middle East & Asian markets," Watt explained. "With new opportunities also beginning to show promise in South America, we look forward to our international growth continuing through 2018."
Shares in PipeHawk were 3.1% higher at 3.35 pence on Friday.
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