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LONDON (Alliance News) - SpaceandPeople PLC said Tuesday its trading in the fourth quarter of the year was "not as strong as had been anticipated" due to the well-documented challenges facing the UK high street.
As a result, the retail, promotional and brand experience specialist expects to report a pretax loss of GBP100,000 for 2018, versus a GBP1.2 million profit a year ago, and make a big cut to its annual dividend.
The company's board has also taken the decision to write off the carrying value of the goodwill in relation to SpaceandPeople India Pvt Ltd of GBP240,000.
"The Indian business continues to trade at expected levels, however, the level of profitability cannot support the carrying value of this goodwill at the moment," the firm explained.
Despite the difficulties in 2018, the company said it is confident that "new initiatives, cost cuts and anticipated new business wins" will return the group to growth in 2019.
SpaceandPeople said it expects to propose a final dividend of 0.5 pence per share. In 2017, the firm paid a final dividend of 1.5p, which was the total payout for the year. SpaceandPeople paid no interim dividend for 2018, so the 0.5p final dividend will be the total payment for the year, a cut of two thirds.
SpaceandPeople will publish its annual results on March 25.
SpaceandPeople shares were trading down 12% at 15.00p each on Tuesday.