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(Alliance News) - Versarien PLC on Thursday said its loss widened in the first half of its current financial year amid a weak performance from the Graphene & Plastic Products business.
The engineering materials company's pretax loss widened to GBP2.1 million in the six months to the end of September from GBP732,000 loss a year earlier, as revenue dropped by 16% to GBP4.4 million from GBP5.2 million.
Versarien explained it has incurred exceptional costs in the period of GBP333,000, which mostly related to expansion into China and the US.
By division, the Graphene & Plastic Products unit delivered a 34% reduction in revenue to GBP1.9 million, while revenue in the Hard Wear & Metallic Products advanced by 3.7% to GBP2.5 million.
"The focus remains on our graphene commercialisation strategy and we are now actively working on 40 mainstream projects with our commercial partners, have a further 24 projects underway and active research ongoing on another 17. We continue to focus on the projects most likely to produce near-term significant revenue streams," said Chief Executive Neill Ricketts.
Versarien shares were trading 3.6% lower in London on Thursday at 80.00 pence each.
By Evelina Grecenko; evelinagrecenko@alliancenews.com
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