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(Alliance News) - Versarien PLC on Thursday reported a widened first-half loss as the pandemic hurt sales from both of its businesses.
Shares in the advanced engineering materials firm were down 11% in London on Thursday at 57.40 pence each.
In the six months to September 30, Versarien's pretax loss widened to GBP4.3 million from GBP2.1 million.
Revenue slipped to GBP3.1 million from GBP4.4 million. The firm blamed the pandemic for hurting sales in both of its mature businesses.
Graphene & Plastic Products revenue fell 11% to GBP1.7 million from GBP1.9 million, while Hard Wear & Metallic Products revenue dropped 44% to GBP1.4 million from GBP2.5 million.
Chief Executive Neill Ricketts said: "Despite the challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic, I am pleased with the level at which Versarien has continued to operate and particularly with the progress achieved within the graphene businesses where we have commenced the sale of our graphene enhanced face masks, as well as making further progress with a number of our collaborative projects."
"Following the launch of our face masks, we are excited that testing carried out by Ankara University has demonstrated that our hybrid graphene nanomaterials have the potential to provide protection from Covid-19 in real-world applications, including clothing and surface treatments. Prototypes for the second generation face masks have also been tested against SARS-CoV-2 and demonstrated a 99.92% resistance to the virus," Ricketts added.
He continued: "We remain both determined and confident in meeting our objective of being the leading global graphene technology business and we look forward to making significant further commercial progress in 2021."
By Paul McGowan; paulmcgowan@alliancenews.com
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