LONDON (Alliance News) - Argo Group Ltd, an AIM-listed investment manager, Tuesday said it swung to a pretax loss in 2014.
"Argo continues to methodically work out its private equity assets in order to conclude a satisfactory liquidity event and extract maximum value for the investors. In a slowly recovering global environment this process requires patience and it is taking substantial effort and time but at the end management's perseverance will produce results," Chief Executive Kyriakos Rialas said in a statement.
The company swung to a pretax loss of USD2.0 million in 2014, compared with a pretax profit of USD2.1 million in 2013, as revenue fell to USD7.5 million from USD8.8 million on lower management fees. Bad debts increased to USD4.1 million from USD2.3 million.
The company reported an unrealised loss of USD985,000 was booked on investments, compared with an unrealised gain of USD942,000 in the prior year. With employee numbers down by 11 to 27, employee cots fell to USD2.9 million from USD3.5 million.
Net assets fell to USD26.0 million from USD28.5 million.
Argo Group did not pay a dividend for 2014, whereas it paid a 2.1 cents dividend for the prior year.
Argo Group shares were up 3.5% at 7.50 pence on Tuesday morning.
By Samuel Agini; samagini@alliancenews.com; @samuelagini
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Argo Group (ARGO)