(Alliance News) - Byotrol PLC on Wednesday reported a sharp decline in interim revenue and profit, which resulted in a fall in its share price.
Shares in the infection prevention and control company were down 16% at 4.22 pence each on Wednesday afternoon in London.
The Manchester, England based firm recorded a pretax loss of GBP141,000 in the six months to September 30, swinging from a profit of GBP1.0 million a year before.
This was a consequence of interim revenue falling to GBP3.2 million, more than halved from the GBP6.7 million recorded a year prior.
The company explained this with the first half of the year being a challenge for product sales due to unexpectedly extended lockdowns, office closures and pricing pressures.
Brexit also presented a challenge, because it increased the amount of administration required to sell the company's product in the EU.
Moreover, the UK government decided to move away from a lot of the EU's regulatory regime on chemicals. This led to the company having to re-do regulatory approvals for the UK, based on a new, slightly different to expectations, regime.
Additionally, the company noted that half-year revenue and profit showed that it is "substantially" underinvested in consumer product sales. It is now taking steps to address this.
Byotrol also expressed concerns about the potential negative impact of full and partial lockdowns on the demand for consumables in the future.
Especially, due to the current uncertainty introduced by the new Omicron variant of Covid.
Nonetheless, the company still said it expects to be both profitable and cash generative in the second half of the year and maintained it is highly confident in medium and long-term growth.
"The group remains substantially ahead of the pre-Covid period in sales and profits and we expect that performance to endure," Non-Executive Chair John Langlands said.
By Abby Amoakuh; abbyamoakuh@alliancenews.com
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Byotrol (BYOT)