LONDON (Alliance News) - Frontier IP Group PLC Wednesday said it expects further progress over its second half, as it reported a swing to a pretax profit for its first half, boosted by a 31% rise in the fair value of its portfolio.
The intellectual property company reported a pretax profit of GBP549,000 for the half year to end-December, swung from a pretax loss of GBP242,000 the year before, as a result of a higher unrealised profit on the revaluation of investments of GBP883,000, up from GBP160,000.
Frontier said it had seen good progress in a number of its portfolio companies in the half-year.
Fundraising at Pulsiv Solar Ltd enabled it to speed up the development of its solar inverter technology, and the latest prototype of this technology is "well-advanced."
Following the half year end, the company completed a further fundraising in Nandi Proteins Ltd. Nandi is working to scale up its technology to meet potential demand from food companies, driven by legislative pressure for companies to reformulate their products to reduce sugar, fat and additives.
Frontier reiterated that it expects to undertake an equity placing in its second half, which will provide it with ongoing working capital.
"I am pleased to report that we made excellent progress over the first half of the financial year. We continued to actively pursue the growth of our portfolio and this was reflected in a 31% increase in the fair value of our portfolio compared to 30 June 2015 and in a 138% increase compared to 31 December 2014," said Chairman Andrew Richmond in a statement.
Shares in Frontier were untraded Wednesday morning. They last closed at 20.95 pence.
By Hana Stewart-Smith; hanassmith@alliancenews.com; @HanaSSAllNews
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Frontier Ip (FIPP)