LONDON (Alliance News) - GYG PLC on Thursday expressed confidence for the year ahead despite swinging to loss in 2018.
GYG stands for Global Yachting Group. The company provides painting, supply and maintenance services to owners of superyachts.
GYG swung to a pretax loss of EUR4.6 million in 2018 compared to the EUR524,000 profit reported a year earlier, as revenue dropped by a sharp 28% to EUR45.0 million from EUR62.6 million.
The results were hurt by weak performance in the company's Coating division, where revenue declined by 34% to EUR35.5 million from EUR53.7 million the year before. This was due to a very soft Refit market and fewer project wins in the New Build segment. Both Refit and New Build are units within the Coating division.
Meanwhile, revenue in the Supply division rose by 6.7% to EUR9.5 million from EUR8.9 million.
Looking ahead, GYG said its current trading is in line with expectations after an encouraging start to the year. GYG said it had a record order book as at March 31 of EUR38.8 million, EUR28.5 million ahead of the same date a year ago.
"Despite 2018 being a very difficult year for the group and the wider market, we have made significant progress internally through the fourth quarter 2018 following our focus on improving the business and the way in which we operate," said Chief Executive Remy Millott.
"The strong order book position at this stage in the year and the exciting opportunites that we are being presented with, gives the board confidence for the future where we are focused on delivering long term shareholder value," added Millott.
GYG shares were trading 0.4% lower on Thursday at 59.76 pence each.