(Alliance News) - Glasgow-based SpaceandPeople PLC on Friday said its loss widened in the first half of 2020 following mass booking cancellations due to Covid-19.
The retail promotional and brand experience specialist posted a pretax loss for the first half ended June 30 of GBP2.1 million, widening from just GBP14,000 a year prior.
Revenue dropped by two-thirds to GBP1.1 million from GBP3.8 million a year before.
Chief Executive Nancy Cullen said: "During lockdown, almost all of our activities had to stop and as a result, all bookings for that period were cancelled or postponed. For three months, we recorded virtually no revenue.
"Additionally, for revenue that had already been recognised for confirmed bookings, significant credits had to be raised and provisions of GBP464,000 made in relation to possible cancellations of existing promotional bookings in the UK. This led to a substantial decrease in revenue across the Group and significant losses in the first half of 2020."
SpaceandPeople won't pay an interim dividend, having paid no final dividend for 2019. The company said it will reintroduce dividends "as soon as it is prudent for us to do so".
Going forward, Cullen said: "Our industry is slowly recovering, but is by no means back to normal. When we forecast the outlook for our business earlier this year, we assumed scenarios where there were further lockdowns. Although this would be extremely unwelcome news for us, we are confident that we will be able to trade through such events and emerge in a position to take advantage of the recovery."
SpaceandPeople shares were down 14% at 4.00 pence each in London on Friday midday. The stock has lost two thirds of its value since the start of 2020.
By Greg Roxburgh; gregroxburgh@alliancenews.com
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SpaceandPeople (SAL)