LONDON (Alliance News) - Financial information firm ADVFN PLC said Thursday its pretax loss narrowed for the first half of its financial year, due to lower administrative costs, as it said it has seen changing patterns of revenue generation and has "had to embrace aggressively" programmatic advertising platforms
In the statement, ADVFN said it made a GBP471,000 pretax loss in the six months ended December 31, 2015, compared with a GBP590,000 pretax loss in the corresponding period of the prior year.
Revenue fell to GBP4.3 million from GBP4.8 million, resulting in gross profit decreasing to GBP3.7 million from GBP4.0 million after including cost of sales.
However, the company said it has brought down its overheads "significantly" and administrative costs were down at GBP4.2 million from GBP4.7 million, which meant both operating loss and pretax loss narrowed.
"More cost cutting benefits have been felt in the new calendar year as contract and headcount reduction periods have passed with January and February showing good levels of operational performance. This has been helped by a pickup in advertising sales," the company said in the statement.
ADVFN added it was aiming "to build upon the good start seen during January and February" continuing into its second half.
"2015 was a tumultuous year for ADVFN. An unexpected attack to wrest control from your board during the year was extremely disruptive and very costly. We were pleased to see the matter conclude satisfactorily from the company's perspective through the intervention of the financial conduct authority," said Chief Executive Clem Chambers.
"Notwithstanding this, the business has subsequently held up well during a period of radical change and months of distraction and dislocation earlier," Chambers added.
Shares in ADVFN were untraded on Thursday, having last traded at 27.00 pence.
By Hannah Boland; hannahboland@alliancenews.com; @Hannaheboland
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ADVFN (AFN)