Member Info for jange

Earlier this month the firm posted a rise in both revenue and profit for the year ended December 31st. Income was up from £22m to £25.9m year-on-year, while pre-tax profit climbed from £2.7m to £3m. Cash at the end of the period rose £0.5m to £2.95m. A final dividend of 6p was proposed, making 10.6p for the year, compared to 8.5p the previous year.

Virtually all the late stage opportunities are in the core segments of Banks, Corporate foreign exchange (FX), Retail FX and Processor relationships, where the group's sales function continues to focus. Judging by the negative share price reaction to the trading update, the market is inclined to see whether Earthport's dash for growth pays off.

The growth in the pipeline of potential clients continues to be rapid and encouraging, Earthport said. Of the 250 plus opportunities in the current pipeline, 46 are in later stages of the sales process; although the company would not be drawn on how many of these late-stage opportunities would be converted into contract wins, or when, it did say that if 50% of them were to contract and go live it would result in an estimated additional £3m of recurring revenue per annum.

Loss before and after taxation widened to £5.2m from £2.1m the year before. Cash at the end of 2011 stood at £10.9m, up from £6.5m a year earlier, after the company raised £10.6m from institutional investors in November 2011.

Administrative expenses rose 93.3% to £5.6m from £2.9m in the second half of the previous calendar year, due to the planned and continued build out of the Earthport team, across all areas, in order to prepare and drive forward opportunities in the pipeline

The number of transactions processed increased at a much faster pace, by 34.6% year-on-year. The higher growth in the number of transactions processed versus transaction related revenue was primarily due to the addition of domestic transfers as a product offering, which have a lower per transaction revenue but similar margins

Revenue for the second half of 2011 increased 5.3% to £1.39m from £1.32m at the interim stage the year before. Like most companies, Earthport prefers recurring revenues to lumpy one-off revenue wins, and was pleased to see recurring transaction related revenue grow 22.8% from a year earlier to £1.36m.

Losses more than doubled at Earthport in line with ballooning administration expenses as the cross-border payments company splurged on pursuing its quest for top line growth last year.

The decision not to pay a final dividend follows a similar decision to pass on making an interim payment. "Our financial resources over the next six months will be stretched and it may be necessary to delay some drilling projects and the frac in Ukraine until later in the year," the group admitted. The group's cash balance at the end of the year stood at $18.9m, down from $62.0m a year earlier.

"Its strong cash flow allowed us to absorb a significant $62m increase in production taxes in the period. We have experienced a period of very intensive capital investment, notably in Russia. The board will therefore not recommend a final dividend for 2011," revealed JKX Chief Executive, Dr Paul Davie

Basic production costs, excluding accounting adjustments and production based taxes, moved up to $5.22 per barrel of oil equivalent from $4.74 the year before. Ukraine continued to be the engine of the group in 2011, providing the bulk of JKX's record turnover

Underlying profit before tax eased to $82.1m in 2011 from $95.0m the year before. The average price realised per barrel of oil in 2011 was $98.27, up from $69.15 a barrel the year before. Gas prices also rose sharply, with the realised price for 2011 averaging out at $9.74 per million cubic feet (mcf) from $7.59 per mcf in 2010

The group produced 401m barrels of oil in the second half of 2011, down from 432m barrels in the first half. Gas production eased to 7.1bn cubic feet in the second half from 7.7bn cubic feet in the first half of the year

A lumpy tax charge and an ambitious capital expenditure programme at JKX Oil and Gas means shareholders will have to go without a dividend in respect of 2011. Revenue in 2011 rose 23% to $236.9m from $192.9m the year before, even as production fell 12% to 9,045 barrels of oil per day (boepd) from 10,324 boepd the year before

Pre-tax earnings came in at €4.5m but were hammered by exceptional items which took the company €67m into the red. This amounted to a loss per share of 15c. Chairman, Maarten Henderson, said the long term outlook for solar installations remained positive. "In the medium-term we expect that market conditions will return to levels that allow companies to operate profitably," he said.

It added that there continued to be great uncertainty regarding short term market developments, with most industry forecasts predicting little if any growth in global PV demand in 2012. This was due to growth in China being offset by a decline in the European market. In 2011 group revenue decreased by 16.7% to €210.4m.

Solar wafers supplier PV Crystalox Solar warned of tough times ahead but said it remained committed to the solar industry after experiencing a difficult 2011. The company blames its woes on a dramatic increase in worldwide production capacity in the photo voltaic (PV) industry, driven by companies in China. This had led to sharp falls in pricing across the PV value chain and drove wafer sales prices below production costs, it said

In the corresponding six month period a year earlier Topps had seen LFL sales growth of 1.8%, so it is going up against relatively tough comparatives, but the board confessed trading remains tough, albeit broadly in line with its expectations. That seemed to be enough for the market to mark down the shares to 36.5p at one stage in the morning session, down 3.25p on the previous night's close

Due to the timing of the New Year Bank Holiday the second quarter contained one less trading day in 2012 and after adjusting for this the underlying like-for-like performance is a decline of around 4.0%.

Topps did the maths for us, saying second quarter revenues are expected to be down by around 4.8% on a LFL basis from a year earlier. Broker Peel Hunt had expected the LFL sales position in the second quarter to be in line with the first quarter.