Daily Telegraph19 Jun 2015 07:53
APR Energy shares plunge for second day: Temporary power firm APR Energy saw its shares lurch another 18% lower after it issued a major profit warning earlier in the week. APR is also facing delays in signing new contracts. APR is now expected to plunge to a pretax loss of $78 million (£49 million), on revenue of $220 million for the year to December 2015, when only seven months earlier the company was expected to report pretax profits of $113 million, on revenue of $520 million. The company has also suffered from a revolving door in the boardroom. Brian Rich was the latest casualty after he stepped down as Chief operating officer on June 15 after just over a year in the role. Mike Fairey stepped down as Chairman last year. Andrew Martinez, the Chief financial officer, departed last year, to be replaced by Lee Munro. That came just two years after Mr Martinez replaced Rick Greene as CFO, after the company filed a late set of accounts. Questor said APR Energy was “priced to fail” at £10.06 in August 2013. We repeated that advice in “Red Flags make APR a Sell” last year (Sell, 505.5p, August 28, 2014) and again (Sell, 370p, October 28, 2014). There is far too much risk here that the company will end up in the hands of the banks so once again we recommend a sell. APR Energy at £1.94-27p. Questor Says “Sell”.