PTCM shares fell c.4% early on Thursday, slightly reversing the recent 50% rally.
Companies: Porta Communications
International Comms and Marketing firm Porta Communications published its final results this morning, reporting 9% revenue growth, 10% gross profit growth, but falls in EBITDA, and increased losses.
The year was marked by significant changes in the company Board, Brexit disruption, and progress in its strategy towards creating an integrated global comms group, however, investors will be disappointed with the results that saw pre-tax losses increase markedly and net debt jump 22%, despite making no acquisitions.
PTCM's revenues are 9% ahead of last year at £37.1m, while gross profit increased 10% to £29.7m. EBITDA fell £300k to £2.3m, which the company attributes to "significant" senior hires made during the period. Having said this, the announcement also said that current trading performance was substantially ahead of 2016.
N+1 Singer analyst Johnathan Barrett said despite Brexit, Porta had delivered 4% LFL gross profit growth, and cited Brexit's impact on PPS as having edged down adj EBITDA to £2.34m.
"...importantly, progress has commenced on positioning the Company for its new phase of growth and driving efficiency under the new executive team. The start to 2017 is encouraging with the Company indicating that the trading performance is substantially ahead of the prior year and budget."
Mr Barrett said the combination of organic growth and currency tailwinds implied "attributable gross profit growth of c11%." He also said that Singers was expecting that cost adjustments will be made to improve efficiency and to optimise investment allocation to growth areas:
"The Company has announced a variety of actions to improve its financing with an equity injection of up to £3m being sought from strategic investors whom the Company is having discussions with. To aid this the board is seeking shareholder approval for the authority to issue, on a pre-emptive basis, shares equivalent to c40% of the current issue capital."
Chairman John Foley said the year had started well with performance substantially ahead of last year, while CEO Steffan Williams said there was still a lot of work to be done:
"We have hired some excellent people and we now need to give them the very best chance to flourish. We also need to make sure that we act in as joined up a manner as possible across the Group businesses and across geographies."
Shares in Porta fell c.4% early on Thursday, slightly reversing the recent 50% rally.
