Avarae Global Coins' revenue rises as it intends to de-list from AIM

Avarae Global Coins, a company dedicated to purchasing, holding and selling rare and high quality coins, continued to trade in line with expectations as full-year revenue increased, while it intends to de-list from AIM.

For the year ended 31 March, revenue rose 22% to £770,000, due to a higher number of lower value European, Indian and English coins being sold, whereas the prior year benefited from the sale of £500,000 individually higher value rare English gold coins which alone generated a gross profit margin of 39%.

While overall revenue had increased, the margin was lower at £30,000 due to the disposal of the lower value coins.

Due to high trading costs on AIM and the difficulties in raising funds for investments, the company decided to de-list, subject to shareholder approval at the meeting on 13 October, to liquidate the coin portfolio over a number of years in order to “return as much cash to shareholders in the most cost effective ways as possible”.

The company is to undertake a tender offer to buy and cancel up to 16.1m shares at 11.5p each, to provide shareholders with a nil-cost dealing facility and an opportunity to divest some or all of their shares.

Loss on ordinary activities narrowed by 81.5% to £70,000.

The carrying value of portfolio of rare and high quality coins decreased 0.5% to £11.2m, while the compound annual returns achieved over the medium to long-term for the highest quality and rarest coins can reach as high as 10%.

Cash balance at the end of the year fell 35% to £570,000 and the net asset value fell to 14.6p per share from 14p, as the company said during the last 12 month there was a cooling in interest in the industry.

During the year the AIM listed company bought 13 coins for £580,000 which, together with the year-end revaluation exercise, resulted in a value of the coin portfolio at March of £11.1m, slight decrease of only 0.35%.

Director Nigel Gautrey, said: "Avarae has continued to trade in line with management's expectation since the end of the financial year under review, having generated sales of approximately £1.78m, including having sold the Edward III Double Florin for £830,000, an increase of £340,000 on its cost price in 2006.”

The company said dependent on the de-listing resolution at the shareholder meeting it will continue to trade in with its existing trading policies.

It also did not recommended full year dividend as it is seeking to return cash to shareholders through a tender offer.

Shares in Avarae Global Coins were down 12% to 11p at 1113 BST.