Peel Hunt falls to H1 pre-tax loss

Investment bank Peel Hunt posted an interim pre-tax loss on Tuesday amid a "challenging" market backdrop.

Peel Hunt fell from a pre-tax profit of £100,000 a year ago to a pre-tax loss of £800,000 in the six months ended 30 September on the back of scarce listing activity and inflationary pressures.

However, the AIM-listed firm did deliver an uptick in revenues for the period, up 3.9% year-on-year at £42.7m. Peel Hunt also noted that capital remains "comfortably" above regulatory requirements.

Interest costs remained a concern for the group throughout the half but Peel Hunt said it had partially offset this by lowering its long-term debt position from £21.0m to £15.0m.

Chief executive Steven Fine said: "Despite the continued challenging market backdrop, our performance has remained resilient. Revenue for the first six months was in line with expectations, and slightly up on the same period last year.

"Our performance was not quite enough to offset the high inflationary environment and its impact on costs but our balance sheet remains strong, demonstrating the group's financial resilience."

As of 1120 GMT, Peel Hunt shares were down 1.62% at 91.0p.

Reporting by Iain Gilbert at Sharecast.com