WH Ireland losses widen in 'extremely challenging' markets

Broker WH Ireland posted a widening of its full-year losses on Monday as revenue fell in an "extremely challenging" market backdrop.

In the year to the end of March, the underlying loss before tax widened to £2.5m from £2m a year earlier, while statutory pre-tax losses widened to £5.9m from £1.8m, partly due to restructuring costs of £2.9m.

The company said these were mainly redundancies and project costs in relation to the board exploring strategic opportunities for parts of the business.

Revenue declined 19.6% to £21.5m.

Chief executive Phillip Wale said: "The market backdrop has been extremely challenging. While the FTSE 100 has been relatively resilient, the AIM All Share Index fell 9% over the period. These market conditions severely impacted transactional business (and particularly fundraisings) in the capital markets division, which, together with significant restructuring costs, were the principal reason for the group reporting losses for the year.

"However, having completed the sale of the capital markets division in July 2024, we have achieved a more stable financial position for the group against the current market backdrop. We are now implementing plans for the growth of the remaining wealth management business to return it to break even whilst finding further efficiencies in the group as a whole."