Lakehouse shares slide after disappointing first half

Asset and energy support services group Lakehouse was sliding on the London Stock Exchange on Tuesday afternoon, after the company released some very disappointing first-half numbers earlier in the morning.

The firm’s top line revenue grew by 4% to £167.8m, but when acquisitions during the period were excluded, revenue fell 17% to £130.1m.

Underlying EBITDA fell 42% to £5.1m in total with margins of 3.1%, while it fell 80% to £1.7m excluding acquisitions with a margin of just 1.3%.

A year ago, Lakehouse had net cash of £21.1m, but now had net debt of £22.6m, it reported.

Underlying profit before tax slumped 45% to £4.7m, while underlying basic earnings per share slipped 68% to 2.4p.

Lakehouse made a basic loss per share of 1p for the period, against earnings per share of 0.7p in the first half of last year.

Despite the performance, the company still declared an interim dividend of 1p per share, against a backdrop of paying no interim dividend in 2015.

“This was a very challenging period for Lakehouse, with headwinds in our regeneration and energy services markets and operational challenges, combined with some disruption internally, as the composition of the board was resolved,” said board chairman Ric Piper.

There were some highlights - high bidding success rates led to contract wins in the period of £441m, against £248m a year ago, including positions on long-term frameworks.

The group confirmed it won places on a further 43 frameworks during the period and is now on 224 frameworks.

Its order book increased to £636m, with a sales pipeline worth £3.4bn at the end of the period.

“The board believes that the group's business fundamentals remain strong,” Piper added.

“The immediate focus is for the group to deliver its further revised expectations for the full year to 30 September and increase shareholder value over the longer term.”

At 1430 GMT, shares in Lakehouse were down more than 30%, trading at 33.22p.