Results round-up
Hermes Pacific Investments posted its half year report for the six months to 30 September on Monday - another period in which it made nil revenue.
The AIM-traded company did, however, managed to reduce operating costs, and thus narrow its operating loss to £0.04m from £0.05m.
It reported a total loss for the period of £0.03m, reducing from £0.04m at the same time last year, with a basic and diluted loss per share in line with 2015 at 1.9p.
“The company has made some investments in line with its investing policy in companies involved in trade finance for emerging countries and other financial activities operating from the Far East region,” commented chairman Haresh Kanabar.
“These investments have performed as expected [and] no further investments were made in the period.”
Kanabar said the financial markets began the third quarter in the shadow of Brexit, although markets largely recovered very quickly and volatility had fallen to levels seen last year.
“The shift in mood was largely driven by evidence that the initial impact of Brexit was shallower than many feared.
“Economic growth indicators were slightly better than expected, and investors were heartened by the belief that central banks would be forced by Brexit to keep monetary policies loose.”
Because of their higher economic growth and potentially higher returns, Kanabar said emerging markets received increasing attention from investors in the developed world.
“Despite the attractiveness of emerging markets, investing in them has many issues and associated risks that are not present in the developed world.
“In the past several years, a great deal of research has been conducted on emerging market issues. The prominent areas are those concerning returns, corporate governance, and currency issues.”
Medical grade collagen component developer and manufacturer Collagen Solutions posted its results for the six months to 30 September on Monday, with revenue and other income increasing by 30% to £1.89m.
The AIM-traded company’s adjusted LBITDA was £0.42m, widening from the £0.79m loss at the same time last year.
Its pre-tax loss totalled £0.98m, compared to £0.36m, with a basic and diluted loss per share of 0.60p, widening from 0.26p.
At period end, Collagen Solutions had cash and cash equivalents of £1.66m, down from £2.49m at the start of the year.
“I am pleased to report on the continued momentum in our core biomaterials contract development, supply, and manufacturing business,” said CEO Jamal Rushdy.
“Recent investment in sales and marketing, and in particular talent, systems and processes, has resulted in improved operational efficiency.”
Rushdy said the integration of research and development efforts globally had also resulted in a more focused pipeline of near-term finished device projects that will address major markets in orthopaedics and wound care, including its flagship ChondroMimetic programme.
“We are on track to initiate a six-year retrospective study for ChondroMimetic with new data to demonstrate long-term tissue regeneration with 3D MRI analysis as well as sustainability of the early positive functional results, and in parallel obtain the CE mark in 2017.
“Together, we believe that the progress made during the period set the strategic foundations on which we will base our objective to grow our revenue by 5x within 5 years.”