Hellaby Holdings, the diversified investment group, posted a 30 percent fall as restructuring under new chief executive Alan Clarke continues.
Net profit dropped to $19.6 million, or 20.4 cents per share, in the 12 months ended June 30, from $28.4 million, or 28.6 cents per share, a year earlier, the company said in a statement. Revenue rose 2 percent to $795.5 million.
In May, Hellaby cut its guidance, and forecast earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation at $43 million to $47 million in the year, down from $59 million in 2015. Today’s result was in line with that forecast with trading ebitda of $46.8 million.
“FY 2016 was a difficult year and not one we expect to be repeated,” Clarke said. “We do expect to see a stronger performance in FY 2017 as our new strategic plan takes effect and we focus on building scale and market share in our automotive and resource services groups.”
The group said its footwear division continued to struggle “in a very soft and difficult retail environment” with sales of $137.3m (FY 2015: $140.8m), trading EBITDA of $4.3m (FY 2015: $5.8m) and trading EBIT of $1.3m (FY 2015: $2.8m), all down on last year.
It said several cost savings were implemented across both businesses in the course of the year, and also expects specialist retail consultants to be appointed shortly to advise and implement a comprehensive restructure of the footwear group, with benefits expected from FY 2018 onwards.
The company has been overhauling its portfolio and investment strategy under Clarke, who took over the reins last November, to exit non-core businesses and focus on its automotive and resource services units. In June, Hellaby sold its equipment group to a private equity fund for $81 million and bought maintenance and engineering contractor TBS Group for $45 million plus $6 million of earn-outs. Neither transaction was recognised in these results.
Hellaby said the result reflected volatility in the oil and gas sector on its resource services group, and decreasing sales from the footwear group. The company has been trying to sell the footwear division, but will now appoint specialist retail consultants to restructure the business, which Hellaby expects will improve the unit from 2018. However, footwear will remain non-core, it said.
