UPDATE 1-Daisy posts 15-mth loss; to buy data services firm

June 23, 2010 By Leave a Comment

June 22 (Reuters) – British telecoms firm Daisy Group Plc (DAY.L) posted a loss for the 15 months ended March 31, and said it agreed to buy broadband service provider MurphX Innovative Solutions for an initial cash payment of 4.8 million pounds ($7.1 million).

“The market environment remains difficult for smaller, sub-scale, operators and this will provide further acquisition opportunities for the group during the current financial year,” said Daisy Group, which was formerly known as Freedom4 Group.

The company added it looked forward to the coming financial year with confidence.

Daisy Group recently secured a banking facility of 75 million pounds and said the financing would support its acquisition strategy as well as provide additional working capital.

For the 15-month period ended March 31, pretax loss from continuing operations was 16.2 million pounds on revenue of 134.4 million pounds.

The company said it would be difficult to compare reported results for 2010 and 2008 due to significant acquisitions, disposals and restructuring that occurred during these periods.

Daisy Group was formed after British telecoms firms Daisy and Vialtus were reversed into AIM-listed Freedom4 Group in a 123-million-pound deal.

Shares of the company closed at 103.75 pence on Monday on the London Stock Exchange. ($1=.6775 Pound) (Reporting by Anirban Sen in Bangalore; Editing by Aradhana Aravindan)

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UPDATE 1-Northern Petroleum sees output rising this year

June 9, 2010 By Leave a Comment

LONDON, June 8 (Reuters) – Northern Petroleum (NOP.L) said it expects its production rate to rise about 33 percent this year helped by the first output from a further two gas fields in the Netherlands.

It expects production to have reached more than 1,750 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd) by the end of 2010 compared with 1,320 boepd at the end of 2009.

The company also reported on Tuesday that it had swung to a pretax loss of 3.1 million euros ($3.7 million) in 2009, a year in which it made a record capital investment of 29.7 million euros to develop its reserves and resources.

(Reporting by Julie Crust; editing by Matt Scuffham)

($1=.8375 EURO)

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UPDATE 1-SAS sells Estonian Air stake to govt

June 5, 2010 By Leave a Comment

STOCKHOLM, June 4 (Reuters) – Scandinavian airline SAS (SAS.ST) agreed on Friday to sell its 49 percent stake in Estonian Air, giving the Baltic state a 90 percent share in the regional carrier.

SAS has been selling off non-core assets as it looks to turn its business around after years of losses.

SAS, half-owned by Sweden, Norway and Denmark, said the Estonian government would raise around 205 million crowns ($26.2 million) of new capital for Estonian Air in a rights issue and SAS would convert about 20 million of loans into equity.

The deal will be neutral in terms of profit and liquidity to SAS, the airline said.

After the rights issue the Estonian government will hold 90 percent of Estonian Air and SAS 10 percent. Estonian Air will continue to carry loans of around 70 million crowns owed to SAS that mature in 2014.

SAS has struggled for years with an unwieldy business structure and higher staff costs than rivals and was hit badly by the global downturn, making a 3.4 billion crown pretax loss in 2009.

A volcanic eruption in Iceland that closed European airspace for part of April added to the airline’s woes, and it lost another 972 million crowns in the first quarter this year. [ID:nLDE63L0BA] (Editing by Will Waterman) ($1=7.817 Swedish Crown)

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UDATE 1-Cattles in talks over 1p/share offer for s’holders

June 3, 2010 By Leave a Comment

LONDON, June 2 (Reuters) – Stricken doorstep lender Cattles (CTT.L) said shareholders won’t receive any more than 1 pence per share from a possible restructuring following further discussions with its creditors.

The company said on Wednesday that it was exploring “a proposal under which a newly incorporated company, formed and managed by a corporate service provider and ultimately owned by a charitable trust, would make an offer to acquire the entire issued share capital of Cattles”.

Cattles said shareholders should not, however, expect over 1 pence per share from any deal given the existing deficit in shareholders’ funds and the significant losses that its financial creditors will incur.

The Yorkshire-based company has been in talks with the representatives of its key financial creditors for some time after being forced to close its doors to new customers last year. Any proposals will need to get shareholder approval.

Shares in Cattles were suspended in April last year after accounting errors related to toxic loan provision left it saddled with 700 million pounds ($1.2 billion) of bad debts, resulting in the dismissal of senior executives and an FSA investigation. [ID:nLC382766]

Earlier this month Cattles reported a larger than expected 745 million pound pretax loss for 2008.

(Reporting by Lorraine Turner; Editing by Matt Scuffham)

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Hungary’s Malev had HUF 25 bln loss in 2009-paper

April 3, 2010 By Leave a Comment

BUDAPEST, April 2 (Reuters) – Hungarian national airline Malev [MALV.UL] had a pretax loss of around 25 billion forints ($127.1 million) in 2009 and will need fresh capital to continue operations, daily Nepszabadsag said on Friday. Malev chairman Zoltan Kamaras confirmed the size of the loss to the paper, adding that the numbers were not final.

Industrials

Malev spokesman Adam Hegedus told Reuters the company would only confirm results officially after the company’s annual general meeting in May.

Hungary renationalised Malev earlier this year to save it from financial collapse. The decision is still pending approval from the European Union. [ID:nLDE61QOOK] Unnamed sources told Nepszabadsag Malev’s losses were mostly due to an aggressive pricing policy aimed at maintaining market share amid the industry’s 2009 slump. The market share was preserved but the effort doubled the losses, the sources said.

Malev’s restructuring costs could surpass 30 billion forints over the next two years, the paper said, quoting an unspecified recent study. The company also needs a capital increase of about 10 billion to 15 billion forints, it said.

As part of the restructuring, the airline cancelled the collective agreement with its employees on Wednesday, prompting the pilots’ union to threaten a strike. [ID:nLDE62U20I]

The state funds needed to keep Malev flying could become a drain on Hungary’s budget this year, pushing its deficit higher, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned. [ID:nLDE62P1C7]

An IMF-led loan package worth $25.1 billion helped Hungary avert financial meltdown in late 2008, and the conditions of that loan include a targeted 2010 budget deficit of 3.8 percent of gross domestic product.

The opposition Fidesz party, which is widely expected to win national elections on April 11 and 25, has warned the deficit could reach 7 to 7.5 percent of GDP due to one-off items, and said it would seek a new agreement with lenders. [ID:nLDE62I1NA] ($1=196.76 Forint) (Reporting by Marton Dunai; Editing by Hans Peters)

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Sony Ericsson posts 293 million euros net loss; intends slashing 2,000 more jobs

April 20, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Close on the heels of Nokia reporting its first ever quarterly loss, Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications Ltd has also posted its third straight quarterly loss for the first quarter of 2009.

While pretax loss figures of the company stood at 370 million euros, as against the analysts’ estimates of 371 million; the first-quarter net loss was 293 million euros, in comparison to the year-before profit of 133 million euros.

Year-on-year sales figures for Sony Ericsson in the first quarter plummeted 36 per cent to 1.74 billion euros. In 2008-end, the company, the mobile-phone business enterprise of Sony Corp and Ericsson AB, fell to the fourth place in global handset shipments in 2008-end.

Laden by heavy quarterly losses, the London-based Sony Ericsson intends slashing 2,000 more jobs in its attempt to restore profits amid weakening demand, largely because of the consumers vying to grab the touchscreen models from rivals like Apple Inc, the iPhone-maker.

In a statement regarding the proposed lay-offs, Sony Ericsson said that the measure – which entails an implementation cost of 200 million euros – will help the company cut costs by 400 million euros per year by mid-2010. CEO Dick Komiyama said: “We are aligning our business to the new market reality with the aim of bringing the company back to profitability as quickly as possible.”

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