[miningmx.com] – COMMODITIES and mining investment company, Metmar, toiled again in its 2013/14 financial narrowing headline share losses but suffering the effects of project delays and write-downs on divestments.
Shares in the company slid nearly 10% on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange today to R1,27/share, equal to a negative 30% 12-month return.
Full details of the company’s financial position will be set down when it announces its full-year results later this year, but in a trading update it pointed to a headline loss per
share of between 20.51 cents and 17.09c. It reported a loss of 45c/share in its last financial year, according to Bloomberg data.
The group vastly improved the profitability of its core trading division which in the 2012/13 financial year performed so poorly that it led the group into its first loss since it was founded 27 years ago, a performance CEO David Ellwood described as “terrible”.
The problems for the year under review were a six month delay in the commissioning of the Kalahari Manganese sinter plant – Kalagadi Manganese – and a R47m goodwill write-off after selling its West African group division.
Metmar started a review of its investments in the previous financial year in which it sought to exit projects in which it didn’t have substantial influence. That process continued but led to write-downs of a further R121m.
Said the company: “In spite of the global commodities challenges which are expected to remain in the short term, Metmar will continue focussing its efforts on core trading activities …”. It added that it would extract “full value” from the manganese sinter tolling project with first shipments due in April, and continue to cut overheads in order to meet its financial targets for the current 2014/15 financial year.
