RETAIL marketing specialist SpaceandPeople, which rents out space in shopping centres for marketing and promotions, is expecting to report an underlying loss as it announced that trading was “not as strong as had been anticipated” towards the end of last year.
Glasgow-based SpaceandPeople flagged the position in a pre-close trading update ahead of its preliminary results for the year ended December 31, 2018, which will be released on March 25.
It said that as well as trading during the final quarter of last year being weaker than had been anticipated, December was “subdued in particular”.
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The firm said this was “in part due to well documented difficult high street trading conditions”.
As a result, the group now expects to report a loss before taxation and non-recurring items of £100,000.
The board has also taken the decision to write off the carrying value of the goodwill in relation to its SpaceandPeople India Pvt Limited of £240,000, it said.
“The Indian business continues to trade at expected levels, however, the level of profitability cannot support the carrying value of this goodwill at the moment.
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“This will be reported as a non-cash non-recurring item in the group’s preliminary results”, it said in its update.
The year-end cash position was £800,000, set against the 2017 figure, which the firm said was adjusted to reflect the timing of certain client payments, of £1.9m.
The group remained debt free at the year end.
The firm said: “Despite the full year result being a small loss before non-recurring items, the board maintains its intention to maintain a dividend payment and will propose a final dividend of 0.5p per share at the AGM for shareholder approval.”
Shares were down 1p, or 6 per cent, at 16p at close.
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