Bio-med division pushes revenue higher for BATM

BATM Advanced Communications said on Wednesday that its interim pre-tax losses had increased despite a bump in revenue over the first half of the year.

The networking and medical technology firm posted a pre-tax profit of $15m, a $200,000 year-on-year increase.

Margins tightened slightly, down to 30.1% from 32.8%, as a result of the increased operating costs, mainly coming in the form of research and development operations and administrative costs, contributing to BATM reporting an adjusted operating loss of $1.4m.

An increase in revenue of just below 10% took the group from $45.1m in 2016 to $49.8m in 2017, thanks primarily to accelerated sales in the eco-med and distribution units in its bio-medical division.

"After a period of meaningful investment in new products, capability and bolt-on acquisitions, we are pleased to report year-on-year and sequential growth in revenue resulting from solid progress made in the Bio-Medical division as well as the Networking and Cyber division during the first half of 2017," said chief executive officer Zvi Marom.

EBITDA moved from green to red as it switched from $300,000 over, to $300,000 under with a loss per share of $0.66 as opposed to the $0.23 of earnings per share a year earlier.

Cash and equivalents dropped 20% from 31 December to $22.4m.

Despite the figures, Marom was confident that a strong last half of trading for BATM was assured, "Looking ahead, we are making further inroads in the Bio-Medical division, gaining new customers and increasing sales to current ones. Our Cyber business continues to experience increased interest from government agencies across the globe. As a result of this, the Group has increased its backlog substantially compared with this time last year and, consequently, expects to report growth for full year 2017, in line with market expectations."

Shares had slipped 3.62% to 17.83p as of 1115 BST.