Results round-up

Double glazing group Safestyle was under the cosh yet again on Monday after another profit warning, as it scrapped its dividend and announced the resignation of its non-executive chairman.

The company, which issued profit warnings in December and February and was slapped with an £850,000 fine from the Health & Safety Executive earlier this month, said group revenues and underlying pre-tax profit for the year to the end of December 2018 are now likely to be "significantly below" current market expectations, with profits heavily-weighted to the second half.

Safestyle had said back in February that it had been hit by the activities of an "aggressive new market entrant", which had exacerbated an already difficult market. It said on Monday that since then, the activities of this competitor have intensified and it has taken longer to rebuild the order intake to the rate previously expected. In addition, the company has experienced cost increases as management addresses these challenges.

"The board remains resolutely focused on protecting Safestyle's leading market position. Early evidence shows that the group's sales and canvass teams are more effective in those locations where rebuilding has occurred. As an immediate priority, the board is undertaking a detailed strategic review of its operations and has a number of measures in hand aimed at addressing the competitive situation and improving performance."

The group also said that it was scrapping the final dividend of 7.5p per share that was due to be paid next in June "in order to provide the company with the strongest balance sheet from which to protect and strengthen its position".

Safestyle announced that non-executive chairman Steve Halbert has resigned from the board with immediate effect and will be replaced by non-executive director Peter Richardson.

Subtitling and dubbing specialist service Zoo Digital saw momentum from its strong first-half performance carry on into the second as revenues and profits both surged.

Updating the market ahead of its full-year results, Zoo told investors on Monday that it expected earnings before interest, tax, debt and amortisation to come in roughly 27.8% ahead of its previous trading year at $2.3m thanks to a 69% increase in revenues.

Demand for Zoo's 'localisation' services continued to grow throughout the year, accounting for 74% of the group's overall revenues, leading the firm to steadily increase the number of quality voice actors and dubbing professionals on its roster in order to satisfy demand as its reputation in the market continued to grow across a number of languages.

Given the heightened level of demand for its localisation services, Zoo advised that it intended to re-classify the costs of its internal staff responsible for fulfilling client projects as a cost of sale as opposed to a central overhead, as it had done previously, for the purpose of reporting its final results.

Zoo's board believed that this would be "more representative of the group's trading" and would have no effect on the reporting of its overall profitability.

Gross cash as of 31 March was $2.4m, more than triple the $700,000 balance it held a year earlier, with no other material borrowings other than its long-term convertible loan notes.

Stuart Green, chief executive of Zoo, said, "We are pleased to confirm guidance for the full year results. We continue to see momentum in the business, driven by our localisation services, and remain optimistic for the future."

Zoo expects to publish its full-year results by 7 July.