SpaceandPeople cuts dividend as its swings to a loss

Shares in SpaceandPeople tumbled on Monday after the retail promotions specialist slipped into the red and slashed its dividend.

Gross 2018 revenues fell to £18.8m from £22.4m a year earlier, while losses before tax and non-recurring items were £0.1m against a profit of £1.2m in 2017.

A dividend of 0.5p per share was proposed, against 2017’s 1.5p per share.

Chairman George Watt said: “Trading conditions in both the UK and Germany were difficult. Unusual weather conditions, with severe snow storms in the first quarter, followed by a long, hot summer in both the UK and Germany, disrupted normal trade in venues. In addition, the World Cup over the summer distracted brands from focusing on their usual activity with us.

“Although normal conditions returned during the autumn and winter, we were unable to recover from the slow start to the year and a poor period of trading in the key month of December meant that the group delivered a small operating loss on recurring activities for the year as a whole.”

By 1430 GMT, shares in SpaceandPeople were off 11%, although they had fallen as much as 23% in earlier trading.

Looking forward, however, management said it remained confident about the company's performance for the current year following key contract renewals with clients Landsec, formerly Land Securities, and investment firm M&G.

“We look forward to 2019 with confidence following management’s success in securing new agreements, and successfully other agreements on good terms,” added Watt.

SpaceandPeople specialises in the marketing and selling of promotional and retail licensing space on behalf of clients such as shopping centres, retail parks and railways stations in the UK and Germany.