Prestwick Holdings Plc, the Ayr, Scotland-based manufacturer of printed circuit boards has filed a pre-tax loss of UKP1.25m for the year-ended August 1, down from a loss of UKP4.0m last time. Turnover rose by 4% to UKP37.5m. Faced with this financial situation, the firm completed a rights issue in the past six months. As chairman Archie Coulson says, we needed a bob or two of money, and the rights issue had a threefold aim. Firstly to raise that money to pay off borrowings, secondly to dilute the large percentage of smaller private investors and bring in more institutional investors and thirdly to raise money because the firm says it had not spent as much as it should on modernising its plants and equipment. Nine new institutional investors have since been brought in and the total institutional investment is now 70% of the shareholding. The issue raised UKP4.8m cash. The firm says its cash balances now give it greater flexibility in negotiating the purchase price of materials. The Electroconnect subsidiary was sold during the year for UKP1.6m, because although it was a successful business in its own right it wasn’t performing its intended function within the company, which was to feed volume orders of the new circuit boards it was developing to Prestwick factories. The firm took a loss of UKP141,000 on discontinued operations this time round, mainly arising from this sale, but also from various other bits of the business being ‘tidied up’. The money raised from the issue and disposal contributed to reducing the company’s gearing ratio to 42% from 124% for the same time last year. Cash in hand now stands at UKP4.8m. The group’s general management is being restructured into two main areas: one covering corporate development and the other responsible for the daily running of the business as part of the effort to improve the management control of the business. In the current year, Coulson says in his statement that the double-sided plant is performing well and the multi-layer plant is recovering after losing volume from a customer whose product became obsolete sooner than expected.
