Following its listing on the Alternative Investment Market last September (CI No 3,009), Airtech Plc, the Aylesbury, UK manufacturer of masthead amplifiers for cellular telephony incurred restructuring costs of 72,900 pounds, which sent 1996 pre-tax losses up to 668,126 pounds from 250,091 pounds last time, but revenue grew almost three-fold to 8m pounds. Airtech chairman Nick Randall says the company had intended to ramp up its manufacturing capability, to produce its masthead amplifiers in volume, and was able to ship 12,000 units in 1996, up from a mere 1,000 the year before. At the same time, the company won volume contracts from various telecommunications operators such as Hutchison Telecommunications Ltd’s Orange Plc with its digital cellular network in the UK, E-Plus Mobilfunk GmbH in Germany, Bouygues Telecom SA in France and with US firms Western Wireless Inc and America Portable Telephone Inc. It has also just launched a range of products for the Groupe Speciale Mobile and Digital AMPS Advanced Mobile Phone Service standards. Airtech also expanded operations at home and abroad in 1996. Apart from plans for a new UK factory in Aylesbury, it has established a new office and factory in Dallas and is building a new base in Malaysia to focus on the emerging markets for radio base station equipment in the Far East. In line with policy at the time of its AIM flotation, Airtech is not paying a dividend this period.
