Share price tumbles at troubled X-ray manufacturer

The share price of Loughborough-based X-ray manufacturer Image Scan plummeted on Tuesday after the firm warned that it would make a “significant” loss in its first half.

Image Scan’s shares were trading for just under 2p each at midday on Tuesday – down almost 35% on their already low opening price.

The company was floated in 2002, when shares were changing hands for almost 73p each. The share price collpased in 2007 and has bumped along the bottom ever since.

On Tuesday morning, Image Scan issued a profit warning, saying weakening customer demand along with disruption in global supply chains is set to hit its full-year results.

In a statement to the London Stock Exchange on Tuesday morning Image Scan said the momentum it had built in the second half of 2021 had stalled and that it will make a “significant” loss for the first half of this year. The firm added that while it is expected that its financial year will be second half weighted, the timing of a strong pipeline orders later in 2022 is “hard to predict in the current climate” and that the board believes it is “unlikely” that the second half will be sufficiently strong to enable the company to fully recover the first half loss.

Bill Mawer, chairman and chief executive officer of Image Scan, said: “It is disappointing that our order intake has stalled in the first half of the year. While international travel for trade shows and demonstrations is still limited, we have a healthy pipeline of new business. However, it will take some time for that business to come through. Together with the loss of COVID-19 Government support mechanisms, this gives us less confidence in our original expectation for the current financial year.”