Trading in hygiene group’s shares restored after publication of annual accounts
Byotrol, the Daresbury-based hygiene products group, has announced trading in its shares on AIM has resumed this afternoon.
The group published its unaudited results for the year on September 30, and announced a temporary suspension in share dealings from October 1, until further notice.
It said that, while the directors were confident in the unaudited preliminary results announcement and believe the statements are close to final form, those statements still remain subject to change, and the group would not now be able to publish its audited annual report and accounts for the year ended March 31, by 30 September, as required by Rule 19 of the AIM Rules for Companies.
The accounting and audit process was extended by the complexities with the accounting for the group’s Medimark acquisition in August 2018, and the restatement of the 2018 results for the effects of IFRS15.
However, it announced this afternoon that share dealings resumed once again from 3pm today, October 11.
It said the annual report and accounts for the year ended March 31, are now available on the company’s website, along with a notice of annual general meeting to be held in London on Thursday, November 14,
Byotrol explained in a stock exchange statement that, following final audit review processes the board became aware of an adjustment required relating to the amount reported in the preliminary results as a financing charge for the year on contingent liabilities arising from the acquisition of Medimark.
It said: “This adjustment has resulted in a reduction in the finance expense of £0.11m with a consequent increase in the fair value of contingent consideration recognised at the date of acquisition and a corresponding amount of goodwill.
“There has been no effect on reported EBITDA or operating profit, and the underlying financial performance of the Byotrol Group for the year ended 31 March 2019 remains unchanged.
The annual report contains a qualified audit opinion, with relevant wording as follows:
“Included within the group cash and cash equivalents balance was £89,000 across four Lloyds Bank Plc accounts within two subsidiary entities.
“We have not received a response from Lloyds Bank Plc to our request for confirmation of bank account balances and of any other facilities or arrangements that the group has with Lloyds Bank Plc other than an acknowledgement of receipt, which confirms that an account previously held by the parent company with a trivial balance recognised in the company statement of financial position is closed.”
It adds: “We were able to review bank reconciliations for three of the four open Lloyds Bank Plc accounts referred to above, with the fourth account having a trivial balance for which bank statements indicate trivial movement during the year.
“However we were unable to perform all our planned audit procedures and we considered that alternative audit procedures did not fully address the risk of completeness of bank facilities across the group and parent company financial statements.”
Byotrol said its directors have made every effort to resolve this matter to their auditor’s satisfaction, without success.
“Whilst it may have been possible eventually to obtain a suitable response, the length of time this may have required was indeterminate, and the board took the decision that the interests of shareholders were best served by publishing the accounts with the consequential qualified audit opinion but resulting in the lifting in the suspension from trading on AIM,” they said.
“Since the year end we have transferred over £86,000 of the aggregate amount from the bank concerned to another commercial bank and intend to transfer the balance shortly.”
The accounts posted on the company’s website show revenues for the year of £5.660m, compared with £1.820m, and a pre-tax profit of £341,000, against a pre-tax loss of £1.565m the previous year.
