Losses ahead for troubled Byotrol
Infection prevention business Byotrol has warned the stock market this morning of losses to come in their next set of half yearly results to be released in early December.
The update this morning follows of a review of the outlook for the business following the sudden departure of chief executive Vivan Pinto in September.
The AIM-listed company brought David Traynor back as interim chief executive, to a role he covered from 2013 to 2022.
The news Traynor has imparted today reveals flat product sales of £2m and an anticipated EBITDA loss of £0.45m, versus a loss of £0.3m to 30 September 2022 with cash in the bank of £0.5m.
Pointing to a series of changes he has made since taking back control of the Daresbury-based hygiene group, business, he said: “In the full year to 31 March 2023, we reported sales of £0.65m on now-discontinued lines, so complicating headline comparisons on relative performance. The detail in our Interim Results will therefore show underlying gross margin (which excludes disposal costs for obsolete or discontinued stock) of 44.5%, versus 42.6% for the full year to 31 March 2023.
“Based on the above trends we are now expecting to report product sales in the full year to 31 March 2024 of approximately £3.9m, which shows modest growth on £3.7m in the previous year on a like-for-like basis (excluding discontinued items). Including discontinued items, prior year product sales were £4.3m.”
However, the AIM-listed company is claiming an “encouraging performance” of its animal health business in the UK, now accounting for 65.0% of product sales, from 47.5% at the end of FY23.
The company is hoping to make a strong showing at the London Vet Show on this week where it will be demonstrating their Processus product range to animal health professionals.
Traynor said the launch demonstrates another step forward in plans to future-proof our portfolio for EU and UK BPR regulatory approvals. “It is the third in a series of strategic portfolio updates, which strengthens our offering in both animal health and human health markets,” he said.
