Sales suffer a chill at Bglobal
SMART metering firm Bglobal saw its revenues fall by 16% in the six months to September 30 to £10.4m (2010: £12.5m).
Despite this, this company’s pre-tax profits fell by only 12% to £669,000 as it benefited from a £1.5m reversal of contingent credits that were due to be paid as a result of past acquisitions.
Chairman Peter Kennedy said that it was “pleasing” that the Blackburn-based company had managed to remain profitable and cash-generative despite the difficult trading conditions, achieving EBITDA of £212,000, compared with £1.2m last year.
“Our management team led by Tim Jackson-Smith has taken the decisive action needed to enable us to take advantage of the opportunities that lie ahead.”
He added that the acquisition of Utiligroup last year had been integrated and given it a platform “to deliver many of the solutions required to enable new energy suppliers to compete in what we believe will be an increasingly competitive environment.
The firm has suffered somewhat from the government’s decision to delay a roll-out of smart metering to houses until at least 2014 and from the fact that the UK’s energy market is dominated by a handful of major players.
It said that it had recently completed the second round of a cost cutting exercise which would see it shave a further £1.5m off its cost base – on top of the £1m programme embarked upon last year.
The savings have been achieved largely through reducing staff numbers and the firm said the benefits “will be seen in the second half of this year”.
Bglobal also recently announced that it was working “with an experienced retail player” in a bid to help set up a new energy supplier planning to make a major entry into the market.
Chief executive Tim Jackson-Smith said: “We are making good progress in these discussions and I hope to be able to provide further details about this transaction early in the New Year.
“Our relationship with Samsung is also valuable to this initiative as it will help to provide the new entrant with a fully funded solution for the installation of smart meters across its portfolio of customers.”
