Postponement of results and trading update

RNS Number : 5127A

Altitude Group PLC

30 September 2020

 

30 September 2020

Altitude Group plc

(the "Company" or "Altitude")

Postponement of Results and Trading Update

Altitude Group plc (AIM: ALT), the operator of the leading marketplace for personalised products, provides an update on its results for the 15 month-period ended 31 March 2020.

In line with the Financial Reporting Council ("FRC") guidance*, the Company now expects to release its results for the 15 month-period ended 31 March 2020 by the end of October 2020. This delay is caused by the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the audit, including the remote audit process of the Company's main operations in the US and the impact of business disruption on judgmental balance sheet valuations. While the Board cannot be certain as to the level of adjustments that the auditors may take in relation to the coronavirus pandemic effects on the Company's operations until their work is fully concluded, management expects to report the following for the 15 months period ending 31 March 2020:

· Revenue from continuing operations not less than £8.0 million**

· Comparable revenue for the 12 months ending 31 December 2018 was £2.9 million

· Cash position of £2.4 million

The Company can also report that the cash position at 31 August 2020 was £1.6 million which was in line with management's expectations. The Company continues to be cautious in relation to managing cash and discretionary spending. Following the cessation of the US Payroll Protection Programme, the Company instituted a temporary 20% salary reduction for the management team and temporary reduction in staffing hours for all other employees in both the US and the UK.

Current Trading

The Company has continued to trade and support its distributor and supplier customers through the worst period of lockdown. As previously detailed 25% of US revenue is not reliant on transactional volume.

Recent industry reporting indicates that market transactional volume was 44% down in the June quarter vs 2019 but improved in July to 29% down and was steady in August at 26% down. Smaller and medium sized distributors are reported to be slightly higher in terms of year on year reductions. The slower rate of improvement in August has tempered industry expectations for a V shaped recovery and whilst August may be indicative of a longer and slower climb through 2020 and into 2021, it is currently impossible to predict with any degree of certainty.

We have retained 175 suppliers within the Preferred Supplier Programme and AIM Smarter distributor membership has held steady and currently stands at 2,103, who collectively historically delivered aggregate annual revenues of circa $2.2 billion to end-users.

We look forward to providing a further update with our full Preliminary Results on 30^th October.

* Financial Reporting Council ("FRC") guidance states, "Companies, and in particular their audit committees, understand it is vital that auditors have sufficient time and support to carry out their work to an appropriate standard, including reassessing work done to reflect changed circumstances - in some cases, this may need companies to reconsider their reporting deadlines. Taken from FRC Guidance on audit issues arising from the Covid-19 (Coronavirus) pandemic, 16 March 2020.

** Continuing Operations exclude Ad Products which has been sold. 

The information contained within this announcement is deemed by the Company to constitute inside information stipulated under the Market Abuse Regulation (EU) No. 596/2014. The above notification is made in accordance with the requirements of the EU Market Abuse Regulation.

Enquiries:

Altitude Group plc Nichole Stella, Chief Executive Officer Graeme Couturier, Chief Financial Officer Keith Edelman, Non-Executive Chairman		Via Instinctif - 020 7457 2020
finnCap ltd Jonny Franklin-Adams (Corporate Finance) Charlie Beeson (Corporate Finance) Richard Chambers (ECM)	020 7220 0500
Instinctif Partners (Financial PR) Matthew Smallwood Chantal Woolcock		020 7457 2020

 

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