Volante half year profit dips

Volante Group has recorded a massive drop in profit after tax for its half year ending December 31.

The systems integrator scraped up $2 million for period, down from $5.5 million during the same period a year ago.

Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) at $12.6 million, was also down on 2004’s result of $17.0 million for the same period.

According to Volante the results are in line with the company’s guidance of November last year, given restructuring and tender costs of $2.9 million.

Revenues were also down for the period, dropping from $203.8 million in 2004 to $194.4 million this period.

A breakdown of the Volante’s revenue and EBITDA earnings backed up the company’s decision to recently restructure the business to gain a greater focus on services.

During the half year Product solutions revenue of $139.1 million gained EBITDA earnings of $4.6 million, while services revenue of $55.3 million gained the company EBITDA earnings of $7.9 million.

In an ASX statement, group managing director Ian Penman said the results reflected the significant challenges faced by the company.

“The first half was negatively impacted by one off restructuring costs of $1.9 million, tendering costs of $1 million, lower than anticipated revenue from product sales and a higher than acceptable cost structure,” he said.

Volante’s shares opened this morning at $1.135.