Forum Archive Index - August 2001

["Peter" <pmaiden@xtra.co.nz>]

Seeing RMG don't appear to state their P&L for the six months to June 2001 in NZ here it is in simple terms

                   

 

                                                                   A$M

Revenues                                                      32.2

 

Operating loss before abnormals and tax       (4.1)

 

Restructure charge                                        (6.4)

Writedown of investments                             (2.5)

 

Operating loss before tax                             (13.0)

 

Tax credit                                                      2.2

 

Operating loss after abnormals and tax          (10.7)

 

Some of you know my views on the standard of reporting of results. I may be old fashioned and a bit demanding but to me the quality of todays announcements from RMG leaves a lot to be desired.

 

Nowhere did I see a mention of a $4.1M operating loss before tax in the NZ announcement. Thank goodness we can access some more detailed announcements to the ASX.

 

They did mention a positive EBITDA of $200,000.  Ask yourself if this is anything to be proud of in the context of the proper P&L shown above - in their shoes I would be embarassed to admit it, especially if they are not yet too sure whether they have counted everything properly. After last years fiasco I thought they had got over those problems.

 

No matter which way you look at it RMG lost 1.8 cents a share in the six month period. If you wanted to calculate this on normalised profit (including adjusting for a tax credit) they lost 0.6 cents a share.

 

No axe to grind with RMG but I am concerned about the standard of reporting of many companies to their NZ shareholders. The ADV announcement is an even greater mess but that story will keep to another day.

 

Cheers

 

Peter