By DITA DE BONI
Industrial holding company Broadway Industries has made good on its promise to reverse 1999's losses in the first half of this financial year.
Company results announced yesterday showed a profit of $289,000 for the six months to December 1999.
In the same period last year, the company lost $1.21
million, which grew to a $8.07 million loss for the year to June.
Earnings a share grew to $1.95 after a loss of $8.14 last year.
Shareholders' funds recovered slightly to $5.1 million, after dropping to $4.8 million in the last full-year result from $20 million in 1995.
Broadway's revenue dropped 40 per cent after the closure last year of Mercer Stainless' food service business, reducing revenue from Australia to $1.4 million of the $21.1 million total revenue.
The company said photographic supplies division H.E. Perry improved sales 10 per cent, and Mercer Building Products and Mercer Industrial had "much improved" margins.
Almost all surplus assets of the Mercer Food Services business and the stock of sold-off packaging production business Protech products had found buyers. A property occupied by Mercer Food Services was sold in early March and the money used to pay bank debt.
Chairman Ian Farrant described the result as a "modest turnaround" and said the company had "done what it said it would do."
He predicted the firm would trade profitably in the year to June, but he would not give a more precise sales forecast.
Broadway shares last traded at 33c.
