LONDON (ShareCast) - Renewable energy group Kedco on Monday unveiled its preliminary results for the full year ended June 30th 2012.

The company announced losses before taxes and from continuing operations of €1.6m, versus the previous fiscal year’s restated loss of €5.3m.

Meantime, the top-line expanded to reach €10.1m, far ahead of 2011’s equivalent figure €936,000.

The outfit delivered significant cost savings through the exit from non-core and non-profitable business segments, creating a leaner, more efficient business structure with the focus purely on the renewable energy power generation business, management explained in a statement.

Administrative costs, for example, were cut to €0.95m from €3.6m in the previous fiscal year.

Even so, the outfit´s gross margins continued to be in the red, even if they did improve significantly when measured as a percentage of sales.

The group also reduced its annual interest charge by approximately €1.5m, while at the same time eliminating €10.8m in debt via a debt-for-equity swap and the sale of its Latvian subsidiary, SIA Vudlande.

Even so, the company’s net loss fell in a less pronounced manner – to €2.5m from €4.5m a year ago - as discontinued operations added to the red ink to the tune of €870,000.

In addition to all of the above, during the period in question Kedco also managed to raise new financing (vía the issuance of £770,550 in fresh equity and project finance commitments for its Northern Irish Newry plant), proceed with its expansion plans and pursue the acquisition of Reforce, with the latter expected to close imminently.

Its acquisition target is a project developer with 60 active projects and a capacity in excess of 40MW at various stages of development in the UK and Ireland. Furthermore, Kedco highlighted that Reforce has a strong and experienced management team with over 10 years’ experience across 500MW+ of renewable energy projects.

Amongst some of the key features of Kedco’s business plan for the next twelve months are: starting construction of the 12MW Enfield Biomass project, in London; to start the installation of the second stage of the 4MW Newry Biomass which will be fully commissioned by end of the 2013; to obtain planning permission for the 8MW Clay Cross Biomass project.

During a financial crisis ... cash is King

Mention must also be made of the apparently enormous improvement seen in the company´s cash flow from operations, which rose to £5.694m after a negative balance of £2.77m in the year before. The majority of those funds (worth approximately £6.7m) were reinvested in "jointly controlled entities."

Lastly, and of most importance surely, cash on hand at financial year-end was negative to the tune of £344m, versus the £209m which was to be found in the company´s coffers at the start of the year (hence the sharp rise in the price of the company´s stock when it announced - on November 28th - that it had closed a new round of financing).

AB

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