Dorchester Pacific says FY profit rose almost five fold

Dorchester Pacific says FY profit rose almost five fold, beating guidance

April 30 (BusinessDesk) - Dorchester Pacific, the finance company that avoided failure in 2010 by convincing investors to accept a debt-for-equity swap, said full-year profit rose more than five-fold, beating guidance.

Profit in the year ended March 31 was about $8 million, up from $1.7 million a year earlier, the Auckland-based company said in a statement.

Profit from its three trading operations would be about $6.5 million compared to earlier guidance of $6 million and the company also recognised a $1.6 million one-time gain from pre-payment of interest on convertible notes and a $3.1 million profit from bringing about $11 million of tax losses onto its balance sheet, it said.

Dorchester affirmed its guidance of pretax profit of between $10 million and $11 million for 2015 and $14 million to $15 million for 2016, which it gave in March when it announced the acquisition of Oxford Finance.

“This latest profit guidance would bring profit to a level in line with the highest profit achieved in the history of Dorchester, since it listed in 1986,” said chairman Grant Baker.

Dorchester got a new lease of life in 2010 when an Auckland private equity group, the Business Bakery, got involved with a recapitalisation plan in which some 7,200 investors owed about $84 million converted their debenture stock for four different types of security to keep the firm afloat while many other finance companies were failing in the wake of the global financial crisis and a local recession.

Shares of Dorchester rose 4.3 percent to 24.5 cents and have gained 6.8 percent this year.

(BusinessDesk)

© Scoop Media