News blog

PipeHawk

• BY: Andrew Hore |
• POSTED: 05/11/2013 |

Ground probing radar (GPR) technology products developer PipeHawk has written off all of its capitalised research and development spending. 

The £2.52m write-off includes £172,000 of spending capitalised during the year. In the previous year, £225,000 net of amortisation was capitalised. The spending relates to specific projects involving the development of ground probing radar equipment and software, a lightning strike protection solution and bespoke loop testers for the aerospace sector. These products are unlikely to produce the level of revenues to cover the investment although they are still generating revenues. GPR products generated revenues of £171,000 last year, down from £221,000 the previous year.

In the year to June 2013, revenues improved from £3.34m to £5.22m. Stripping out the write-off but adding back the capitalised spending in each year, PipeHawk swung from a loss of £295,000 was turned into a profit of £382,000.

QM Systems doubled its revenues to £3.27m and its manufacturing facilities are being increased. QM supplies electronic system design, test equipment and automation systems. The order book continues to be strong.

Adien provides utility detection and mapping services and it generated profit of £271,000 last year.

Havant-based SUMO Ltd, where PipeHawk owns 28.4%, continues to lose money. SUMO is developing a GPR franchise operation and it was involved in finding the remains of Richard III. SUMO has annual revenues of £2.93m but these are not consolidated. 

Net debt is £2.16m with this mainly owed to the chairman Gordon Watt. PipeHawk still has £1.72m of tax losses. The directors have deferred fees and in total they are owed £1.5m.

At 5.13p a share, up 0.63p, PipeHawk is valued at £1.69m.

Download the latest AIM Journal from http://www.hubinvest.com/AIMPDFOctober2013_49.pdf