Wilson HTM reviews Next Financial
By Kate Kachor
Wednesday 25 August 2010
Financial services firm Wilson HTM expects to review its investment in Next Financial after the group's business unit incurred a significant one-off-cost and a full year pre-tax accounting loss of more than $7 million.
Wilson HTM chief executive David Groth said the market for Next Financial's structured products and the availability of financing has been a challenge for the business over the past 18 months.
"These market based factors have played a meaningful part in driving a pre-tax accounting loss for Next Financial for the year of $7.1 million (compared with a $3.6 million loss in the first half)," Groth said.
"In addition, we have incurred $1.4 million of one-off-costs associated with integrating the business (including costs to surrender surplus lease arrangements) partly offset by a prior year adjustment of $0.7 million pre-tax loss for the 2010 financial year."
He said after adjusting for non-cash expenses and difference in accounting revenue to cash revenue the full year pre-tax cash loss for Next Financial is around $3.2 million for 2010 financial year.
"We are actively reviewing our investment in Next Financial to improve its contributions to the group," Groth said.
The group's full year loss after tax of $7.6 million was impacted by Next Financial and the one-off payment to Deutsche Bank AG in relation to the termination of the corporate finance services agreement approved by shareholders in June.
Meanwhile, Wilson HTM's capital markets and wealth management businesses delivered a full year 2010 profit before tax of $12.1 million up 11 per cent from the previous year.
The company's business investment which includes its investment in Pinnacle and seed capital used to fund strategic initiatives improved by $10.8 million over the prior year to a loss of $0.9 million before tax.
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