ThinkSmart upbeat on further growth despite shares retreat
Following its announcement of interim dividend non-payment for the full year 2009/10 in order to retain funds and finance growth projections in the United Kingdom, ThinkSmart Ltd shares plunged by more than 13 percent on Wednesday.
The Perth-based company said that it suffered a 13.69 percent decline on its stocks, pushing down its shares to trade at 72.5 cents by 1150 AEST on today's trading, which it noted as the lowest level seen so far since November of last year.
ThinkSmart chief executive Nick Montarello said that the company's below-par UK performance can be attributed to the redesign of its new B2B strategy which should be finalised in September.
Mr Montarello admitted that the adjustments slightly affected ThinkSmart's growth plans but he maintained that the company is still looking at "eight to twelve percent growth for the year and are positioned well for strong like-for-like growth in this second half."
ThinkSmart said that it saw a five percent jump in net profit to $2.75 million in the last six months leading to June as against the $2.62 million it posted from the previous corresponding period.
The company said that it would have seen a 22 percent rise on its net profit but a strong Australian currency in the first half of calendar 2010 prevented it from doing so as it added that close to 95 percent of profit was delivered by its UK and local operations.
Mr Montarello is upbeat that ThinkSmart's solid performance seen in 2009 would be carried over through the rest of the current year as he revealed that overall revenues for the full year shot up by fiver percent to $19.71 million.
ThinkSmart said that as the July results showed that projections were being met, it is well positioned for further growth movements in 2010 and 2011 as the company cited that retailing deals with major partners, JB Hi-Fi and Dick Smith, were renegotiated and extended to last by 2014 at the maximum.