Oxygen hit by 1.75m investment write-down
- Added:
- Mar 30, 2001
The write-down related to the company's investments in Toyzone.co.uk, M-Dex, and Yellow Turtle, all of which have ceased trading.
Overall losses stood at 4.72m, largely due the write-down and 2.27m of goodwill written off against the acquisition of Oxygen Partners Ltd in January 2000.
Turnover for the year stood at just 150,000, with 106,000 of that arising from gains on the disposal of investments.
The company claims that its remaining 14 portfolio companies were valued at 5.03m as at 30 September 2000. Of these, Poptones, and Tecc-IS floated on AIM during the period under review, while CyberChina floated outside of the accounting period in October. Strangely, for even those companies that have floated during the accounting period, Oxygen's valuations are based on their initial cost.
Following CyberChina's flotation, Oxygen, which paid 24,000 for its 15.6% stake in the Asia-focused investment vehicle, cashed in more than half of its holding, making 134,000. This, however, taking place outside of the period under review, was not included in the accounts.
The company also seems to have abandoned its plans to form and float a subsidiary cash shell called Helium, which it announced last July when it released its interim results. There was no mention of the venture in today's results statement.
Oxygen does, however, plan to forge ahead with the development of Oxygen Ventures, which was set up to private corporate finance services to its investee and third party companies. Oxygen said today that it is in the process of applying for registration with the SFA.
Towards the end of last year Oxygen was tipped as being the driver of consolidation among the smaller AIM-listed investment vehicles, with companies including Netvest, web-angel, and Internet Incubator believed to be among its targets. Takeover talks with Netvest, however, failed after a number of Netvest's portfolio companies saw increases in value due to flotation or valuation events during the negotiation period, and made it too expensive for Oxygen, which had meanwhile seen its value dive. Since this failed acquisition, Oxygen seems to have abandoned its consolidation strategy.
Oxygen, which raised a total of 7.86m through its February flotation and a subsequent placing, had 2.19m in cash at the end of September.
By 4.00 pm, shares in Oxygen were down 9.62% at 1.18p.