UA Group loses pre-tax

By FWi staff

UA Group, which includes United Auctions, recorded a pre-tax loss of 31,170 in the year to 31 January, 2001.

That compares with a pre-tax profit of 2.58 million the previous year, but this figure reflected a major property disposal, says group chief executive David Danson.

The three core enterprises are livestock marketing, property sales, and a separate property and forestry division to help farmers and landowners to maximise returns from non-livestock assets.

Turnover rose 2.9% on the year, to 12.6m and returned an operating profit of 42,282 compared with the loss of 164,589 the previous financial year.

“The most impressive performance was recorded by the livestock marketing division,” says Mr Danson.

It generated operating profit of 523,000 compared with 121,000 in 2000 and a loss of nearly 1m the year before.

Despite the spectre of foot-and-mouth disease, which has halted live selling for more than two months, UA is to push ahead with the launch of a planned electronic trading platform which will offer on-line auction services for all classes of stock, plus an on-line brokering service.

Shareholders funds stand at 11.6m and the directors have recommended a final dividend of 3p/share, on top of the interim dividend of 2p already paid.