Abingdon Health Shares Fall on Going Concern Warning

By Michael Susin

Abingdon Health PLC shares fell as much as 26% in early trade Thursday after the group warned over its ability to continue as a going concern due to the continuing dispute with the U.K. Secretary of State for Health and Social Care over unpaid monies for Covid-19 test kits.

The diagnostics company said it is currently owed 8.9 million pounds ($12 million) by the DHSC and can't see any legal grounds why the money hasn't been paid.

It said the company and DHSC have held two meetings to try and resolve the issue and have reached a preliminary agreement that could lead to it receiving the money and resolve all outstanding disputes.

"The delay in these monies being paid has had a material impact on the group... and has led the board to conclude that there is a material uncertainty in relation to the going concern of the group in the near term, linked to the non-recovery of these funds in line with the contractual obligations."

It added that the company has received funding support from some of its directors and is looking at capital raising options.

Shares at 1010 GMT were down 9.50 pence, or 20%, at 38.50 pence having fallen to a low of 35.52 pence earlier in the session.

Abingdon added that it made a pretax loss of GBP7 million for the fiscal year ended June 30 compared with a loss of GBP3.4 million a year prior.

Revenue more than doubled to GBP11.6 million from GBP5.2 million.

The company's adjusted earning before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization--a metric that strips out exceptional and other one-off items--swung to a loss of GBP3.3 million compared with a profit of 844,000 the year prior.

Write to Michael Susin at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

November 18, 2021 05:45 ET (10:45 GMT)

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