Sydney - Monday - September 22: (RWE Aust Business News) - Souls Private Equity Ltd (ASX:SOE) reported a net loss of $29.23 million for the year to July 31 2008, compared with a profit of $16.41m in FY07. Revenue was up 24 per cent to $25.29m. Earnings per share was a loss of 4.92c against earnings of 2.76c previously. The major contributors to the loss included impairment of $22.4 million against the unlisted small and medium sized enterprises (SME) portfolio of loans and investments and a $12.2m market value decrease in the listed share portfolio. The reported net assets of the consolidated entity have decreased to $138.2m. Souls expects improved earnings performances from several investments within the SME portfolio during 2009 including Pitt Capital Partners, Cromford, Specialist Oncology Property, Austgrains, Supercorp, Belaroma and Soda Brands. It expects that property values in Hong Kong will not increase at the same rate as they did during the 2008 fiscal year and therefore it will experience a decline in the earnings of Asian Property Investments for the 2009 financial year.
SOE Price at posting:
13.0¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Not Held
