re: huge profit upgrade ???? We think LIFE THERAPEUTICS (LFE) tripped up trying to be too
cute with its forecasts on Friday.
It released a statement with the headline "Life Therapeutics
Increases Sales & Profit Forecasts for FY 2006/07".
Now this automatically rings bells in the minds of journalists
as to why should the company be forecasting for the year AFTER this one.
The answer is simple.
Life Therapeutics has increased its forecast for 2006/07
whereas, further down in the statement, a lot further down, the company
"reforecast down" its 2005/06 result.
We looked at the table of expected results to find that the
EBITDA for 2006 should really be LBITDA - that is, a loss of $2.5
million, while EBITDA for 2007 would be $20 million.
Which was bit odd, because in the body of the report the figure
used was $24 million.
Life later issued a "revised" report which did not say what the
"revision" was.
However, after wasting our precious time comparing the two, we
realised the EBITDA figure in the table for 2007 had changed to $24
million.
Later still Life issue a "clarification" report on the forecasts
... but we were worn out.
Life shares fell 22c to $1.81 before closing at $1.88 on Friday.
The forecasts must have come as a shock to all those buyers who
boosted Life from $1.60 on February 20 to as high as $2.11 on March 3.
LFE
life therapeutics limited
