Readymix pre-tax losses hit €6.6m

BUILDING materials company Readymix has reported a pre-tax loss of €6.6 million for the first half of the year and has said that it may need fresh capital for long-term development projects.

In a pre-close interim trading update, last month, the cement products company — which is predominantly owned by Mexican group Cemex — said it was expecting such a result for the first six months of the year and was anticipating making another full-year loss for 2010.

As well as confirming the pre-tax loss, yesterday’s half year results showed a €6.1m operating loss, before exceptional items — which happened to increase that loss by €300,000. The overall losses for the period were mainly driven by a slowdown in demand for the company’s products and services. Revenue from aggregate sales were down by over 30%, on a year-on-year basis, while revenue from concrete products fell by 24% on the corresponding period last year.