In a SENS statement yesterday, JSE-listed Altron said it "continues to make progress regarding the implementation of its new strategic direction" and expects to post a profit.
Altron is an investment holding company. Its principal subsidiaries ? Allied Technologies, Power Technologies and Bytes Technology Group ? are invested in the power electronics, telecommunications, multimedia and information technology industries.
Earlier this year, the troubled technology group reported it lost over R1 billion in total revenue for the year ended 29 February. Revenue declined by 4% to R26.6 billion.
The group's share price has been struggling as its sales declined substantially as a result of, among other things, poor investment decisions and weak performance from some of its businesses.
The company attributes its change of fortune for the better to the successful disposal of Altech Autopage Cellular to various of the South African mobile network operators, as well as the sale of a majority equity interest in Aberdare Cables to Hengtong.
In addition, and as a result of several other disposals concluded throughout the Altron Group during the intervening period, Altron has managed to apply approximately R1.5 billion of proceeds to reduce its historical debt to "more acceptable levels", the company says in a statement.
"The Altron Group continues to explore various opportunities to further reduce its exposure to the manufacturing sector in South Africa and refocus on its identified core businesses," it notes.
The company adds that during the current financial year, the group's core IT and technology businesses have produced a stable performance in what remains challenging macro-economic conditions and are expected to post results for the first six months in line with expectations.
"The performance of the core operations have been assisted by the realisation of the expected head office cost savings. Altron's non-core businesses, which predominantly operate in the manufacturing sector, have continued to experience difficult trading conditions, although we have seen the benefit of the restructuring that occurred last year in several of these operations."
In particular, it says, Altech UEC is once again generating earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation as a result of "certain management interventions". These factors have resulted in a significant reduction in the losses generated from the discontinued operations.
The company advises shareholders that a reasonable degree of certainty exists that its basic earnings per share for the financial half-year ended 31 August 2016 are expected to be a profit of at least 1c per share as against the previous financial half-year's loss of 151c on a total earnings basis.
This is at least 101% better than the prior period, though various impairment reviews will only be concluded during the interim results process.
Headline earnings per share for the financial half-year ended 31 August 2016 are expected to be a profit of at least 1c per share as against the previous financial half-year's loss of 64c per share on a total operations basis (at least 102% better than the prior period).
Altron's interim results for the financial half-year ended 31 August are expected to be announced on or about 19 October.
The company's share price closed unchanged at R5.77 yesterday.
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