Sigma Pharmaceuticals wants more time to sort out its 2009 financial results.
Just before noon yesterday, Sigma released a statement to the ASX postponing the release of its 2009 results and other details by up to a week.
"The Board of Sigma Pharmaceuticals Limited advises that more time than expected is required to finalise the year-end 2010 accounts.
"Accordingly, the accounts will not be finalised by tomorrow, 23 March 2010, the originally scheduled date for the release of Sigma’s full-year results.
"The results for the year ending 31 January 2010 will be made public on or before 31 March 2010."
Seeing the company was first suspended on February 25 at its request because of problems, the further delay is not a good look.
There must be some very significant problems to be sorted out and negotiations held with its banks and other financiers.
There was more talk yesterday in the market of asset sales to raise much needed cash and losses and write-downs of $250 million to as much as half a billion dollars.
Sigma warned last Thursday that it may not pay a final dividend for 2009 and was renegotiating the terms of its banking covenants.
It claimed that increased market pressures, especially in its generic drugs business, had led to a fall in future cash flows.
This cut in forecast cash flows and changes to Sigma’s estimated cost of capital were likely to result in a material reduction in the carrying amount of goodwill on the company’s balance sheet.
And the company said reported full year profits would be affected by adjustments including inventory provisioning, writedowns, redundancy provisioning and licence carrying values.
The last sale price remains 90c.
Woodside Petroleum says it will switch to reporting its financial performance in US dollars to give shareholders a more accurate reflection of underlying performance.
The change from Australian dollars will start from the current 2010 financial year.
It says that around 90% of its revenue and more than 90% of its debt are denominated in US dollars.
"This change means that the financial information in the Company’s quarterly ASX reports, as well as its half-year and full-year accounts, will be presented in US dollars," the company said.
"Dividends will be declared in US dollars, but shareholders will continue to receive dividends in Australian dollars unless they elect otherwise."
The company joins the likes of BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto which report their results in US dollars.
