Yet more financial problems with troubled small transport group, McAleese Corporation (MCS).
If it’s not bans from the NSW Government on its tanker fleets, fatal accidents, safety problems and the loss of business, its been earnings downgrades and weak sales.
Since late 2013, the company has had at least four downgrades, or major warnings.
Now there’s another one with the company yesterday revealing has been underpaying superannuation to employees of its troubled Cootes trucking business, the subsidiary which triggered the industry-wide safety crackdown following a fatal accident in Sydney’s northern beachside suburbs in October of last year.
The company says it has a super liability of $5 million to $10 million.
McAleese said yesterday had informed the Australian Taxation Office and hired an accounting group to quantify the underpayment.
At the same time, the company has slashed its full year profits guidance for the second time this year as it warned revenue in its June quarter remained "subdued".
McAleese said it expected to deliver earnings before interest taxation depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of between $82 million and $85 million for fiscal 2014, excluding $8 million of "normalisation adjustments" it had included in previous forecasts.
The market had been forecasting full year EBITDA of around $97 million.
MCS 1Y – McAleese underpays super
In February, McAleese told investors to expect full year EBITDA of $107.5 million, and in the prospectus released to investors ahead of its float in November, it had forecast EBITDA of $126.8 million.
Yesterday’s forecast means EBITDA for the full financial year could be a third less than the prospectus forecast.
The company has also lost its chief executive and chief financial officer, and is now being run by former chairman and largest shareholder, Mark Rowsthorn
McAleese’s shares floated at $1.47 in November.
They were trading at 49 cents yesterday, down 2%.
The company has been one of the biggest destroyers of value we have seen among new floats for some time.
The company said yesterday that revenue in the June quarter had been "subdued," up only 4% the weak March quarter, when revenues were $7 million-$9 million below forecasts made in February.
But it has again claimed it has "improvement initiatives" underway to generate annual EBITDA of between $90 million and $95 million by September 2014, including cutting 680 jobs in its Cootes Transport workforce and getting rid of old Cootes prime movers.
Net debt at June 2014 is expected to be between $240 million and $250 million, the company estimated yesterday.
