Australia's Link Administration hits three-year low after flagging hit to FY23 earnings

Link Administration Holdings

03/08/2023 04:56

Aug 3 (Reuters) - Australia's Link Administration
 LNK.AX  hit a more-than-three-year low on Thursday after it
said it expected a bigger statutory loss after tax for the
full-year 2023 due to a settlement provision it made after a
financial investigation.
    Shares of the registry firm slipped as much as 5.4% to
A$1.415, their lowest since March 24, 2020, losing for the third
consecutive day.
    Shares were down 3.7% at 0350 GMT.
    The company expects statutory loss after tax for fiscal 2023
to be about A$417.7 million ($272.97 million), a nearly six-fold
jump from the A$67.6 million loss it posted a year earlier.
    The firm was expected to pay up to 235 million pounds 
($298.69 million) to more than 300,000 investors earlier this
year, after an investigation by Britain's financial regulator
into its UK arm Link Fund Solutions and its role as a corporate
director of the beleaguered LF Woodford Equity Income Fund.
    Link Administration said it will recognise a provision of
A$390.9 million after the settlement of the investigation and
the associated redress by the Financial Conduct Authority in the
second half of the financial year.
    Additionally, the company expected LFS's sale to the
Waystone Group and the settlement to occur across two financial
years, seeing a gain of about A$280.3 million in fiscal 2024. 
    However, it forecast group operating profit for the current
financial year to be A$273.2 million. This is within the
previous guidance range of A$273 million and A$278 million, but
just a tad below the Refinitiv forecast of A$275 million.  
    

($1 = 1.5302 Australian dollars)

($1 = 0.7868 pounds)

 (Reporting by Archishma Iyer; Editing by Janane Venkatraman)
 ((Archishma.Iyer@thomsonreuters.com;))