Ellipsiz profit swings to growth from one-time recovery of bad debt

Ellipsiz turned a 49 per cent profit decline into a 32 per cent bottom line growth in its first fiscal quarter by successfully recovering a significant sum of bad debt, the maker of semiconductor testing and manufacturing equipment said on Thursday.

Ellipsiz's profit attributable to shareholders rose to S$2.3 million, or 0.41 Singapore cent, in the three months ended September. But that was after the company recovered S$1.4 million of bad debt that the company had written off before liquidators of the debtor agreed to repay that amount. Net of tax, the impact of the bad-debt recovery was a S$1.2 million gain.

Excluding one-offs, comprising that recovered money and a year-ago loss on an asset disposal, net profit would have fallen 49 per cent to S$1.1 million, or 0.19 Singapore cent per share, Ellipsiz said.

Revenue fell 18 per cent during the quarter to S$25.3 million as the company's distribution and services solution saw sales drop by 30 per cent while the probe card solutions segment posted a 9 per cent decline in revenue.

Ellipsiz said it was maintaining a "cautious stance" for the rest of 2015, citing global economic headwinds that are expected to hit capital expenditure and semiconductor revenue growth.

Shares of Ellipsiz slipped 1.7 per cent, or half a cent, to close at 28.5 Singapore cents on Thursday before the results were announced.