Xpress Holdings expects further losses in Q2, mulls restructuring

PRINTING company Xpress Holdings on Friday said it is expected to extend its net loss for the second quarter ending Jan 31, 2016 as its operations in China have been hit by a shortage of skilled labour, and will look at ways to restructure its business abroad.

"Over the past two years, the group's effort on upgrading the infrastructure to keep up with the digitalisation of the printing industry has mainly been confined to our Singapore operations which remained profitable. This was helped by Singapore being an open economy having an abundance of skilled manpower resources," it said in a regulatory filing.

"However, the group's foreign operations, particularly in the People's Republic of China, faced a shortage of the required skilled labour to effect such a transformation, in addition to keen competition from digital media providers and country-specific economic factors."

Given the declining revenue and sustained losses in its foreign operations, the group is restructuring its assets, either by going digital to upscale its production - which would require deeper investments - or minimise future losses by selling off loss-making subsidiaries.