Embattled Dawn reports loss for six months to end-September

The drop in revenue is coupled with a reported loss of R366m for the period.

In June the company's board approved plans by a new management team to "stem losses and return the group to profitability".

The company said that additional actions to align Dawn to the new sales reality were approved and a one-off restructuring cost of R255m after tax was accounted for in its half-year financial results.

A decline in sales, the government's slowdown in spending and low levels of building activity have had a negative effect on the group. The difficult trading conditions in the group's operations in the rest of Africa, including curtailed access to hard currency in certain countries and currency losses due to the strengthening rand, had also affected the group.

Dawn Africa and DPI International have withdrawn from Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique and Tanzania and have scaled down their presence in Zimbabwe. The company said that those regions would be served by Dawn's SA-based businesses in future.

The group said that after the changes it was left with three large wholly owned businesses - Incledon, DPI and WHS - and three partly owned businesses.

Source: BDpro