Trash day: another year, another deluge of last reporting day losses

Despite Crikey banging the drum on this issue for more than a decade, 301 listed companies still waited until the last possible day of this reporting season to release their results. And, as usual, more than two-thirds were losses.

Monday, February 28, was the last day of the interim earnings season, which meant the predictable deluge of results from laggards made for a very busy day in the ASX announcements department.

A full chronological list of the announcements as they rolled out is available here, but in summary, there were 83 losses reported before the market had even opened at 10am and 204 in total for the day. However, there were also 97 profits declared on Monday, the highest number we’ve ever tracked on the last day of an earnings season.

The biggest loss came from Rio Tinto-controlled uranium miner ERA, which has dramatically increased the forecast clean-up costs at its winding-down Ranger Uranium Mine in Kakuda National Park east of Darwin, sparking a $650 million net loss for the half year.

The cash rehabilitation spend soared from $80 million to $153 million in calendar 2021, and the Federal government is holding a further $535 million in the Ranger Rehabilitation Trust Fund. For those Sky after dark advocates of nuclear power, it is not just the cost and danger of dealing with nuclear waste which is a problem. Cleaning up the uranium mines is also inordinately expensive.

Discouraging last-day results are important because too many loss-makers attempt to “take out the trash” when no one is looking. After 7pm on Monday night, there were only three profits announced but a total of 43 losses.

Therefore, it really is important to name-check the biggest loss-makers to discourage this practice in the future. So here is a chronological list of the 25 companies which declared a net loss exceeding $10 million on Monday:

8.01am, Mincor Resources: $30.55 million loss
8.10am, Lumos Diagnostics: $11.1 million loss
8.13am, Damstra: $56 million loss
8.19am, Doctor Care Anywhere: UK20.4m pound loss
8.19am, ERA: $650 million loss
8.24am, Fluence Corp: $US14.7 million loss
8.25am, TasFoods: $10.7 million loss
8.26am, splitit: $US39.7 million loss
8.33am, VGI Partners Global Investments: $78.9 million loss
8.38am, Opthea: $37.7 million loss
8.40am, VGI Partners Asian Investments: $29.7 million loss
8.42am, Victory Offices: $25.8 million loss
8.59am, Osprey Medical: $US10 million loss
9.01am, 4D Medical: $12.5 million loss
9.03am, Beforepay: $19.6 million loss
9.12am, Noumi: $65.8 million loss
9.41am, Electro Optic Systems: $16 million loss
9.54am, Betmakers Technologies: $27.8 million loss
10.02am, BSA Ltd: $30 million loss
10.04am, ZIP: $172 million loss
10.07am, Imugene: $14.8 million loss
10.22am, RADiopharm: $17.4 million loss
10.25am, Sezzle: $75.1 million loss
12.45pm, Austral Resources: $11.73 million loss
3.05pm, Pioneer Credit: $22.9 million loss
3.54pm, Clanty Pharmaceutical: $13.7 million loss
4.27pm, Dubber Corp: $30.8 million loss
4.31pm, Dotz Nano: $US7.9 million loss
4.46pm, Eagle Mountain Mining: $15.8 million loss
5.29pm, Auckland Real Estate Trust: $12.6 million loss
7.24pm, Hills Ltd: $20 million loss
7.24pm, LawFinance: $US21.2 million loss
8.10pm, Family Zone: $31.3 million loss

Crikey has tracked last-day reporting a number of times over the past 12 years, and here’s a summary of what has happened:

Tuesday, August 31, 2021: 249 results in total with 168 losses and 81 profits.
Friday, February 28, 2020: 308 results with 239 losses and 69 profits.
Friday, August 30, 2019: 348 results with 275 losses and 73 profits.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010: 279 results with 211 losses and 68 profits.
Friday, August 30, 2009: 285 results with 227 losses and only 58 profits.

This history suggests you will always get at least 150 losses declared on the last day of an earnings season, but never more than 100 profits. The ratio of profits has ranged between 32.5% in February 2009 and a miserable 21% in August 2019.

On Monday there was a surprisingly large 97 profits (32.2% of the total), the highest we’ve ever tracked on the last day of a reporting season. Presumably, most of these outfits weren’t trying to hide their riches but instead were constrained by the shorter reporting time in February and the logistical challenges of getting audit sign-off during COVID lockdowns.

However, there was one particular profit-maker which often seems to report late on the last day, that being the biggest ASX-listed, pure-play coal miner, Yancoal Australia, which is now effectively 62.2% controlled by the Chinese Communist Party.

Yancoal Australia waited until 7.50pm on Monday night to reveal that it had made a staggering $790 million net profit for the 2021 calendar year after the average sale price for its 36.7 million tonnes of largely thermal coal soared from $82 to $142 a tonne, generating record sales revenue of $5.4 billion for the year. On March 15, the Chinese state-owned parent, Shandong Energy, will receive $578 million when the 70.4 cent dividend is paid.

And with coal prices doubling again since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Yancoal Australia’s profits are set to soar again in 2022.

Yancoal Australia owns nine Australian coal mines in Queensland, New South Wales and Western Australia. It is now one of the most profitable investments the CCP has ever made in Australia, after snapping up a range of mines from the likes of Felix Resources, Gloucestor Coal and Rio Tinto’s Coal & Allied since first entering the Australian market in 2004.

However, given CCP support for the Putin regime, it remains to be seen if Yancoal Australia will respond positively to DFAT requests for Australian coal exports to divert some of their production to Poland, which is 90% reliant on Russia for its coal supplies.