But the key item above is ‘accounting charges’ or impairments and these dragged actual profits down to £9.8m.
Publicly-quoted companies are always eager to present their figures without such items as interest, tax and depreciation (and write-downs, as above) but that’s ridiculous: these are the consequences of doing business.
And, in M&C’s case, these amounted to £7m including £4.4m which is the estimated cost of (eventually) buying out its overseas partners (and probably some minority shareholders in the UK): earn-outs in other words.
Investors in M&C (also started by Charles and Maurice although Charles is no longer there) will be alarmed to see a few signs of the same model, which is why the shares fell yesterday despite the company’s heroic spin on its figures.