AGTech losses lower in Q1 2012

Despite higher revenues across the group, Chinese gambling firm AGTech produced a mediocre financial performance in Q1-2012, posting the following numbers:

* Revenues up 117 percent to HK$42.3 million.

* Gross profit up 73.2 percent to HK$25.2 million

* Operating profit of HK$674, 000; an improvement compared with last year’s Q1 loss of HK$2.4 million.

* A rather nebulous HK$10.4 million accounting entry on “amortization of other intangible assets” that resulted in a HK$11.8 million loss, still an improvement on the HK$13.2 million loss incurred in Q1 2011.

AGTech’s future appears linked to developments that occurred last year, when the company entered into a partnership with UK online and land gambling group Ladbrokes on a virtual road racing project branded Lucky Racing, and the separate acquisition of lottery equipment supplier GOT and mobile provider Shenzhen Silvercreek.

After an encouraging start, things have not gone well on the Lucky Racing front, with Q1-2012 revenues down almost 35 percent on Q4-2012’s RMB400 million for reasons that are not clear.

Management appears to be pinning its hopes on an expansion to other provinces in China beyond the present Hunan operation, but much will depend on the decisions of the Chinese government’s bureaucrats going forward.

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