Shares in i-mate, the mobile phone and hand-held computer developer majority-owned by Glaswegian Jim Morrison, plunged more than 18% to an all-time low yesterday after the firm said it would make an interim pre-tax loss.
The company, which is based in Dubai, said it expected to take a hit on "certain non-recurring charges" for the half-year to the end of September, related "to the writing down" of between $6m and $10m (£2.9m and £4.9m) after scrapping a new product range.
Shares in i-mate yesterday closed 9.5p down at 43p, valuing the firm at around £51.4m.
I-mate said its Urban range had been cancelled because it did not meet "the stringent quality tests now in place in time to penetrate their target markets".
I-mate designs mobile pocket PCs and smartphones similar to Vodafone's BlackBerry, although i-mates run on the Microsoft operating system. The products are sold under the i-mate brand, supported by related content and services, and are targeted at the business and personal markets.
Meanwhile, the firm, whose cash position stands at $54m, also said it was bringing in-house the previously outsourced after-market service business. It also said that the launch of its new Ultimate device would be delayed by two months because of a "quality test", but it added that the devices were expected to be shipped in volume during the current quarter.
In spite of such setbacks, i-mate insisted it was making "steady progress" with sales and that the expected underlying trading-related pre-tax losses would be in line with forecasts.
Morrison, a former BT executive who founded the firm in Glasgow in 2001, reduced his stake from 100% to 80.1% through a 2005 placing on the Alternative Investment Market.
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