OIL and gas industry firm Cosalt saw its shares plummet 57% to just 0.7p yesterday after it said full-year trading would be significantly lower than expected.
It said the delayed sale of its marine division at the end of August had put pressure on cash flow and as a result had affected its margins.
Cosalt said a new management team, announced early last month, was due to take over on Monday and would carry out a full review of the group’s organisation and future funding needs.
Departing chief executive Mark Lejman said: “It has been a difficult period, but I feel quite comfortable the company is in a position where we can grow and move forward.
“We had the sale of the marine division which was delayed because of Office of Fair Trading issues, which we had to deal with.
“As a result of that, from a cash point of view, we were in a different situation from what we had expected and the profitability of the remaining business was affected because of that.”
He said the review would not involve selling off any more of the business.
Last month the Grimsby-based firm said the sale of the marine division for £31million would help reduce its debt to £7million by the end of the month.
In the six months to the end of June Cosalt turned over £20.9million, up from £20.1million in the same period the previous year.
Of that, £16.4million was through the offshore division, which employs 250 people in Aberdeen, up on £14.6million in the same half last year.