2016 Annual Report

As the newly appointed Chairman of Stanley Gibbons this is my first annual report for the Group. I joined the Board in May 2016 during a very difficult period for the Group which encompassed the appointment of corporate restructuring specialists to undertake a comprehensive review of all operational aspects of the Group, a subsequent profit warning and a fundraising designed to nurse the Group through a liquidity squeeze.

In short, things had gone badly adrift and urgent action was required to recover the situation. The 43% fall in net asset value, reflected in the table in the Financial Review on page 17, has resulted from a combination of both the inadequately integrated and managed acquisitions and internet development activities of recent years alongside the more pervasive impact of the reinvestment profile of the Groups investment contracts which had an element of contractual buy-back.

These contracts were sold between 2005 and 2013 and have resulted in a restatement of prior year earnings relating to all open contracts as at 1 April 2014. Although much remains to be done, substantial progress has been made over the last nine months with a reconstituted Board and relocation of Executive Directors to the UK, together with significant operational changes which are described in detail in the Business Review below…