Balcatta-based transport systems technology developer ERG Group has announced a net loss of $74.8 million, blaiming new accounting treaments for a 10-fold blow-out on last year.
The 2005-06 result, which came after a significant write-off, follows a loss of $7.3 million in the previous year.
The company's revenue had also declined from $227.5 million the 2004-05 financial year to $187.4 million in 2005-06, which ERG attributes to revisions to major supply project costs to bring the company into line under the percentage of completion accounting method.
The company said in a statement that these adjustments of project costs - and their effect on revenue - had a negative impact on its profitability. The loss includes a $33.8 million write-off of the capitalised carrying value of development costs relating to the group's Multi Application Smartcard System.
ERG chief executive Allan Sullivan said that while the company had had what he called a challenging year, it was encouraging to see major projects going into delivery phase after a lengthy period of investing in project backlog.
"Between now and June 30, 2007, ERG anticipates four major systems will be in various stages of commercial operation with full wall to wall functionality of smart card fare collection processes," he said.
