Hills in red again but expects to hoist profit next year

TECHNOLOGY company Hills says it will make another loss this financial year, citing restructuring costs and its scrapped plans to spin off its health technology division.

Hills is forecasting a net loss of between $6 and $8 million for the year to June 30, an improvement on the previous financial year’s $68 million loss, and a $86 million loss in the year before that.

Best known for making the Hills Hoist clothesline, the company in 2013 moved away from manufacturing to become a distributor of security systems, audio visual equipment and health technology.

The Hills line of household products is now licensed to Woolworths.

Hills said its cashflow in the second half of the current financial year has been impacted by restructuring costs and charges associated with its plan to demerge its health business.

Hills Health, which provides communications systems for hospitals, was to merge with another health technology business, Lincor, and the merged company was to be listed on the Australian share market.

But the listing was deferred in November last year due to market volatility, and merger shelved in January.

Hills yesterday said growing profits and cost reductions would help it make a profit next financial year. Shares, down 91 per cent in three-plus years, closed at 16.5¢. the