Cordlife warns of full-year loss for 2024; ‘no assurance’ of profitability for 2025
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While Cordlife expects its revenue stream for its Singapore business to improve after full resumption of its operations, it said the pace of recovery remains uncertain.
PHOTO: ST FILE
Navene Elangovan
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SINGAPORE - Private cord-blood bank Cordlife expects to post a loss for its 2024 financial year due to the financial fallout from lapses discovered in the storage of its cord blood units two years ago.
In a bourse filing on Feb 18, the company said that the expected loss, which is based on a preliminary assessment of its draft, unaudited results for the year ended Dec 31, is mainly due to the suspension of its operations in late 2023. At the time, the Ministry of Health suspended Cordlife for six months
The company was barred from collecting, testing, processing and storing any new cord blood and human tissues between December 2023 and September 2024. It was also prohibited from providing new types of tests to patients in Singapore during this period.
Cordlife said that its expected loss for financial year 2024 is also due to the conditional resumption of its cord blood banking service
There was also a negative financial impact from the company having to provide refunds and waive the annual fees of all affected customers whose stored cord blood units were deemed by the authorities to be stored in high-risk tanks. Cordlife also had to recognise contract liabilities relating to future storage obligations for all its active clients in the high-risk tanks.
The company had previously disclosed that the various refunds and waivers would result in a decrease of about $9.7 million in its revenue and profit before tax.
While Cordlife expects its revenue stream for its Singapore business to improve with the full resumption of its operations since Jan 14, it said that the pace of recovery and the outlook for financial year 2025 remain uncertain.
It added that there is “no assurance” that the company can resume profitability in financial year 2025.
The company is due to report its unaudited financial results for financial year 2024 by March 1, 2025. It urged shareholders and potential investors to exercise caution when dealing in the shares of the company.
Shares of Cordlife closed flat at 15.2 cents on Feb 19. THE BUSINESS TIMES
