Property group Pinnacle Point reported on Tuesday that its diluted headline loss per share reduced to 0.99 cents for the six months ended August 2010 from a 1.40 cent loss per share a year ago.

The net loss for the group in the period under review was R74.2 million while the headline loss amounted to R69.6 million.

Pinnacle said core headline profits for the period amounted to R1 million after adding back the loan impairments compared to a headline loss of R30.6 million for 2009.

Revenue was up on the same period for 2009 at R144.4 million compared with R9.2 million mainly due to the disposal of the Gardener Ross Golf and Country Estate properties. No dividend was declared.

"The Group's gross profit margin remains under pressure due to high standing time costs and development expenditure on completed developments such as Pinnacle Point and Clarens, which is expensed.

"The related finance costs on these developments were also expensed during the period, resulting in finance costs on development facilities expensed during the period, increasing slightly to R14.6 million from R12.5 million," it said in a statement.

Pinnacle said after an improvement in the property market in the first quarter of this financial year growth has slowed driven by base effects as well as recent economic developments.

Looking ahead, the company said due to the continuing poor state of the residential property and credit markets it has decided to focus on sales in the completed or near completed developments and on new developments, in markets where demand still outstrips supply.

Source: I-Net Bridge