Yesterday it was reported that Fisher & Paykel’s share price was in a trading halt amid speculation of an imminent announcement from the manufacturer. It has just been confirmed that this announcement will be made tomorrow morning.

In an announcement to the ASX this morning, the company confirmed that it will be releasing its financial result for the year ending 31 March 2009 at 9:00am AEST and 11:00am NZST on Wednesday 27 may.

Back in February, the company posted it’s lower than expected profit expectations for the 2008 financial year. It is forecasted that normalised net profit figures will be between $20 million and $24 million, compared with $43 million net profit for the previous period.

In terms of sales revenue it forecasted a 13.1 drop in New Zealand, 8.5 per cent in Australia, 12.9 per cent in the USA and 19 per cent in Europe.

Further adding to the anticipation of this announcement is the news that came out in March that the company entered into a new interim bank funding facility worth $80 million.

The reasoning behind this was to provide temporary funding while the company implemented its global manufacturing strategy.

At the time of the announcement it was projected that Fisher & Paykel was expecting a total debt of $570 million at 31 March 2009.

Managing director of Fisher & Paykel, John Bongard, made the following statement yesterday in relation to the trading halt and the imminent announcement.

“As previously announced to the market, FPA has been working with its banking syndicate with a view to refinancing the total bank debt of the Appliances Group by 29 May 2009. At the same time, FPA has been reviewing the Group’s capital structure and examining alternative sources of capital,” he said.

“These initiatives have been subject to press speculation over the weekend. The trading halt is requested because these capital management initiatives, in their totality, remain incomplete and FPA is not currently in a position to announce these initiatives.”

The results will be confirmed officially when the announcement is made tomorrow morning.