Lab tester HRL (ASX:HRL) saw revenue lift by $2m in the first half of 2020 and its losses cut in half.

Revenue was up 15 per cent to $16.3m and the half-year loss was $2.7m.

The company said this was due to strong revenue growth from both existing and new services lines across HAZMAT, or hazardous materials, laboratories and software divisions.

HRL has grown from a single HAZMAT business in late 2014 to a multi-division environmental service and laboratory provider in Australia and New Zealand.

 

The company said its former chair and the man who had guided the company from its earliest days, Darren Anderson, was resigning from the board to focus on his health.

Almost half of revenue came from food and lab testing, at $7.5m, a division that covers honey, dairy, food origin testing, asbestos, air, environmental, and testing for illegal drugs.

However, the only division to turn a profit was the HAZMAT arm which was in the black by just over $1m.

The geotechnical arm, which offers services in areas such as earthworks inspections, performed worse than in the same period in 2018, and was the only division to do so.

 

In other ASX health news:

Struggling Sigma Healthcare (ASX:SIG) says it’s on target to deliver FY20 underlying EBITDA of $46-47m, but it doesn’t have enough franking credits to pay a fully franked final dividend. It didn’t say it wouldn’t pay a dividend, just don’t bank on it being tax deductible.