The accountants at fun-loving retailer Funtastic (ASX:FUN) wouldn’t have had much fun finalising the company’s half-year financial figures: both revenue and profit fell significantly.

But it is hoping merchandising from the upcoming Toy Story 4 will turn everything around.

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Funtastic, which sells products in the “toys, plush, tech, apparel and confectionary” markets, recorded revenue of $16.1 million for the 2019 half-year, down 43 per cent on the previous year.

Half-year profit also took a 59 per cent hit, collapsing from $35.3 million to $14.3 million.

The company says these figures are on target, with the profit wipeout driven “largely by the NAB bank restructure in September 2018”.

In September Funtastic announced a recapitalisation, with its financier NAB relieving the company of $21.3 million in debts — Funtastic raised $8.2 million in order to pay NAB $5 million, with NAB then waiving the remaining $16.3 million.

It is now warning investors that 2019’s second half could be even weaker than the first, due to the delay of a number of product launches and spooked retail suppliers.

“At this point of time the company expects second half year revenues and margins to be lower than originally expected due to these delays and key retailers becoming increasingly cautious following the relatively weak Q4 2018 retail sales and widely reported weakening of consumer confidence and this is expected to further impact revenues and margins in the second half,” it said.

But it is hoping Toy Story 4, the latest in Pixar’s smash-hit franchise, will change everything.

In May last year Funtastic was awarded the rights to sell toys and entertainment products related to Toy Story 4, and says its financial performance may improve depending on the success of the product launch, expected in the next two months.

Funtastic also looked after the Toy Story 3 product range; when that movie was released in mid-June 2010, FUN shares were fetching more than $3 a pop. Three years earlier, the company’s share price peaked at nearly $11.

These days you can buy a FUN share for just 4.9c, as they trade at all-time, 19-year lows. It has a market cap of just $10.4m.

The history of Funtastic (ASX:FUN) shares.

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