The Christmas season brought little joy to Aim minnow Pure Wafer (PUR). At around 9am on Sunday 21 December an electrical fire broke out at the company's wafer reclaim facility in Swansea, stopping all production. Damage to the site - which accounted for around 56 per cent of total group revenue for the year to 30 June - forced the company to book a $15.7m (£10.4m) exceptional cost in these half-year results, pushing the income statement into the red.
Pure Wafer - which refurbishes the test wafers used in the manufacture of semiconductors - has one other factory, in Arizona. The facility is undertaking a "qualification process" with a number of affected customers that should enable the transfer of some production to the US, starting in May. A return to full-scale production may take up to 12 months.