Manganese slides deeper into red

LONDON taxi maker Manganese Bronze has plunged further into the red and scrapped its interim dividend after reporting sluggish cab sales and losses in its automotive components business. Group losses in the half year to 31 January rose by 10% to £1.9m.

With money needed to market the new TXII taxi cab, for its joint venture selling cabs in China and its planned Zingo mobile phone-hailing project in London, chairman Jamie Borwick said the board is taking a wait-and-see view on dividends. Last half year, the company-paid 2p a share.

Borwick has high hopes for income to pick up from the sale of the TXII, launched in January, despite a fall in sales in February from 149 vehicles to 126, slowing growth in the financial year to 4.5%. 'Taxi drivers are a cautious lot and we are busy doing a lot of test drives,' he said. Borwick said he expected total vehicle sales to pick up this month with the introduction of the new vehicle registration.

The £8m Zingo project, which took nearly £1m off the group's half-year bottom line, is not expected to go live until later this year.