United Communications Partners Inc (UCPA)

[naturalborninvestor]

Well, according to this source, Tre Kronor AB was also profitable in 2013, albeit by a small amount of USD 20k. But it was the worst performing among the 3 subsidiary business units.

Tre Kronor AB
http://www.largestcompanies.com/company/Tre-Kronor-Media--Reklam-Stockholm-AB-282523/closing-figures-and-key-ratios?currency=SEK

In Sight AS
http://largestcompanies.com/company/In-Sight-AS-520261/closing-figures-and-key-ratios

Howcom AB
http://largestcompanies.com/company/Howcom-AB-1216448/closing-figures-and-key-ratios

Notice that the company uses different / less stringent reporting standards for these accounting information than for the US financial reports. Apparently, here they report media billings as part of revenues, so a comparison to the US information is difficult (for instance, the SEK 557m reported as turnover in 2013 approximate USD 77m which obviously does not correspond to the revenues reported for UCP, let alone for one of its business units). Turnover (BE) is usually used interchangably with revenues (AE) in the financial press.

However, comparison among the set of given data by this website (measured by the same standards) is legitimate. By these information, In Sight AS really shines with close to USD 1.5m in net profits in 2013. Howcom AB generated USD 365k in net profits in 2013 vs the USD 20k by Tre Kronor.

So, if all business units were profitable, yet the overall company makes a loss, we can only draw the following conclusions:

- Either these accounting information would significantly alter, and shift those firms from profit to loss, if the same standards were applied as in the US reporting.
- Or a close inspection is warranted with respect to the costs associated with the UCP holding company which seem to eat up all of the profits of the individual business units.
- UCP holds 21% of In Sight (worth 315k in net profits 2013) and 33% of Howcom (worth 120k of net profits in 2013) and 100% of Tre Kronor (worth 20k in net profits in 2013), yet the overall company UCP reported a loss of approx. USD 1m in 2013.