Manchester-based print and web design company Grafenia, owner of Nettl web studios, is finding things tough.

The company said it had a pre-tax loss of £990,000 in the year to the end of March, up from a £260,000 loss reported in the previous year.

Turnover for Grafenia slipped to £10.45 million from £10.77 million.

Grafenia’s stock price fell around 8% to about 8p, giving it a current stock market value of roughly £3.8 million.

New Grafenia chairman Jan-Hendrik Mohr, appointed in April, said: “Grafenia plc is in transition …

“The outlook for print products is uncertain and current trading has been tough.

“Nevertheless, our efforts in scaling up Nettl bode well and we are increasingly encountering potential partner opportunities to sell the concept in international markets.

“One of our past mistakes has been in providing overly optimistic guidance to the market which was subsequently not met.

“Our quarter to quarter results are incredibly hard to predict and we have decided to provide less frequent, but more detailed, updates to the market as and when applicable.”