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End-of-year reports
Page 29
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Despite challenging economic conditions, three companies have posted increased pre-tax profits and show a willingness to invest.
Palletforce Pallet network Palletforce has boosted its turnover by 25% to become one of the top four UK pallet firms.
The Lichfield-based company's report for the year ending 31 August 2005 shows turnover grew to f5.02m with pre-tax profits rising from £1 .1 7m to £1.25m.
Shareholders will receive a dividend of 25.5p per share-73 of PalletForce's 88 member companies own shares.Three member companies, RG Bassett, Redhead Freight and Bedfords, are also represented on its board as non-executive directors.
In its directors' report Palletforce says: -Despite a general slowdown in both the transport industry and the economy, the company has continued to experience significant growth and expansion."
Member companies delivered more than 1.2 million pallets during the year, with an average of 5.0(l0 a night going through the Lichfield hub, which it expanded this year.
The company also spent some £400,000 on a share buy-back to consolidate shareholdings.
Tyson H Burridge Tyson H Burridge, the Distington,Cumbria-based general haulier, is upbeat about its business performance following a challenging year.
The 30-truck firm's latest accounts show a pre-tax profit of £308,983 for the year to 31 March 2005. This is 120,000 more than it made the previous year, despite turnover remaining static at 5.3m.
Director Andrew Burridge comments: "Considering the changes that we have gone through as a company, I'm pretty impressed with the results."
Until recently, half the firm's work involved running powder tankers for a chemical firm in Whitehaven. When that factory closed it was forced to rethink its strategy. Burridge reports: "We've now got ourselves into a niche market moving chemical waste where we can get a little bit more on the rates."
He adds that the company has been forced to boost efficiency by eliminating empty running. It has also tried to reinvent itself as a groupage operator for loads out of Cumbria: "We're aiming for the five-tonne loads that the bigger firms don't want to touch."
C Butt Northampton-based logistics company C Butt transformed a £400,000 loss into an 1.83,000 pre-tax profit last year, but its MD says it had hoped to make more. Clive Hodgkinson says the loss of its cont with DIY retailer Homebase in 2004 was surprising. The firm successfully bid for fun contracts, but essential investment in NI ment for another retailer ate into its pt.( more than forecast. Turnover rose almost A from the previous year, to £29.5m.
"We expected a little more out of the b ness than we achieved," Hodgkinson adr "The year to April 2006 will be a difficult 3 again a lot of the companies in logistics volumes haven't materialised at all. It's b busy but not excessively busy."
He blames the problems on fuel costs, ad in retail sales and high house prices. But firm, which runs 280 trucks from 11 bases, pl to buck the trend by continuing to invest.
"As we see things tightening down causing challenges in the group, we take opposite view," Hodgkinson concludes. "Is is the time to invest and build business. We're concentrai heavily on added-value pz ages [and] we've b fairly successful on new contract." •