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ERF's
midway loss
ERF (Holdings) reports a before-tax loss of £264,000 for the 28 weeks ended October 11, 1975; comparable figure for 1974 was £377,000 profit.
The chairman, Mr Peter Foden, said the main reasons, for the downturn were 30 per cent reduction in UK vehicle sales because of falling demand; a drop in margins on business reflecting " severe" competition from both home and foreign firms; and production problems encountered in the introduction of the BSeries earlier in 1975. However, the production problems had now been overcome.
Better news also was that the South African subsidiary had turned round to profitability, and the encouraging results from the new subsidiary, ERF Fire Engineering.
With the B-Series production problems ironed out, ERF was now in a position to satisfy demand when it picked up. But any substantial upturn was unlikely to influence the 197576 results, although it was more optimistic about next year.