Denby 'cautiously optimistic' following performance dip
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christopher.waltoritarbi.co.uk DENBY TRANSPORT says it is "cautiously optimistic" over its performance this year despite a 27% fall in pre-tax profit, and an 18% drop in turnover in the last financial year, at the Lincolnshirebased operator.
The company, whose founder and chairman Dick Denby has campaigned for the introduction of longer, heavier vehicles on UK roads, saw turnover fall to £6.4m for the 12 months ended 30 April, from £79m a year ago as its major customers saw dramatic dips in volumes.
Pre-tax profit also fell to £243,025, from £335,001 in the previous 12 months, resulting in a margin of 3.7% for the 2010 financial year, compared with a margin of 4.2% last year.
MD Peter Denby says: "It was a sat isfactory performance under the circumstances.
The company had reduced its direct costs by 17.5%, and its administrative costs by 22.8% to maintain profitability for the year.
Our markets, particularly the
international market, has been very hard hit in the recession. We move a lot of capital goods, and people just stopped buying. If you were faced with the question of buying a new £100,000 machine either this year or next, then you would wait until the next year at this moment in time," he stresses "We had some tough discus sions and had to make a few redundancies,Denby adds.
Staff levels fell from 74 in 2009 to 68 in 2010. "We have been lucky as a local firm was recruiting drivers heavily and we lost some through wastage. We have focused on cost controls and brought our overheads in line with the drops.