'Miner' profit
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GLASGOW-based Grampian Holdings' haulage and construction profits represented only 30 per cent of the group's profit last year compared with 55 per cent in 1983.
Grampian, which owns Scottish tipper operators W. H. Malcolm, William Wilson and Sons (Johnstone), and three Malcolm companies in the construction and plant hire business, made a trading profit of £2.3m (1983: Um), of which the transport and construction group represented £680,000 (1983: film).
Group turnover rose from £45.6m to £46.7m, but transport and construction turnover was down from £24.1m to £23.7m.
Management, led by Grampian director Donald Malcolm, made an "all-out attack" on costs and looked for new markets. According to retiring group chairman David Greig, coal is being carried again, but not in the quantities hauled before.
After tax, group profits rose from £1.2m in 1983 to £1.3m. Other group activities are retailing, sports goods and the manufacture of veterinary and animal health products. It blames the fall on bad weather at the beginning of last year, followed by the miners' strike which stopped its heaviest vehicles from being fully employed and threw the tipper market into disarray.