The James Latham Group has reported a 21% boost in sales and is confident its spread of customer groups will help reduce the effect of tougher trading conditions ahead.
The company’s turnover grew to £59.3m during the six months to September 30, up from £49m a year ago, while pre-tax profits increased by 56% to £4.5m.
Lathams has ploughed £5.25m into the purchase of its leased headquarters and warehouse at Hemel Hempstead and plans to relocate the Eastleigh and Dudley depots to larger premises. An announcement is also expected soon about a new site.
“Next year will be more challenging because prices are dropping,” said chairman Peter Latham. “We gained a 20% increase in sales from the same number of depots, so I cannot see us repeating that right away, but we certainly see continued growth.”
He said demand from merchant customers had slowed, but other customer groups continued to show high demand levels.
“The company’s strategy of becoming less dependent on commodity products where prices and margins are prone to wide fluctuations will be beneficial in what are becoming tougher trading conditions.”
Mr Latham said the company was not over-exposed to a possible downturn in housing as it was not a major supplier of softwood to the sector. He said high demand levels were being seen in shopfitting and joinery, and also health and education because of continued PFI funding.
