Palgrave Brown‘s latest acquisitions are making a growing contribution to the company’s bottom line and the company is still ‘on course’ for £100m turnover in two years.
These were among the statements from managing director Richard Fawcett at a press briefing in London last week.
He acknowledged that the group had to work hard to turn around recent purchases, but that was now paying off.
‘Our Allan Brothers window and joinery business has had a difficult time, but is now coming good,’ he said. ‘And the John Mansfield timber operations at Uttoxeter and Yeovil, which were losing £1m a year, are now going from strength to strength, with I-beams, staircases and joinery doing particularly well.’
The Hill Leigh timber products business in Avonmoth, which Palgrave Brown bought this year, is still looking for a manager, but has also ‘achieved breakeven and will now move forward’.
Mr Fawcett said that it was difficult to see how the UK economy could ‘defy gravity’ and not be affected by the global slowdown and predicted a weaker second half’s trading. But he still thought the country could ‘avoid the most serious effects of recession’ and said that Palgrave Brown remains optimistic. The group’s truss rafters and MDF products operations were particularly buoyant. The former, said Mr Fawcett, is ‘capacity rather than order constrained’ and now installing new cross-cuts. Reflecting the strength of the MDF business, the company is investing £500,000 in its ‘Silktrim’ mouldings facility.
