Accoya modified wood maker Accsys Technologies cut interim losses by 17% and chief executive Paul Clegg said the company is set to reach profitable sales and production levels within two years.
The company reported sales down 14% for the six months to the end of September to £6.2m, attributing the fall to lower sales to Chinese distributor/licensee Diamond Wood and customers cutting inventories due to the “poor economic environment”.
However, thanks to a 20% cut in operating costs, the loss before tax was reduced from €7.6m to €6.3m.
“It has been a challenging year in terms of trading conditions, but it’s also been an exciting time,” said Mr Clegg. “Changes we have made mean we’re now excercising proper control of our finance.. We’ve also started supply of aceytlated fibre to Medite for the production of Medite Tricoya [modified MDF] two years ahead of schedule and taken our international Accoya distributor network to 31. This is the distribution target we set when I took over in 2009.”
Mr Clegg said that the aim was for each distributor to be selling an average of 1,000m3 of Accoya modified timber a year.
“This would make the whole business profitable,” he said.
More in next week’s TTJ.
