During the first half, it also agreed a remortgage for its site in Yeovil in the South West of England, extending existing funding of £1.75 million for five years. This brings its total facilities to £13.7 million of which around £2.5 million hasn’t yet been used.
The company also said the pandemic had cut demand significantly in the first half with sales down around 45% year-on-year. It means the firm will make a major loss for the period, although it has managed the impact on cash through strict cost control measures. The company has been managing its cash carefully and made use of the government furlough scheme, as well as its higher-paid staff agreeing to salary sacrifice arrangements. But “June trading has shown signs of recovery, with positive cashflow, and this trend is continuing into July,” it said. “Encouragingly, there are some early signs of an increase in activity in some of the group’s markets and the board believes the strategy to diversify the customer base remains valid”.Not that it’s expecting a boom any time soon. It said it’s “anticipating a slow recovery”, although it believes it now has “adequate resources to manage the likely duration of the Covid-19 crisis at these reduced sales levels”.
