Abbeycrest reports total turnover loss 15.0% to £70.2m

28 Jun '06

6 min read

The re-banking has resulted in secured, committed facilities from Burdale Financial and HSBC. These facilities are appropriate for the Group's seasonal requirements. Management is delighted that the re-banking process has been completed successfully.

Brown & Newirth
B&N has not been immune to the overall downturn in the market with both sales and margin suffering such that cash gross margin was some 11 percent lower than the previous year. In addition, the aborted sale of the business has resulted in both professional and other fees of around £500,000, charged as an exceptional cost, together with additional revenue cost of around £190,000 which represents incentivisation plans for the management. I am pleased to say that trading for B&N in the 2006 wedding season has been very pleasing, representing an uplift on the previous year.

Staff
During the past year, our people have completed the final stages of a fundamental restructure of the Group. We have also incurred the added complication of delivering the rebanking process as reported above. Our management and staff have risen magnificently to these challenges and have truly delivered a business operation in far better shape going forwards. They deserve our thanks and great respect for their achievements in this period.

Current Trading
As noted above, whilst there has been no particular improvement in market conditions during the first months of 2006, the cost saving measures introduced during 2005/06 have put the Group in a good position to cope with these challenging trading conditions and, indeed, management will continue to seek savings wherever these are available. The levels of trade experienced in the first quarter of the current financial year are in line with the expectations set by management.

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