News blog

Billington Holdings

• BY: Andrew Hore |
• POSTED: 21/03/2013 |

Structural steel supplier Billington reduced its 2012 loss even though revenues fell sharply and it is on course to move bck into profit.

In 2012, revenues slumped from £53.9m to £38.2m. Annualised cost reductions of £3m, after adopting a single shift working pattern in structural steels helped to cut the loss from £2.16m to £455,000. That includes redundancy costs which fell from £472,000 to £322,000.
There was a cash outflow of around £800,000 but there is still net cash of £599,000.

Even the easi-edge safety business was not immune to the weak construction market. The managing director has been replaced at the poorly performing Peter Marshall Steel Stairs.Sustainable site security hoarding continues to grow with strong order inflow in 2013.

Billington anticipates “marginal improvement in trading conditions throughout 2013”. The order book has improved and excess capacity is leaving the market through the closure of small competitors. These closures have removed £70m of capacity from the structural steel market.

Billington is forecast to move back into profit this year. However, WH Ireland has reduced its 2013 profit forecast from £500,000 to £400,000.

At 38p a share, Billington is valued at £4.9m. The shares are trading on 13 times prospective 2013 earnings.

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