News blog

Metalrax Group

• BY: Andrew Hore |
• POSTED: 02/04/2013 |

Engineer Metalrax Group is appointing KPMG as administrator following cash problems caused by the poor trading of its bakeware business.

This business lost its contract to supply Morrisons Supermarkets at the end of July last year and has struggled ever since. The rest of the group has been trading in line with expectations and additional finance could not be found.

Trading in the shares was suspended at 3.12p, which values Metalrax at £3.75m. Net debt was £8.5m at the end of the first half of 2012.

Metalrax made a small underlying loss in the first half of 2012 but there was a £2m cash outflow from operations. The bakeware business traditionally generated more cash in the second half and much of the company’s debt related to this business.

The core specialist engineering business made an operating profit of £1.7m. This includes specialist coater Cooper Coated Coils, which has a customer base dominated by bakeware companies.

Thomas Somerville Anderson has been increasing his stake and it reached 8.56% last month. The stake initially rose above 3% in November 2012. Brookwell had a 5.7% stake in Metalrax.

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