Halstead sets sail for more record profits

NORTH West commercial flooring giant James Halstead has once again revealed record results helped by a prestigious commission to work on the world’s largest cruise liner.

The Radcliffe-based group said in its interim results for the half year until the end of 2009 that its turnover has increased by 6.3% to £92.1m. Profits leapt 10.2% to £16.9m.

While domestic sales dippled 3.2%, there was a 13.5% increase in overseas revenues.

Halstead’s sales in Asia and Hong Kong rocketed 80%, France was up 37%, Germany up by 9.5%, Australia up 6.7% and New Zealand up 2%.

Chairman Geoffrey Halstead said: “Steady progress, in heavy seas, best describes the first six months trading and whilst we can’t change the wind we have very deftly adjusted our sails”.

In addition to working on the world’s largest cruise liner named ‘Oasis of the Seas’ which is five times the size of the Titanic, Halstead has also provided flooring for the Emirates Marquee at the Melbourne Spring Racing carnival.

Over the past half-year, it has also worked in several large hospitals such as St Vincent’s in Queensland, the Abha Hospital in Saudi Arabia, Derby Hospital in the UK, the ESI Hospital in Bangalore, India and the St Nersess Hospital in Yerevan, Armenia.

Mr Halstead said that the refurbishment of the premises it bought in Oldham is now ‘largely completed’ and the process of moving staff there is also now underway.

In January, TheBusinessDesk.com reported that the company was also investing £4m in its Bury factory.

Mr Halstead said: “During the next few months we will start to re-shape our UK businesses into separate organisations for sales, technical and manufacturing to underline both the international nature of sales and also a much lesser reliance on UK manufacturing.

“It is worth noting that our market capitalisation has now passed the £300m level having been below £45m when the last decade started.

“The first half year trading was very solid with record revenue of £92.11m representing an increase of 6.3%. The majority of the sales growth was derived from our flooring activities though I would note Phoenix Distribution – our motorcycle accessories subsidiary – increased sales by 5.3% in difficult retail conditions.

“In summary, we have an increasing presence in global markets, an improved product offering and continued focus on customer service.

“Notwithstanding that it is clear that our UK market is still fragile, I have no doubt that we will continue to forge ahead through our second half.”