Profits down in Recycling UK’s ‘challenging’ year
RECYCLING UK, the Nantwich-based independent recycled paper and plastics merchant, saw its sales and profits hit by steep price falls last year.
The company described the year to the end of June 2012 as “challenging” as sales fell 18.7% from £27.2m to £22.2m and profits halved from £479,000 to £232,000.
The company said: “The pricing of various grades of material have decreased between 30-50$ during the year and some paper mills in the UK and Europe have restricted intake.
“Margins also suffered as in general tonnage sales throughout the industry were down by 20-25% throughout the year and although prices were down the more versatile sales of the group helped to increase gross profit percentage to 6.6% compared to 5% last year.”
A year ago the company acquired Shropshire firm Oswestry Waste Paper, which collects and recycles more than 30,000 tonnes per year of waste paper, plastic and other recyclables throughout Shropshire, Cheshire, North and Mid Wales and The West Midlands.
Recycling UK said the acquisition would complement its trading activities, as it will now be able to not only buy and seel recycling materials from the trade in process form, but also collect material by skip or bulk on trailers.
The company was founded by managing director Neil Clarke in 1998 as Fibre Recycling UK and changed its name to Recycling UK in 2005.
It sells to paper mills and packaging firms in the UK, Holland, France, Germany, Austria, Sweden, Slovenia, Italy, China, and to India and Pakistan through a joint venture company.
Last year its export success earned it a place on the International Track 200 which ranks Britain’s private companies with the fastest growing international sales.
