New sales team and clients give 1st Dental reasons to smile
IMPROVED performance by its laboratories, an increase in clients and a new sales team have acted as a boost for 1st Dental despite pre-tax losses.
The Harrogate-based business, which supplies equipment to dentists for crown, bridge and orthodontic work, said in an interim management statement today that revenues for the half-year ended May 31 had risen 5.3% to £5.1m.
1st Dental said the rise was a result of better performance from its Blackpool and Stourport laboratories, which had exacerbated declining revenues in the group this time last year with revenues having declined by some 12% against 2007 levels overall.
The company has also seen the number of new clients increase by 6.4% and spend per client by 6.3%.
Investment has been made in new production processes and staff training for metal free restorations.
Its Eteeth online service has continued to grow despite fluctuating performances in other parts of the group with half year revenues having more than doubled.
However, 1st Dental said that the most significant factor in reversing its downward trend was creating a centralised sales team, which is now some 30% ahead of targets.
After stripping out the investment in the centralised sales team, new production processes and Eteeth, the underlying operating loss of the group for the half year was £59,000 compared to £10,000 for the same period last year.
The company is reporting an increased headline operating loss however of £265,000 taking pre-tax losses to £326,000 – a rise from £141,000 reported for the first half 2008.
Despite the losses, debt has fallen to £1,8m from around £2m as of November 2008.
Andrew Garner, chairman of 1st Dental, said that with a stronger executive management team in place and the improved operational and financial controls that brought, the board was confident of further growth and profitability for the second half year and beyond.
“Now being able to report in the combined first two months of the second half not just profits but profits over and above that of the directors expectations as a result of our actions, even after some restructuring costs,” he added.
