“Relentless” turnaround will see Help-Link return to the black

Beleaguered boiler company Help-Link’s turnaround has been “relentless, but successful” according to CEO Richard Harrison, who has said the company expects a return to profit in the near future.

Harrison spoke to TheBusinessDesk.com following the announcement of its results for the year to March 2016, just a year after a major restructure at the business following the loss of a significant customer.

Harrison, the former managing director of We Buy Any Car said that the company had seen six consecutive months of profit improvement.

“Since the middle of 2015 we have seen radical improvements and that has culminated in us getting into a profit position.We had a profitable MArch which is a huge milestone for the company, a platform for the future rather than digging out the hole we were in,” he said.

The group reported pre-tax losses of £14m for the year to March 2016, widening the £8.1m loss of the previous year when it first dipped into the red.

Revenues also dropped just over 50% for the year, from £76.4m to £36.8m, and staff numbers were cut from 734 to 280, according to the accounts.

“The results reflected the fact that we lost a large contract and had to restructure the business. Our revenue fell radically because of that and the exit of the ECO market. We had contractual obligations to do with IT and equipment as well as people and had to make changes very carefully.

“Costs didn’t fall as quickly as our revenue had, which made 2015 very painful,” he said.

Now Harrison is much more optimistic about the future for Help Link, which has received major backing from private equity investors NorthEdge, who made their debut in Yorkshire with an investment in Help Link of £11m back in 2013.

“We’ve had amazing support from NorthEdge,” he said. “They’ve backed me and my team which is fabulous and they’ve kept faith with our strategy. We were massively appreciative of their support in 2015, our darkest hour as a company if you like.

“Now having stabilised the business completely, we now need to focus on growth rather than reaching breakeven, to repay out investors for their confidence in us.”

Contracts with EDF and Homeserve are helping the cause, as has Help-Link’s exit from the ECO market, which Harrison described as a “difficult decision” but one that the management team have been vindicated on.

“Of course you’ve got to do the essential mechanics of running a company, keep control of costs and margins, but for me the really tough thing in a turnaround of this scale is maintaining a positive culture while the company is going through a huge amount of change.

Harrison finished: “You don’t do it by accident, you do it by force of will and relentless focus on process.”