Restructuring sets Pressure Technologies up for the future

Revenues were up at Pressure Technologies but forward-thinking restructures and difficult markets sunk pre-tax losses to £2.6m for the first half of the year.

This was widened from the £900,000 loss in the same period last year, but revenues increased to £17.7m for the 26 weeks to 1 April 2017, from £16.2m the year before.

Redundancy and restructuring costs primarily related to Pressure Technologies’ alternative energy division cost £400,000 and reduced headcount in that division by 12, which was already hit by regulatory delays and “frustratingly” slow delays in ordering.

The oil and gas market has also had an impact on the business, though stabilising prices towards the end of last year created “sufficient confidence” for investment, said the Sheffield-based company.

Despite a slightly more difficult picture, the company has much to look forward to and has confidence in the market going forward, having already acquired Martract, a specialist manufacturer from Barton-on-Humber, in December 2016.

Pressure Technologies’ chief executive John Hayward and group finance director Joanna Allen spoke to TheBusinessDesk.com this morning.

“We’ve seen an increase in revenues against the same position last year but it’s a complicated picture across the four divisions,” said Hayward.

“Oil and gas really bottomed out in second half of last year, and started to pick up in our precision components division. We have a number of specialist businesses making some really specialist pieces for people and that’s starting to pick up nicely. We’re seeing a return to a more predictable level of orders, and that is accelerating.

“Over the past couple of years we have been restructuring the manufacturing divisions so we can become more profitable and get significant levels of scale in the future.”

Allen said: “ Overall our manufacturing businesses themselves are more profitable. This year it’s all weighted towards the second half of the year. [The political climate] hasn’t had any impact, if anything it’s positive in the short term as we have a surplus of foreign currency.”

Despite the impact of the general election on the alternative energy division, Hayward said: “Typically if you look at oil and gas it is not related to anything going on in EU and involves large multinational companies.

“On the defence work, what we do, no one else does and at the moment we’re not seeing any threat at all to the business. With alternative energy, our supply chain for European projects is based in Europe anyway and we did that because we like to proximity to market.”