Safety clothing company turnover falls just short of £300m

A Hull-based supplier of safety clothing and equipment has reported an increase in overall turnover despite seeing a slight dip in profits for the year ending 30 June.

Arco Limited, which distributes personal protective equipment, safety clothing and industrial safety and maintenance products, has reported a turnover of £295.1m – rising from the £287.7m achieved at the same period in 2017.  

During this period the company also saw operating profit increase to £10.2m, which is a 6% rise from last year’s £9.6m.

Arco invested £14.5m back into the business, specifically in its digital and physical infrastructure.

Pre-tax profits for the financial year, however, have fallen from £9.7m to £6.8m, which Arco said reflected restructuring costs of £3.6m incurred in the year.

As part of this restructuring, Arco centralised the customer support functions and aligned the sales primarily to industry sectors. The company said that these actions were “to ensure future relevance of the business and improve how we continue to support our customers.”

Throughout the year Arco also continued to redevelop its distribution facilities in Hull, which is expected to more than double the capacity and create additional jobs in the city.

In recently filed accounts, the company said: “These results were in line with expectations and the company continues to take a long-term view of performance and over the next few years continues to invest in the digital change programme and logistics capability.”