City Briefs: Slingsby and OptiBiotix

Baildon-based industrial equipment supplier, Slingsby, has reported a decline in sales in its audited results for the year ended 31 December 2019.

The company’s full year operating profit before exceptional items was £0.45m (2018: £0.52m) on sales of £19.6m (2018: £19.8m).

Group sales declined by around 1% which, together with a reduction in gross margin, led to a profit before taxation and exceptional items of £0.16m (2018: £0.26m).  

Slingsby says the fall in sales was due to lower sales of seasonal products – both winter and summer – due to milder weather in 2019 compared to 2018.

Group EBITDA in the year ended 31 December 2019 were £0.9m (2018: £1m). Net debt at 31 December 2019 was £1.1m (2018: £1.1m).

The firm’s report on its most recent trading adds: “The market remains competitive and we are cautious regarding the outlook. 

“This is particularly the case due to significant uncertainty created by the Coronavirus. 

“We are seeing large falls in demand from customers in certain adversely affected sectors and order concentration on a limited number of product lines and from a smaller number of customers. 

It is unclear as to the impact that the virus will have on demand going forward.

“Across the Group, we are proud of our position as a key supplier to the NHS and related sectors and have worked hard to ensure that we have remained ‘open for business'”.

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York-based life sciences company OptiBiotix Health has published preliminary unaudited revenue figures, which it says show its divisions are making progress against their aim of being profitable this year.

Its update reports on the first three months of this financial year to the last full week in March 2020.

Total invoiced sales of the firm’s LPLDL® and SlimBiome® as ingredient or final product were £407,844, representing a 928% increase for the same period last year (£39,645).

This does not include approximately £60,000 worth of LPLDL®, which was invoiced and part paid in 2019 which under IFRS 15 – a new international reporting standard – may have to be accounted for in this year’s results, as delivery did not take place until 2020.

The company, which develops compounds to tackle obesity, cardiovascular disease and diabetes, also received proceeds of £162,500 of investment income in this period from the disposal of shares in SkinBioTherapeutics, which is not included in these figures.

OptiBiotix says it has signed nine commercial agreements in the same period, with a further four deals in the subsequent months, making a total of 13 agreements for the year to date.

The agreements aim to extend the company’s geographic reach into 119 countries.

Stephen O’Hara, CEO of OptiBiotix, said: “The first three months of this year have seen strong commercial progress with OptiBiotix extending its geographic reach and brand presence into 119 countries.

“With more agreements generating revenues, and a greater number of deals generating income in the first year of agreement, we have seen a large increase in revenues (928%) when compared to the same period last year, albeit against a low base.

“We anticipate further revenue growth in 2020 as existing deals contribute to full year revenues, we extend the application of our products into new areas, and we continue to execute deals with new partners.”