Profits at plastics manufacturers Carclo on the up

PLASTICS manufacturer Carclo has reported that profitability is on the up, after recovering from huge exceptional costs last year.

The company reported £57.2m in revenues for the half year to 30 September 2015, up from £48.7m in the same period last year.

Operational profitability has nearly doubled for the six month period, to £4.68m from £2.57m the year before.

Exceptional costs of £23.5m related to an exit from one of their businesses.

The Ossett-based technical plastics manufacturer, which creates components for everything from medical devices to supercars, saw a write-down of division CIT Technology’s assets in 2014.

The costs associated with exiting the firm’s CIT Technology business and the closure of the firm’s Scotland facility in Harthill came to £31.7m, which affected pretax profits.

Michael Derbyshire, chairman at Carclo said: “The group’s two main manufacturing divisions have produced excellent results in the first half of the year showing substantial progress over the comparative period last year.

“Our strategy to expand the scale and quality of our manufacturing footprint at our existing sites has borne fruit in increased turnover, profitability and improving margins within Technical Plastics and further planned expansions underpin the strong growth prospects for this division.

“We have continued the investment in the manufacturing capabilities at our Wipac facility and have achieved further programme wins, including from a new targeted customer group, significantly increasing the overall profitability of the division.”