Leeds looking to invest

LEEDS Group today said it continues to look for investment opportunities as it announced a fall in annual profits to £522,000 from £830,000.

Earlier this year, Leeds Group, which was originally established as a textile business, bought a 29% stake in Scottish cashmere business Dawson International for £971,250 and has also invested in one million shares of European Equity Tranche Income.

In the year to September 30 the group said sales at its Hemmers-Itex business, a German-based factory manufacturing textiles, had grown to £21.97m from

£17.52m and it had made pre-tax profits of £586,000, down from £732,000, but the growth had been slower than expected and not enough to offset investment in the business.

Since Leeds Group sold off its equipment leasing business three years, it has focused on a relatively small textile operation, selling fabric imported from the Far East and its German fabric manufacturing business Hemmers-Itex.

Leeds Group has been established for more than a century and built its business around textile processing, specialising in fabric printing and yarn dyeing.

During the year 1,633,643 shares were bought back for £300,000.

Net asset value per share increased by 16.1% to 40.3p while earnings per share were 1.4p compared to 1.7p last time.

The group said it would not pay a dividend while it “continues search for suitable investment opportunities”.

Chairman Ewen Wigley said: “2008 has been a challenging year for the group, with management being kept busy by both the planned growth at Hemmers-Itex and the difficult economic climate within the European countries that Hemmers-Itex sells into.”

He added that sales in the first two months of its new financial year had been “steady”.