Newcastle building group Northern Bear has revealed a dent to both its turnover and profits after a tough first half of the year.
The company, which is headquartered in Prestwick, saw its turnover fall to £27.8m during the six months ending September 30, down from £28.6m during the same period a year earlier.
Meanwhile, the firm’s operating profit fell by £400,000 to £1.3m. Profit after tax also fell from £1.3m to £998,000.
Company chairman Steve Roberts said the reason for the fall in turnover was in part due to a “frustratingly slow” first quarter. The slow start was blamed on a number of contract delays, which the firm claims were beyond its control.
However, Mr Roberts said the following three months had been much stronger for the company.
He said: “Following a frustratingly slow first financial quarter to 30 June, resulting from contract delays, we have experienced a much stronger second quarter to 30 September, with excellent results across the Group having been achieved since July.
“The group continues to hold a significant order book, and we consider the outlook for the second half of the current financial year to be positive. Accordingly, I am hopeful of reporting another strong set of full year results.”
Mr Roberts went on to say that the business’ recent strong performance has so far carried on into the second half of the year. However, he did add that, although the firm had a high level of committed orders, the company had “limited short term visibility as to when these orders will be realised”.
The company is in the process of renewing its revolving credit facilities with Yorkshire Bank. The lending is due to come up for renewal in May 2020, and Northern Bear said it is confident the facility will be renewed.
Northern Bear recently attracted the attention of a Canadian investor, who acquired a 25% stake in the building firm. Jeff Baryshnik used a UK based company, Cedarvale Holdings, to buy up 4.7m of Northern Bear’s shares.
Shareholders were paid 72p per share in the deal, which was a 20% mark-up on the value of the stocks at the time.
In total, Cedarvale’s acquisition was worth a £3.5m.
