Half year sales down for brickmakers
Brickmaking group Forterra has reported lower sales and pre-tax profits for the first half of its financial year.
The Northampton-based group, which includes the Cradley Special Brick factory on Corngreaves Trading Estate, Cradley Heath, saw revenue fall 17.8 per cent to £183.2 million in the six months to the end of June.
Pre-tax profits were down 59 per cent from £44.2m to £18.1m over the same period.
Construction of its new £95m Desford brick factory is almost complete.
Its Howley Park brick factory has been mothballed and other production reductions have been implemented.
Chief executive Neil Ash said it was a resilient performance despite the challenging trading conditions faced in its markets.
"Looking ahead, we are optimistic that the group's results will benefit from a number of positive drivers including: the efficiency benefits of Desford; an end to customer inventory reduction; the opportunity to substitute imported bricks; stabilising energy costs with approximately 70 per cent of our requirement for 2024 secured and the cost benefits of our restructuring actions.
"Beyond this, as market conditions normalise, we expect to benefit from the additional capacity offered by Desford along with our other organic development projects at Wilnecote and Accrington. In addition, we have a strong pipeline of investment opportunities aimed to capitalise on the medium to long-term market fundamentals of a shortage of UK housing supply, a shortfall of domestic brick production capacity and cross-party political support for increasing housing supply," added Mr Ash, who became chief executive three months ago.
