LONDON: Growing wood panel manufacturer Egger UK posted a 24% lift in profits following a strong trading year. The Hexham factory, Northumberland’s largest manufacturing employer, has published accounts for the year ended April 30 2016, showing an improved financial performance, with rising revenues and profits. Turnover rose 6.2% to £248.4m while operating profit topped £24.09m, a rise of 17.6% on the previous year. The firm, which had the full time equivalent of 544 employees in the year, 14 more than the year before, is part of an international, privately-owned group of companies – headquartered in Austria – with 17 European manufacturing plants producing a wide range of materials. Hexham was the first foreign plant investment for the Egger Group.
The firm’s chipboard products go on to be used in a host of every day items, including kitchenware, wardrobes and units in bedrooms; desks and drawers in offices; furniture and wall panelling in hotels; counters and shelving in shops and structural flooring in the housebuilding industry. During the accounts year the firm constructed a new shipping warehouse at the Hexham plant as part of a £13.65m spend on growth investments. The expansion formed part of a continued strategy of significant investment, both in new plant and machinery for growth as well as maintaining the facility. In a review of the business accompanying the accounts, directors said EBITDA increased by 12.7% to £34m and net assets of the company increased to £55.6m, up from £39.9m, due to the transfer to reserves of the overall profit for the financial year of £15.7m. Directors said Egger UK is subject to challenges presented by the economy, and that raw material costs are being squeezed by demand by biomass businesses.
