The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Livestock auction firm’ s profits rise
Scottish livestock auction company Lawrie & Symington Ltd enjoyed a boost in profits and turnover last year.
The latest accounts for the company, which operates markets at Forfar and Lanark, show turnover of £4.013 million for the year to December 31, 2020. This is up from £3.859m the year before.
The accounts, filed with Companies House, also show a 94% increase in pre-tax profits to £524,414, from £270,386 the year before.
In his report accompanying the accounts, Lawrie & Symington (L&S) chairman Gordon Renwick said the company achieved a “very positive financial result” in an extremely challenging year during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Huge thanks must go to the Institute of Auctioneers and Appraiser in Scotland who have worked tirelessly
to gain agreement with the Scottish Government on a set of working guidelines that have enabled the core part of our business to continue operating.
“And also to our staff, customers and haulage partners who have all worked together to make sure the new rules and guidelines have been adhered to in a manner which allowed our doors to remain open,” said Mr Renwick.
“It has not been an easy
year and we remain truly thankful to everyone for working together.”
He said livestock numbers had been very positive in the year and the company had increased its overall market share for the fourth year in a row.
“Our market share for cattle has been maintained in what has been a challenging year, while our sheep numbers have continued their upward trend,” added Mr Renwick.
“Strong throughput performance, coupled with what has been an incredibly strong year for livestock prices, has resulted in a healthy increase in commission income.”
Mr Renwick said some of the increased sales revenue had been reinvested in the business to allow it to offer an online sales platform for customers – the company has been running online machinery sales for more than a year and an online offering was available for most breeding sheep sales in 2020.
“We will continue to integrate our online offerings with our live sales as we start to emerge from the lockdown as this has opened up new opportunities for L&S,” added Mr Renwick.
He said the company’s country supplies business had a strong year and the property division recovered well after restrictions were lifted, however the events division was hit by the restrictions.