Loxley streamlines via shakeup
‘‘ We believe a new business model as an operating holding will help us establish sustainable growth with high net profits this year. SUROJ LAMSAM Loxley President
Loxley Plc is planning to push forward and achieve consecutive growth after completing a two-year business restructuring task which saw it cut 40 underperforming firms and form seven core companies.
Suroj Lamsam, Loxley president and chief executive officer, said the firm experienced a positive turnaround last year with a better bottom line after experiencing several years of low profit or losses.
Its consistent bad performance was attributed to the business restructuring process which saw the company close subsidiaries which had a registered capital of 1-2 million baht and this helped generate revenue of around 5-10 million baht per year.
As a result, almost 40 companies have been cut into seven active companies which mostly focus on IT business, security, energy, telecom and trading.
Loxley’s revenue was 14.53 billion baht in 2020, up from 13.15 billion baht in 2019 with a net profit of 67 million baht.
“We started restructuring the business before the pandemic. We believe a new business model as an operating holding will help us establish sustainable growth with high net profits this year due to cost reduction and restructuring,” said Mr Suroj.
Meanwhile, Loxley Trading — a trading company for consumer products — has completed an overhaul of its management and adjusted its accounting system, logistic and sales commission to increase its competitiveness.
Earlier this year, Loxley Trading formed a partnership with Boonrawd Trading Co, a unit of the Singha Corporation, to distribute products under Loxley Trading via Boonrawd’s cash vans by using small vehicles that helped it penetrate into more areas.
The synergy between the two companies will strengthen Loxley’s distribution network and increase its reach to consumers nationwide without it having to invest in its own fleet.
At present, Loxley Trading distributes consumer products to over 40,000 outlets across Thailand.
The company expects the sale of Loxley Trading to generate 2 billion baht this year due to its new distribution channel from Boonrawd Trading. It also has products with terpene flavour to support sales in the third quarter.
Mr Suroj said Loxley Trading has not felt the impact from restrictions related to business service hours enacted last Sunday to curb the spread of Covid-19.
“We’ve seen around 20% extra orders of consumer products from modern retail chains between April and May this year,” said Mr Suroj.
This is similar to the first quarter last year when panic buying caused the bottom line of Loxley to grow impressively.
After restructuring, Loxley will make more moves to generate consistent income from healthier subsidiaries.
However, the company is concerned about bad debts and risk from government projects as the work-from-home strategy has delayed project delivery which means the company’s income will grow slowly.