The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Steep drop in sales for Dundee safety firm
SAFEHOUSE: Another seven-figure loss for specialist safety module company
A Dundee safety module supplier saw another large drop in sales last year as oil and gas companies looked for savings.
Safehouse Habitats recorded sales of £19.2 million in 2014 but this has steadily declined – to £13.8m in 2015, then to £10.2m in 2016.
Newly published accounts lodged at Companies House show the Claverhouse Industrial Park-based firm’s turnover fell by 43.5% last year to £5.8m, for the year ending May 31.
Pre-tax losses in the company widened to £1.4m, from £1m the previous year. Director Richard Clark said the accounts reflected lower levels of activity in the oil and gas industry, with firms applying pressure on their supply chain.
He said the firm was trading profitably again in the current year, partially thanks to its purchase in June of key supplier Safe-Ex.
Safehouse’s parent company Starn Energy Services Group also bought collapsed Cupar oil and gas services group Sabre Safety out of administration in February last year.
Mr Clark said: “In the current year we are profitable at operating profit level.
“We are seeing good growth in Australia and South East Asia.
“The UK business continues to be quite slow on the Safehouse side but the Sabre Safety side has been strong and we are also seeing signs now that the Safehouse business is going to move ahead in this part of the world.
“We managed to resurrect quite a bit of employment at Sabre Safety and brought the jobs to Dundee.
“It has also allowed savings to be made where overlap exists.”
Staffing levels at Safehouse dropped from 86 to 64 last year.
Last year the group reached agreement with principal bankers HSBC to a revised set of financial covenants.
It has also restructured the terms of its vendor loan notes, including conversion of a portion of this debt to equity.
Last month the group agreed with HSBC to the restructuring of its £5m term loan on to an amortising basis.
Mr Clark said: “We were staring at quite a difficult situation.
“Our equity investors were supportive of us and HSBC were fantastic – their approach was what can they do to help get the company on a secure financial footing.
“They have given us a longer time to repay the debt they put into the company in 2014 – it was a good vote of confidence in the future of the group.”
The firm is hopeful that trading conditions will improve later this year, on the back of a higher oil price.
Parent firm Starn Energy Services recorded a pre-tax loss of £8m last year, compared to a £22.2m loss in 2016. Turnover fell from £12.8m to £8.7m.