WALLACES Express has cited rising operating costs as profits dropped by 11.4 per cent in its final year of accounts before being acquired outright by Tennent Caledonian Breweries.
The Irvine-based drinks wholesaler became wholly owned by C&C Group, parent group of TCB, in March, a year after the Dublin-based company acquired a 50 per cent stake in the business.
In accounts newly-available at Companies House, the company lodged pre-tax profits of £2.1 million in the year to March 31, down from £2.4 million in 2013.
The fall in profits came as turnover at the firm jumped to £91.7 million, up from £82.6 million the year before.
The directors said: "The results for the year are satisfactory considering the economic climate.
"With prudent management and purchasing policies the company has managed to increase the gross profit percentage to 17.83 per cent.
"Turnover has increased. Operating costs have increased and therefore resulted in a decline in profit."
The directors warned the risk of customer insolvency has increased because of the economic climate, and noted greater focus is being placed on credit control to mitigate the risk.
The accounts show Wallaces employed 291 staff in its latest financial year, up from 286, with cost of wages and salaries edged up to £5.88 million from £5.7 million, while the remuneration of the highest paid director narrowed to £220,356 from £228,465.
Long-standing Wallaces' boss Brian Calder succeeded John Gilligan as boss of TCB this month.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article