Trifast PLC announced total group revenue for the year ending 31 March 2018 at GB£193.9 million, a 6%year on year improvement at actual exchange rate.
CEO Mark Belton said: “this year's key revenue message continues to be one of consistent growth across all our regions.” At constant exchange rates, revenue increased by 4% year on year. Sales to multinational OEMs contributed more than 65% of Group turnover and were the largest source of growth. Underlying profit before tax increased to GB£22.7 million, an 8.5% improvement on the previous year at AER.
Trifast reported it had committed an investment of up to GB£15 million to transform its IT infrastructure and business processes, in order to underpin future growth. Project Atlas is targeted at a one-stop service on a global scale through an integrated management information system, so that a customer who requires identical components for their assembly plants in say China, Germany or the US can rely on just one of our customer support teams based, for example, in Holland or Sweden, to organise the entire supply and traceability function. Trifast says this will ensure consistency for our customers who assemble identical equipment in their geographically spread plants.
Likewise, it aims to enable its procurement managers based, say in Italy, to be able to pinpoint an actual individual TR factory machine within the Group, that has the optimum capacity at that moment to quickly satisfy an urgent customer order, rather than the traditional process which is to quote an average delivery time based on the entire factory loading (typically some 6-8 weeks). Chairman, Malcolm Diamond MBE said, “This is where our markets are looking and so Trifast must be ready.”
Mr Diamond also announced that Trifast had strengthened its HR team, explaining: “no financial business investment will provide a realistic return without the support of its people - which in turn can only come from consistent care and attention, complemented by motivation and appropriate training provided by our team leaders”.
Considering other capital investment, Mark Belton said: As a Group, we continue to invest in our operations around the world to support our ongoing growth story”. In manufacturing, capital expenditure plans will continue to increase capacity most noticeably at both Italian and Singaporean sites. On the distribution side, Trifast has already expanded warehousing capacity in Shanghai and Northern Ireland to support the strong growth in both markets. It also moved into a new USA site in April, representing one of its biggest warehousing investments in recent years – increasing capacity significantly to future proof the business for further growth. Further investment is also planned for TR’s rapidly expanding greenfield distribution site in Spain and the Group has set up a TR Innovation and Technical Centre in Sweden’s electric vehicle development area, Lindholmen, Gothenburg.
On 4th April Trifast acquired Precision Technology Supplies, a key distributor of stainless steel fastenings in the UK, which is expected to be earnings enhancing in the 2019 financial year.
Having held senior management roles in leading automotive and fastener businesses, Phil joined Fastener + Fixing Magazine as editor in 2002. Convinced there is no substitute for ‘being there’, over 17 years of visits and interviews around the world means he has accumulated an extraordinary knowledge and perspective of the global fastener industry, reflected in his incisive and thought provoking reporting.
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