Stafford reports €5.4m loss in 'challenging' year

STAFFORD HOLDINGS, the family-owned fuel, retail and shipping group, has reported a pretax loss of €5.4 million for the year to the end of September 2010.

The result is a significant improvement on the previous year, when the equivalent loss was €32.8 million. Both years involve exceptional items. At the operating level, losses of €3.9 million last year compare to €4.7 million in 2009.

The group is involved in the importation and distribution of oil and solid fuel, the provision of shipping services, and the Lifestyle Sports retail chain in Ireland.

During the year it closed a retail sports business in the Czech Republic. The directors, in the accounts filed recently, said 2010 had been very challenging and that, despite a reduction in operating losses, the group continues to encounter extremely tough trading operations.

It continues to focus on cost cutting and to tightly control capital expenditures, group chairman, Victor Stafford, said in his statement with the accounts.

The directors said the Campus Oil and Stafford Fuels businesses had performed broadly in line with expectations. Cost-cutting in the sports retail business mitigated the impact of a continued decline in sales.

A cash dividend of €1.5 million was paid to the group parent, Taghmon Investments. Taghmon is an unlimited company and does not publish accounts.

The Stafford accounts show there were transactions with shareholders totalling €8.27 million arising from the assignment of amounts due from a related party to the parent company for a nominal consideration. During the year the company assigned a receivable from Aztec Properties Ltd to Taghmon.

Stafford Holdings had shareholders’ funds of €50.9 million at year’s end.

The number of people employed by the group during the year was 888, a fall from the 1,096 employed the previous year.

Payroll costs were €19.67 million, down from €26.6 million the previous year. Redundancy costs were €888,000.

The accounts state that a group subsidiary holds €10.6 million non-cumulative preference shares in Semele Shipping, a company with a common ultimate shareholder. The accounts show that Victor, Mark and Roddy Stafford, all directors of Stafford Holdings, have shares in Taghmon Investments.