Seafield, the transport and warehousing group, continues to record an encouraging recovery. Interim results show a jump in pre-tax profit from £121,000 sterling to £421,000 in the six months to June 30th, 1997. These figures, however, over-dramatise the extent of the recovery, most of which arose from a sharp cut in interest payments - from £328,000 to £177,000. The profit before interest showed a more modest rise from £449,000 to £598,000.

Reviewing the results, chairman, Mr Peter Duffy said the transport business continued to have over-capacity with rate cuts. "Margins are very depressed . . . there is no sign of a recovery". The further reorganisation of the management of the transport fleet produced useful results and the more effective deployment of the vehicles "is expected to continue to mitigate the impact of higher sterling and to produce a useful profit contribution compared to last year's marginal performance", he said.

The warehousing side "suffered from a reduction in re-work commissions". However, there has been second-half improvement.

There was a positive contribution from the short-term letting of the 46,000 sq ft cold store at Peasmarch, near Guildford, Surrey but this contribution will end next month.

Seafield is trying to re-let this property and construction of the new 80,000 sq ft warehouse facility in Barnsley "is progressing according to plan", according to Mr Duffy. Sales in the first half grew from £4,712,000 to £5,098,000. Earnings per share rose from 0.2p to 0.6p. It has net debt of £5,195,000 and while shareholders' funds increased from £9,546,000 to £10,036,000, there is still a deficit of £4,407,000 in shareholders' funds.