LONDON (Alliance News) - TP Group PLC on Tuesday said its pretax loss narrowed in 2015 as it focused on boosting margins against a tough market backdrop, particularly amongst energy customers.
TP, which supplies engineering and technology services, said its pretax loss for the year to the end of December was GBP2.2 million, compared to GBP3.9 million a year earlier.
Revenue dipped to GBP20.4 million from GBP21.7 million, but TP managed to cut its cost of sales significantly to offset the fall in revenue, helping boost its gross margin. The group said its management has been focused on improving margins, and it exiting from loss-making research and development contracts in the year, which pushed down revenue.
Sales for the group also were pressured by deferred projects in the energy and process industries sector, due to the problems facing the oil and gas industry. This was partially offset by a robust performance in aerospace and defence sales.
TP said its order book at the end of the year had shrunk a little to GBP14.5 million from GBP17.3 million a year earlier, mainly due to project deferrals by downstream energy customers, while the timing of the large defence contracts on its books is skewed to the second half.
"From this opening position and with the prospects for our growing services businesses, we look forward to continuing our progress into profitability and growth in 2016," said TP Chief Executive Phil Cartmell.
Shares in TP were down 2.2% to 3.3 pence Tuesday.
By Sam Unsted; samunsted@alliancenews.com; @SamUAtAlliance
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