LONDON (Alliance News) - Walker Greenbank PLC Tuesday said it has received an interim insurance payment of GBP8.0 million following the substantial flooding at its Standfast & Barracks factory in Lancaster late last year, and said a further payment will be made in due course.
The luxury interior furnishings group's factory suffered substantial flooding in early December due to the heavy rain caused by Storm Desmond, disrupting production at the fabric printing factory, along with damage to machinery, stock and profit.
The GBP8.0 million payment covers machine damage, alongside the loss of stock and profit, Walker Greenbank said Tuesday.
The company's insurance policy covers flood damage and business interruption for a two-year period and a further interim payment will be made in due course.
Walker Greenbank said it continues to make progress towards restoring production at the Standfast & Barracks factory, with digital fabric printing operations restarted in late February and shipments expected to be sent to customers starting this week.
Currently, digital fabric printing is only being conducted on one replacement machine, and Walker Greenbank said the other three machines are expected to come online shortly, allowing full production to recommence.
"The initial priority has been to restart digital printing and it was agreed with the company's insurers that the four digital printing machines would be replaced rather than repaired," said the company.
The one machine currently being used is an exact replica of the previous machine that was lost to the flooding, but the other three machines to come online are being replaced with next generation digital printers with higher throughput and capabilities, the company said.
"It is expected that full digital printing capacity will be restored by early April 2016 and that the majority of the factory's total printing capacity will be back on stream by the end of April 2016," said Walker Greenbank.
Walker Greenbank shares were trading up 1.0% to 207.0 pence per share on Tuesday morning.
By Joshua Warner; joshuawarner@alliancenews.com; @JoshAlliance
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