Thorntons halts profits decline
Chocolate maker Thorntons today said it had halted a five-year run of declining profits and forecast a further improvement in profits next year.
The UK company said all main areas of its business were growing as it posted a 9.6% rise in pre-tax profits to £7m (€10.3m) in the 52 weeks to June 26.
It said sales in the first few weeks of the new financial year had been encouraging and said it would “expect profits to improve again” in the 2004/2005 financial year.
However, the group said this year’s improvement had still failed to reach the peak achieved by Thorntons in 1998.
The group said that although it had widened its range and distribution of products, costs had risen at a much faster pace than turnover on top of an already high fixed cost base.
It has launched a cost-cutting scheme that has involved the loss of about 100 jobs across the business, leaving total headcount at around 4,400. A couple of compulsory redundancies were involved, but most posts were lost through natural wastage or redeployment, Thorntons said.
It said it would take further steps in the current financial year, with the programme expected to complete by the end of November.
Finance director Martin Allen said: “Everyone who has been affected by this knows about it and most of them have already gone.”
