Heating and Ventilating

Air-conditioning and pump hire group Andrew Sykes has announced a lower pre-tax profit compared with the previous year and blames 2007's wet summer.
For the year ended December 29, 2007, the firm that specialises in the hiring of portable heating and air conditioning equipment, reported a pre-tax profit of £12.4 million against £14 million the previous year.

In its Mayday announcement, the firm reported its revenue was £57.9 million, down from £59.8 million the previous year.

The company attributed the fall to 2007's poor summer and a fall in demand for air conditioning compared to the hot summer of 2006.

'We did not experience the very hot and favourable weather conditions of the summer of 2006 which contributed to a £2 million decrease in revenue to £57.8 million', said chairman J G Murray.

Refering to the firm's dependancy on climate, he said 'It has been our strategy for some time to move away from this dependency and our group now has a diverse range of income streams thereby providing a solid base of revenue underpinning the business'.

The group's pumping division 'performed extremely well in 2007'. The company said overall trading in the first quarter of 2008 was in line with expectations.

The Wolverhampton-based company also announced that Jean Jacques Murray, previously a non-executive director of the group, has assumed the role of non-executive vice chairman.