Report for the year ended March 2010
As you may naturally expect, a great deal of change has been implemented within Trifast since my first letter to you only a year ago, details of which are explained fully in this publication.
Clearly, our main tasks in 2009 after the new Board was put in place in March 2009 were to ensure financial survival, to remove unproductive and wasteful costs and to preserve the main assets of our Company as much as possible - especially our staff.
By half-year stage, in September 2009, we were starting to see an improving monthly trend in sales performance plus the emergence of a revised purchasing strategy that would deliver higher volume low cost products into TR during the last quarter of this financial year we are reporting upon.
As stated in our pre-close update, issued on 22 April 2010, every one of our 21 TR global business units made a profit during the last month of the financial year ended March 2010, with total sales revenue for the last month of the year being the highest for 18 months.
The recovering optimism witnessed by our customers together with our implemented "Phase 1" recovery strategy instigated by the Board has seen the Group improve its market positioning significantly by the end of March 2010. The Board and our staff thus had the benefit of seeing the results of their efforts and commitment throughout the toughest year ever seen end on a high, so underpinning our confidence that TR's recovery can be sustained.
However, this is only the first stage of our road to recovery, with a great deal of work yet to do over the coming months in order to fulfil our objective to return Trifast Shareholder value to an acceptable level.
One critical ingredient for achieving success is to have employees who feel properly valued, and currently, we have now endured two years of a Group-wide pay freeze whilst price inflation continues to escalate again this year. It is the Board's intention to redress this situation as soon as practicable.
As a Shareholder currently devoid of a dividend, please be assured that the restoration of a yield is one of the key issues in our minds. The Board is keen to address this at the soonest opportunity and once our distributable reserves allow.
Finally, to assist in the next phase of growth across our Global operations and to ensure continuity and implementation of consistent policies across the Group, Trifast announced on 16 June 2010 the following Board appointments:
- Mark Belton appointed Group Finance Director
- Seamus Murphy, Director of Operations, HR and IT
- Glenda Roberts, Group Sales Director
As a Board, we believe that Mark, Seamus and Glenda truly represent the TR spirit - their drive, experience and commitment will take us forward and we congratulate not only them and our other Senior appointments recently made but all our staff who have supported us through this very difficult time.
I am confident that TR remains on target with its three-phase strategy and our stated objective, to return the business back to stronger levels of profitability through lean logistics, targeted sales and marketing with on-going margin improvement.
We look forward to reporting on our progress over the next year. Meanwhile, your enduring patience, understanding and support are sincerely and deeply appreciated.