Leeds FTSE 250 company Premier Farnell sees a dip in profits after a “challenging” year

Premier Farnell, a FTSE 250 Leeds-based company that distributes technology products, reports a decrease in overall profits compared to the previous year.

According to the official statement, the company earned a pre-tax profit of £74.8m in 2013/2014, whereas this current year’s end is estimating a loss of just over £5m with a predicted total of £69.1m.

it is also worth noting that Premier Farnell are expected an exact pre-tax profit loss of £5m in the last six months of this current year, compared to the £36.7m the company earned in the second half of last year.

Additional losses are also predicted in Premier Farnell’s overall revenue, after totalling £968 million last year, the unaudited total at this year’s end is projected to be £960.1.

To recover from a rough start the Leeds company have proposed a global organisational structure that they hope will deliver £10m-£12m annualised cost savings. A new web platform has also been applied to globally to enable growth of the eCommerce channel.

Laurence Bain, chief executive officer, commented: “The past financial year has been a challenging period for Premier Farnell as we position ourselves for future profitable growth.

“The investments we have made to date will enable us to execute our strategic growth initiatives. By improving our growth trajectory, reducing costs and completing the transformation of element14, we believe that Premier Farnell is well positioned to deliver improved financial performance. We have made a satisfactory start to the year and our expectations for the current financial year remain unchanged.”