Sales at Northern Ireland-based veterinary pharmaceutical manufacturer Norbrook Holdings came under pressure last year in what the company called a “disappointing” performance.
However, it said plans put in place during the year were already delivering results with Norbrook optimistic that “financial performance will improve considerably as we move forward”.
Sales slipped by close to 6 per cent to £219 million (€261 million) in the 12 months to August 2nd last year from £232.6 million the previous year.
Directors said the business had made progress on “manufacturing and quality performance” in a year when £11 million was spent on upgrading company operations. “However, sales came under pressure in a number of markets during FY24 [financial year],” it said, hitting turnover at the business which researches, manufactures and sells animal health products.
“The overall profit performance, while up on FY23, was disappointing,” directors said. It was the second year in a row that directors had characterised the group’s performance in that way.
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Profit at the business, founded by the late businessman Edward Haughey, came in at £5.3 million. That was up on the £3.9 million recorded in 2023 but still well short of the £21.3 million the business recorded in the 12 months to the end of July 2022.
The pretax profit comparison is also distorted by £3.15 million the business booked in redundancy costs in the previous year, without which profit would have fallen again.
Norbrook said it had improved its gross margins slightly to 35.7 per cent, from 35 per cent, as a result of changes in its product mix.
Staff costs fell to £78.2 million last year from £82.6 million in 2023 after the redundancy programme which meant average staff numbers fell to 1,719 last year from 1,938 in the year to the end of July 2023.
Despite the challenging conditions, the group paid £7.5 million in dividends to shareholders during the year, according to the accounts recently filed with Companies House in the UK. That compares with £6.5 million in the previous year.
The company’s directors shared just shy of £6.2 million in remuneration, up from nearly £5.1 million in fiscal 2023.
The Lord Ballyedmond Family Trust has controlled the business since Haughey’s death. The businessman became a life peer in 2004, adopting the title Baron Ballyedmond of Mourne in Co Down. His widow has an 18 per cent direct stake in the group.
Haughey was born in Dundalk and established the business in 1968 after spending several years selling pharmaceuticals in the United States. He died in a helicopter crash in 2014.
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