Haulotte posts £28m loss

Haulotte has made a £28.2m loss in the first half of the year and is in negotiations with its banks as ‘not all the financial ratios of our loan agreement will be met’.

The recession has seen sales of Haulotte’s access equipment, telehandlers and backhoe loaders drop by almost 70% to just over £62m while the service and rental parts of the business suffered a less startling 11% decline to £13.2m and £12.2m respectively. This left the overall business some 61% behind the first half result last year with revenue of £87.6m compared with £227m and an operating loss of £25m against a profit of more than £58m.

The losses come in spite of a 25% reduction in fixed costs (excluding BilJax) and include more than £12m of provisions on current assets. Haulotte said it will continue its plan to reduce fixed costs and optimise the management of working capital that has allowed it to stabilised inventories and net debt in the first half.