ALLIED Vehicles, the Glasgow-based car and taxi modification specialist, has posted a 37 per cent increase in operating profit, to £37.5 million as its turnover climbed 12.7 per cent to a record £120m.
And managing Director Peter Facenna said the election of Donald Trump would not halt the company’s expansion into the Mexican and US markets, which he said remained a “work in progress”.
“We’ve done some business in Mexico, sending them out kit, and working with manufacturers to see what’s available over there to get us up and running,” said Mr Facenna.
Pre-tax profit for the year ending April 30 2016 was down 7.5 per cent to £3.7m as a result of the business writing off £1.8m in debt related to its purchase of Speedway team Glasgow Tigers, and their Ashfield Stadium.
Allied has recently is the largest supplier of wheelchair-accessible vehicles (WAV) in Europe, and the largest supplier of vehicles to the UK taxi industry.
In accounts newly filed at Companies House, the directors reported that the taxi division has maintained its market share, having moved to largest premises in Edinburgh to service the east coast market.
A deal was also signed with Ford to develop a new hackney taxi, moving the company away from Peugeot after 17 years. The same deal with Ford saw the launch of a new WAV.
Mr Facenna said Ford’s products were well suited to Allied’s specific requirements for modifications, while the business was able to offer Ford scale on converted vehicles. Around 5,500 vehicles will be converted this year across all models.
Its fleet business also expanded with contracts to provide patient transfer vehicles, while a welfare vehicle and a range of lightweight minibuses also launched.
“Both are sizeable markets and we have high hopes about gaining a large slice of the market in a short space of time,” said Mr Facenna, who added that the company was “well ahead” in the current financial year.
Sales into the UK stood at £117m. Sales into the European Union grew 28 per cent to £2.4 million and the move into the Mexican market enabled the company to record £65,676 revenue in the rest of the world.
Writing in the accounts the directors said the post-Brexit vote exchange rate was encouraging Eurozone-based converters to take advantage and order WAVs.
“The international side of our business is growing and the signs are very positive that this will continue,” said Mr Facenna.
The debt write-down came as a result of the company taking over the local speedway club in Possilpark, where Allied is also based. Since this injection of funds the Tigers have seen crowds grow exponentially and the club won the 2016 KO Cup.
Mr Facenna said the outlook for the business was “very positive” and new launches “will have a major positive impact within our markets and will move us even further ahead of our competitors”.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here