A DEVASTATING cyber-attack has cost Safestyle UK an underlying profit for the first half of this year, new figures for the Bradford firm show.

The attack in January caused disruption to customer service and a delay to a planned material price increase – with a £4m impact as a result.

The “sophisticated” cyber-attack saw Safestyle bring in specialists and take precautionary measures with its IT infrastructure, including taking its systems offline.

It did however remain operational, although some of the contact centre response times were longer than usual. Nevertheless, the operational impact ran into the millions. 

The PVCu windows and doors manufacturer recorded an underlying loss of £1.4m in the first half of this year, compared to an underlying profit of £5.1m in the same period last year.

For the six months ending July 3, 2022, the Manningham-headquartered company saw revenue increase by 7.2 per cent compared to 2021 at £78.3m.

Gross profit fell over the same period from £23.5m to £19.4m, a drop of 17.7 per cent.

Net cash also fell from £14.4m to £13.0m, but this was an increase from the £12.1m recorded at year-end.

The business initiated a £5m strategic investment programme this year that includes TV advertising, new business development, the Safestyle Academy to train fitters, as well as a range of actions to improve customer experience and reduce its cost of quality.

The company has also experienced a growth in its order book of 17.7 per cent during this half-year period.

Mike Gallacher, CEO said: “The business has delivered a good trading performance in the first half, achieving revenue growth of 7.2% against an increasingly difficult economic backdrop.

“Despite the obvious financial impact of the cyber-attack, it is pleasing to see our net cash position remains strong, increasing to £13.0m at period end with the Group’s order book also growing by 17.7% over the first half, representing a closing position that was 17.6% ahead of the prior period.

“This supports our ability to act on our long-standing intent to return to paying dividends to shareholders.

“In 2022 we emerged from a sustained period of turbulence and have now initiated a multi-year strategic investment programme.

“This programme is designed to modernise the business, drive growth and build sustainable competitive advantage over the medium term.”

He added that looking ahead they “still expect the business to deliver both an (underlying) profitable full year and positive cashflow from operations” with full-year underlying profit expected to be “no lower than £1.0m”.

The company added that softer sales during an unusually hot summer in the UK saw an earlier return to TV advertising.

Record temperatures in late July also caused some disruption to factory fulfilment for around two weeks.

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