Woodlands operator puts on strong growth
Scottish Woodlands, the nation’s biggest forestry management company, has unveiled record sales and a new strategic move into the renewable energy sector.
Presenting its annual report to shareholders yesterday, the company unveiled sales figures of £40.9m in the year to the end of September 2007, compared with £39.6m after exceptional items the previous year.
Pretax profits at the Edinburghbased company, excluding exceptional items last year, climbed from £452,000 to £693,000.
Colin Mann, Scottish Woodlands’ managing director, said: "These are strong profits in a recovering timber market."
The company, which manages about 200,000 hectares of forest and provided its latest figures ahead of filing accounts at Companies House, also said that the contribution from the sales of timber amounted to £22m, a 15% rise in value over 2006.
In 2005, Scottish Woodlands reported hefty losses on motorway landscaping contracts, and the past two years have marked a significant turnaround. During 2006, the company shut its final salary pension scheme to future benefit accruals and also sold its business in Slovakia.
Following a management buyout in 2005, 90% of Scottish Woodlands’ equity is now owned by staff, with the balance held by James Jones & Sons, Scotland’s largest sawmilling company.
The company yesterday also provided what it described as "profit on recurring operations", which it said was £981,000, an increase of £117,000 on the previous year.
Meanwhile, Scottish Woodlands confirmed it had acquired a 12.5% stake in Canonbie, Dumfriesshirebased Northern Energy Development Limited, positioning itself to fuel the growth of woodfired renewable energy in what it said was a key strategic expansion.
NEDL is involved in the development of a series of mediumscale electricity generating plants designed to run entirely on wood from local forests.
These plants, which generate up to six megawatts of power, will be located close to their source of wood and will primarily service rural communities, creating "local jobs and benefiting the local economy", the company said.
The company did not provide an uptodate figure for the highestpaid director, who last year earned £87,744.
Scottish Woodlands evolved out of the cooperative Scottish Woodlands Owners’ Association before the Second World War.
Original source : The Herald
