The chief executive of Fife-based shop, school and office fitting firm Havelock Europa is to step down.
The departure of Eric Prescott was announced as the company confirmed its results for the year would be in line with lower expectations announced two months ago.
These were that the profit before exceptional costs for the 12 months to December 2014 would be below the board’s previous expectation and the 2013 profit of £632,000.
Customers in retail and financial sectors deferring orders was stated as the reason for the 2014 performance.
However, the group said progress was achieved in improving the underlying strength of the business during the year.
“We continued to diversify the base of the business and lay the foundations for the future,” they said.
“Diversification of our revenue streams both within sectors and in overseas markets has been a key objective for Havelock, and our international business has delivered more than the original target of 10% of FY2014 turnover.
“In healthcare we have won our first two significant orders, which will be supplied largely during 2015, and we will continue to invest in developing our business in this sector.
“In retail we have delivered a number of significant initiatives for our existing customer base, whilst at the same time developing new customer relationships from which we expect to benefit during the coming year.”
Havelock said a number of financial services customers re-evaluating their estates strategy resulted in reduced opportunities last year.
This year the group expects to benefit from the new framework contract secured with ISS for Barclays, and is pleased at being reappointed to the Post Office framework contract for a further three years.
“Education activity is beginning to show signs of recovery, and this is reflected in our total order book of £25m at 31 December 2014, £5m of which is for 2016 delivery,” Havelock continued.
The 2014 order book was £14m and all for delivery in that year.
Havelock is moving headquarters from Dalgety Bay to Kirkcaldy in May after Fife Council agreed to a £750,000 deal to buy its ageing industrial unit base at Hillend Industrial Park.
The new headquarters will be at John Smith Business Park and, at 23,600ft2, is almost five times smaller than the present location.
Havelock said it was not making any redundancies and was instead intending to reduce its space requirement by cutting the amount of stock it carried.
The group’s net cash at the bank was £1.4m, and hire-purchase/leasing debt was £1.2m, but it expected the pension deficit to increase significantly due to the decline in corporate bond yields.
Mr Prescott will step down this year after five years in post.
He led a major restructuring of the business, and during his time the share price rose from 7.5p to almost 24p.
Yesterday it stood at 15.50p.
Mr Prescott will be the second senior figure to leave in two years after finance director Grant Findlay resigned last year.