Fife-based shop, school and office fitting firm Havelock Europa made a pre-tax loss of £5.7 million last year but blamed the figure on one-off non-cash costs.
Moving headquarters from Dalgety Bay to Kirkcaldy, stock rationalisation, goodwill write-off and compensation costs and other charges amounted to £5.9m.
Without such exceptional charges Havelock would have made a pre-tax profit of £180,000 from its slightly reduced turnover of £83.4m and operating profit of £538,000.
Chairman David MacLellan said last year was a challenging year but progress continued to be made.
“We are in a better position than we were five years ago when I joined the board and we had debt of £19.4m,” he said.
“We are now debt-free with net cash in bank of £1.4m and a much better mix of customers with less dependency on one area.”
The slowdown of spending in the bank market meant that sector would remain a difficult area.
Financial services accounted for 43% of revenue in 2013 and this year is expected to fall below 30%.
The chairman was encouraged by growth in other markets.
Havelock secured framework contracts with the Post Office and with ISS for financial services and other clients, and had won its first major healthcare orders.
The recovery in education was under way with more schools being built, and the trend is expected to continue over the next two years.
Havelock was working hard to ensure the improvement in this area would continue.
International activity, which now accounts for 10% of group revenue, continued to make good progress.
An opening order book of £25m worth of work had been secured, almost double last year’s figure.
The head office move to the John Smith Business Park in Kirkcaldy is to be completed next month and, with the introduction of the Enterprise Resources Planning IT system, would bring cost benefits and improve overall efficiency.
The new headquarters are almost five times smaller than the present location and allow a reduction in stock, but the move is being made without redundancies among the 551 personnel.
Havelock will be the first tenant of the new business park, and the £700,000 proceeds from the sale of the Dalgety Bay premises will be reinvested in fitting out the new head office.
The launch of graduate training and senior management leadership programmes demonstrated Havelock’s commitment to the local community and the future of the business.
Mr MacLellan continued: “The company is focused on continuing to diversify its customer base across chosen sectors and reducing its reliance on second-half performance.”
More than 60% of sales are between July and December, and this area of risk was being addressed.
He said: “The board believes that the improved sector balance and broader customer base mean the group is in a stronger position to maximise the opportunities that lie ahead.”
Havelock, which this year agreed a £5m overdraft, has still to appoint a successor to chief executive Eric Prescott who stepped down from the board in March.
David Ritchie, who joined in 2013 as group commercial manager has been appointed chief operating officer.
The new finance director is Ciaran Kennedy and £300,000 of the exceptional costs were related to his recruitment.