Sales for the year decreased by 6.2% to 28.7m, which the company said underlined the difficult trading conditions in the print industry over the past two years. Since its financial year-end, the company has lost the weekly BMJ contract.

The West Midlands-based printer took exceptional charges of 231,000 during the year, which coupled with an operating loss of 1.01m and net interest of 427,000 took pre-tax losses to 1.67m, a rise of 56% on last year.

Cradleys results also show that the company suffered from a bad debt of 200,000 from a client going into administration, for which it said there was little prospect of the debt being repaid for at least five to six years.

Although Cradley Print lost the 2m-rated Future Publishing print contract during the year, it said its B2B magazine production continued to grow, and will continue to be a major part of the groups activities.

Cradley still remains cash positive. The group managed to reduce net borrowings by 1.21m to 5.2m during the period.

The announcement did not touch upon the firms SAP system development, which was halted last year and passed to its solicitors. It had said the matter would be resolved within a year.

The company said it will continue to make the necessary developments to ensure the long-term growth of the business, some of which will be painful, but all of which will be necessary.

As PrintWeek went to press, no one from Cradley was available for comment.

Story by Andy Scott

Picture: Cradley - "painful" changes