The owner of the Stack shipping container leisure destinations in Newcastle and Seaburn has hailed a strong performance despite taking a hit from the first lockdown.
The Danieli Holdings group of companies, which includes care, leisure and security divisions, has posted accounts for the year ended April 30, 2020 in which it saw sales of £28.2 million, a slight drop on the previous year’s £29m.
The firm only traded for 44 weeks within its leisure operation – which also includes The Muddler, Yolo Ponteland and Yolo Townhouse in Newcastle – while trading within its security and care sector were also severely affected by the pandemic.
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Chief executive Neill Winch said the firm had, on balance, produced a strong set of sales figures for the year and only £1.47m down on its adjusted forecast.
Ebitda increased 8 per cent to £1.594m from £1.474m in 2019, however this was substantially down on its forecast as a result of the pandemic and national lockdown, having originally forecasted £4.33m for the year.
Net assets, meanwhile, increased from £2.2m to £3.1m, an increase of 43 per cent but still down on forecast.
Within its care division, its nursing home operations traded well with reasonable occupancy, but referrals and new admissions were greatly reduced due to Covid-19. Its domiciliary care division was also affected with a 10 per cent drop in sales on the previous year, referrals were down, with very little or no hospital discharges coming through in the last two months of the year.
Meanwhile, its man guarding/event and electronic guarding sector, Phoenix Eye, had traded well, until the arrival of the pandemic forced the cancellation of events, impacting sales and profitability.
Looking ahead, Mr Winch said the firm has hit the pause button on future plans until the start of the next financial year in April 2022, but that its leisure division had been faring well since lockdown restrictions had eased.
He said: “Our night time economy division Phoenix Security had to move away from the late night economy sector from early March and look to use its extensive pool of staff in other security sectors.
“This however didn’t kick in until after the year end so had no impact on the trading year 2020, so in effect the late night division generated little or no sales March and April 2020.
“The leisure sector traded well, however Stack Seaburn was delayed as a result of the pandemic and didn’t trade at all within the 2020 figures.
“As you will probably gather the year to April 2021 has been a disaster, in particular in the late night leisure and the security sector, with the care businesses also being affected to a lesser degree.
“Moving forward into the 2021/22 year, all businesses have bounced back with a vengeance – or at least from the July 19, that is.
“Fingers crossed we don’t have any further restrictions and we trade well up to our next year end.
“We are forecasting for the year 2021/22, sales of £34m with an Ebitda of £5.6m, which would be a great recovery from the 2020/2021 trading year.”
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