News

Despite losing a contract with Britvic and falling profits and turnover, the boss of GW Sissons & Son remains optimistic.

It's not every day that you hear of a business happy to lose business, but the loss of a major contract has had unexpected benefits for GW Sissons & Son.

Last year, when Britvic signed a deal with Wincanton, Leeds-based GW Sissons lost a contract which at one point had contributed 75% of its turnover.

But the company's managing director, Bryan Sissons,  says that business since the loss has been a revelation.

GW Sissons' latest financial report reveals that turnover for the financial year to 30 September 2006 fell from £6.3m to £3.6m. Pre-tax profits fell from £679,400 to £236,800, but held up well as a proportion of turnover.

Sissons, 52, says: "I'm quite happy to see a smaller turnover as long as profits hold up. Profits should be a proportion of turnover and as long as that remains the same, I don't mind. Frankly, at my age I'm happy to spend a little less time at work."

But Sissons stresses that he has no plans to pull out of haulage: "That has been said, but it's not true. I'm the fourth generation to be in this business and I'm hoping to hand the business on to the next. It's just that I've reached the stage where growth is not my main priority. I'm very happy to have downsized."

The company's fleet has shrunk from 60 to 15 following the loss of the Britvic contract but Sissons says he is happy  with the way the firm handled the shrinking business: "Given that profits held up, I think we did reasonably well."