Mountfield hit hard by Covid-19, delays FY results

Flooring and construction company Mountfield delayed publication of its full-year results on Monday after having been hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Mountfield said that whilst its CAF unit had not had a number of sites closed due to the coronavirus, its MBG arm had been "substantially affected" by the outbreak after clients had temporarily closed most of the sites on which it working. However, Mountfield did note that the majority of its sites had now been re-opened.

The AIM-listed group expects turnover for the year ended 31 December 2019 to have risen slightly to £21m, while operating profits were seen dropping 24.65% to £850,852 and gross margins were said to have contracted more than five percentage points to 10.42%.

While Mountfield initially expected results to be roughly flat year-on-year, a substantial contract resulted in a loss of £320,000 and several larger contracts were negotiated at "significantly lower margins than originally anticipated".

The value of Mountfield's secured order book currently stands at approximately £9.3m - lower than the figure recorded at the same point in 2019.

As of 1115 BST, Mountfield shares had sunk 33.33% to 0.70p.