With the sale of Dreweatts and Bloomsbury for £1.25m the difficulties for Stanley Gibbons continue.
The firm has been restructuring since Harry Wilson took over as chairman in May 2016. In last week’s full-year results he admitted “as work progressed it became clear that the problems identified were deeper than initially thought and new issues were uncovered”. The group is currently in default on its bank facilities – debt is at £16.5m – and reported a 48% reduction in net assets to £18m.
Turnover of £42.5m was 28% lower than last year with trading losses sitting at £8.8m, compared with £3.9m in the previous year. Much of the strife was attributable to the ‘Interiors division’, but trading performance declined in all divisions with Baldwin’s seeing sales to March 31, 2017, drop year-on-year from £8.21m to £4.97m.