BWML makes a £877,642 loss!

THE Canal & River Trust's marina subsidiary, made a loss of £877,642 during its 2014/15 financial year, that compares with a small profit of £77,210 in 2013/14 and a much larger profit of £402,305 in 2012/13.

Resignations and appointments

It was the dramatic fall in profits during 2013/2014 which caused the resignation of BWML's £97,000 a year Managing Director, Derek Newton shortly before the previous year end. Some months later, just before BWML's 2013/14 results were announced, Philip Ridal, CaRT's Finance director and a BWML director also expressed their intention to leave.

A third BWML director, Louise Mitchell, also resigned in November 2014.

Derek Newton was very quickly replaced as BWML's Managing Director in late April 2014 by CaRT's South East Waterways manager, Jeff Whyatt. Philip Ridal, however, continued in place in 2014/15 as CaRT's Finance Director and a director of BWML. He has recently been replaced in both posts by Sandra Kelly.

Incredibly poor

With the headline figure of BWML's £877,642 loss seemingly horrific, perhaps we should take BWML's own performance measure of Return on Average Capital Employed (ROACE—you may wish to Google!). This shows results unchanged from the previous year at 1.1%.

The problem is that this return is, in itself, incredibly poor. For comparison, return was around 8% for the previous two years (2012/13 & 2011/12) and 12% the year before that (2009/2010).

Time to sell!

A few years ago, BWML tried to ‘expand by acquisition'—buying marinas in a depressed marketplace and developing them for residential use. It failed and BWML's financial performance crashed as a result.

Replacing Derek Newton with Jeff Whyatt appears to have had no real effect on BWML's poor performance over the last year and there seems no plan to get the ailing company back on the rails.

Time to sell?