Fermanagh steelworks made £16.5m profit in 2008
(29/11/2009)
 
Fisher Engineering, the Fermanagh steelwork firm that was sold for stg£90 million in 2007, made profits of stg£16.5 million in the year after the deal, writes Gavin Daly.

The company, which was owned by brothers Ernie and Ivan Fisher, recorded a sharp rise in turnover last year, up to stg£67.1 million from stg£54.6 million in 2007. Pre-tax profits rose by more than 60 per cent, fromstg£10.3million in 2007 to stg£16.5 million.

On the back of the improved finances, interim dividends of stg£8 million were paid last year, double the dividend of the previous year.

Fisher Engineering had accumulated profits of stg£21.3 million after the dividends were paid, and the directors of the firm said they would ‘‘continue to seek every opportunity to increase profitable turnover’’.

The company had 285 staff last year and paid stg£9.5 million in wages and salaries. The directors shared more than stg£602,000, down from stg£1.6 million in 2007, when the business was bought by English firm Severfield-Rowen.

Ernie and Ivan Fisher are understood to have made about stg£60 million from the takeover.

Based in Ballinamallard near Enniskillen, Fisher Engineering was set up in 1950 by the Fishers’ father, Tommy. It was previously headed by their brother, rally driver Bertie Fisher, who was killed in a helicopter crash with his son and daughter in 2001.


Source www.sbpost.ie
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