Sheffield Forgemasters International Ltd has posted accounts for the year ending 31 March 2025, showing improved financial performance over the previous year.
With revenue of £114.4m (2024: £94.9m) through stronger sales to UK defence and commercial customers, the company noted increased margins driven by sales, but also energy efficiency initiatives and capital investment programmes, delivering a £0.5m pre-tax profit (2024: loss of £5m).
The business mitigated a £1.2m operating loss for the year (2024: loss of £5.2m) by driving forward with Research and Development as a key strength and securing additional income of £5.5m through grant-funded and other projects, an increase of more than £2m over the previous year.
Patrick Davison, Chief Financial Officer at Sheffield Forgemasters, said: “The group financial results for the year ending March 31st, 2025, demonstrate improvements in both revenue and operating efficiencies, driven by much hard work and continued investment into the business.
“Despite the company facing challenging global competition and unpredictable markets due to geopolitical factors and high energy costs, the improved top line and our return of a nominal profit is satisfactory, providing a relatively stable financial platform for the new financial year.
“The company’s gross margin increased to 18.6 per cent, almost two per centage points up from the previous year which, alongside improved defence volumes, also demonstrates the initial positive effect of capital investment replacing old and unreliable equipment.
“UK Defence has continued to provide a strong flow of orders from major programmes, but demand from the Oil and Gas and Steel Processing sectors remains subdued, the latter impacted by weak automotive demand and tariff uncertainty.”
The Group’s largest three geographical markets showed UK sales of £96,6m, North American sales delivering £10,7m, and Europe showing a decrease of £1.8m over the previous year, to £5.7m.
“Diversifying the market exposure of the Group will remain a key focus over the coming years and in the medium-term, the Group has identified growth opportunities, including in global Defence markets, and emerging possibilities in Civil Nuclear and Renewable Energy.”
Equity of £159.0m was provided by the Ministry of Defence to facilitate the company’s capital expenditure for the year, which totalled £144.8m, driven by the recapitalisation of defence-critical assets.
Sheffield Forgemasters is delivering a £1.3bn recapitalisation programme to build a new 13,000 tonne Forging Line and a state-of-the-art machining hall to underpin UK defence programmes.
The company’s working capital facility provided by the Ministry of Defence is £15.0m, which remained unused in the year to 31 March 2025.