Score Group has reported “favourable and positive” results for a financial year overshadowed by the death of the north-east firm’s founder and chairman.
Charles Ritchie, who set up the Peterhead-based engineering company in 1982, passed away in June after a short illness.
He was 69 years old.
Score traditionally focused on providing value services to the oil and gas industry, but has grown into an international group of engineering businesses.
It has facilities in more than 30 locations worldwide and has customers in the oil and gas, nuclear and marine sectors.
Most of Score’s sales still come from valves, though turbine services make up a sizeable portion of its business.
The company managed to notch up pre-tax profits totalling £2.2million in the year to September 28, 2017 − up 47% on the previous year.
Turnover for the period under review came to £180.3million, a 5.5% increase year-on-year, according to accounts just released by Companies House.
Score employed 1,639 people on average during 2016/17, down from 1,732 a year earlier.
About half of Score’s turnover now comes from outside the UK.
The group’s Score Europe business continued to be the “flagship of the valve division”, performing well despite “difficult” trading conditions.
Score’s subsea division was worst affected by lower oil prices during the 12 months.
Mr Ritchie’s son, Conrad, is managing director of group company Score (International).
He said: “The results are indeed favourable and positive in the current climate.
“We are encouraged by our diversification efforts while we retain and welcome new core service contracts.
“We look forward to further investment and increasing our global apprenticeship intake numbers to 100 over the coming 12 months.”
Conrad’s brother, Nelson, has been chief executive at Score Group for about six months.
In a statement published in Score’s 2016/17 accounts, he said the year would be “remembered for the sad passing” of Mr Ritchie.
The chief executive described Mr Ritchie as an “inspirational figure” who would be “sorely missed”.
But he said “full succession plans” were in place and that the board did not expect any interruption to day-to-day operations.
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