A DUNSTABLE company that suffered the death of its founding director and a drop in demand for products was helped to turn its fortunes around by a bank.
Silkmead Tubular Limited, in Southfield Road, Dunstable, has over 40 years of experience in the manipulation and supply of tubes for a range of industries.
In April 2011 company founding director Alex Boba died. Simon Boba took control of the business in a difficult trading environment for manufacturing.
The demand for certain products fell and the directors knew they had to drive cost savings within the business at the same time as looking to grow sales.
With the responsibility of employing 19 staff, many of whom had worked for the company for over 15 years, the management team were determined to get the business back on track.
Directors worked with Rizwan Siddiqui from Barclays Business Support team to look at how the company could be financially re-structured. The bank agreed to support the business with additional funding. New systems for monitoring costs were put in place, which will give the directors better management information on which to base decisions going forward.
Simon Boba, Silkmead’s MD said: “It would have been unlikely that we could have completed the process of consolidation and implementation of all the planned improvements without Barclay’s assistance. We are now firmly back on track and able to look to the future.”