A'P Group asserts retrenchment is strategy for sound financial footing.

(From Lloyds List)

Byline: Growth is the result of new market share while mothballed facility can remain so for 12 months and still be a viable operation if recommissioned, writes Hugh O'Mahony

UK SHIPREPAIR market leader A'P Group has emphasised that a period of apparent retrenchment should more properly be viewed as part of a strategy to ensure solid financial foundations.

A'P's 15 dry docks generate annual sales of GBP110m ($209m), up substantially on the GBP55m a year they brought in five years ago.

Chief executive David Ring said that much of the growth had been secured through new market share, with A'P's takeover of facilities formerly operated by Cammell Laird reckoned to be particularly telling.

Last week, though, the ex-Cammell Laird managers operating A'P competitor Northwestern Shiprepairers on the Mersey bit back, opening a subsidiary at the Inchgreen shipyard on the Clyde.

For A'P, the news followed hard on the heels of its decision to mothball the 130-year-old A'P Tyne yard in Wallsend, which turned over GBP31m in the first six months of this year, but then faced an empty orderbook.