The Colt Group has achieved its best ever result in 2015. This excellent performance was a direct result of the choices we made in previous years to focus on our core product lines, to maintain strict cost control and invest in further efficiency improvements, and to selectively target higher quality contracts.
Building on our strengths
Our solar shading business performed very well. It delivered an excellent result in 2015 and was able to very significantly grow its order bank for the years ahead. Smoke control and service sectors maintained good results, with particularly strong performances in Australia, Continental Europe and the UK. Climate control remains a challenging market and going forward, we will devote a refreshed focus to this segment in the UK, using our longstanding expertise in the climate sector to make the most of the new variants we introduced in the innovative Coolstream and Caloris product lines to further accelerate our growth in this business.
Further expansion into new markets
We continued our strategy of geographical expansion with the appointment of new distributors in Indonesia and the Philippines, and we have plans for Vietnam and Bangladesh. We are also manufacturing a wider range of
Colt products tailored for local markets in our factory in Shenzhen, China, to meet the growing demand from the Asia Pacific region and our key products for natural ventilation have now been certified to Australian standards
Awards
The Group continued to receive awards for innovation, particularly with our Solarleaf system which received the Iconic Award, the Jury Award for research from the architectural magazine Detail and the German Design Award 2016.
The Chimney Dynamo received the Deneff Award for energy efficiency and the ClimaTower was nominated for the Top Hotel Star Award 2016, giving further recognition to Colt’s approach to innovation.
2015: Colt’s record breaking year
In spite of the negative impact of exchange rate fluctuations on the Group’s 2015 result, due to presenting consolidated accounts in sterling, we achieved our highest profit and return on sales in the history of the Group, and reported the highest cash position we have ever achieved in our balance sheet.
A new phase of growth
Building upon this very strong foundation, we expect Colt to enter a new phase of growth, further increasing our volumes and profitability under the leadership of my successor to whom I will hand over in April. The growth will be driven by expanding our offering in Europe and the Middle East, and by further growing our operations in Asia and Australia. We are also planning specific initiatives targeted at developing our climate control business and expanding our offering in the service and maintenance sector. We will consolidate our position in Asia by continuing to expand ur network of distributors in the region and we also expect further growth from our partnerships in the United States now that we have obtained UL‑certification for our most important products for that market. On the solid foundation of our best year ever, we will build our future of sustained growth.
