Brimore Engineering (BE) is a small engineering company located in the North East of England. It is a private limited company which has been owned by the Brimore family since 1987.

The current Board of Directors has five directors. Three of these directors are sons of the original founder of the company, Bob Brimore. Although Bob is no longer on the Board and takes no active role in the management of BE, he still retains 30% of the ordinary shares in the business. His three sons each have a 15% shareholding, with the remaining 25% owned by two non-family directors who invested £1 million in the business in 2014 when the business had suffered its third consecutive year of making a loss. The capital provided by these two investors was used to invest in the latest production technology which reduced the size of the workforce by 20% and, by 2014, BE was once again a profitable business.

However, although the company has remained profitable since 2016 there is some concern among the current directors about financial performance of Brimore in more recent years. (See Table 1).

Table 1: Extracts from BE’s Financial Statements for 2019-21

	2020	2021
	£m	£m
Capital Employed	1.6	2.0
Revenue	1.76	1.66
Gross Profit	1.39	1.28
Profit for year	0.62	0.51

Brimore produces parts such as catalytic converters, brake drums and drive shafts which are used in the car industry. The Nissan car factory in Sunderland is Brimore’s largest customer, accounting for 42% of all of its revenue. The market is very competitive.

At a recent Board meeting the Marketing Director highlighted the fall in sales of component XT345 which has, up until recently, been one of Brimore’s most profitable products. “We really need to review our product mix and work on a new marketing strategy to increase sales and reverse the recent downward trend in profits”, she told the other members of the Board.

Question: Analyses the financial data provided in Table 1 and evaluates its usefulness to the Directors of Brimore Ltd.

Answer rating: 100% (QA)

The financial data provided in Table 1 shows that Brimore Engineering has experienced a decline in r... View the full answer