It has been a record year for both sales and profits for Castle View Ventures, the Bridge of Allan based business with interests in sports centre management, food production, catering software and weight management.
Turnover for the year to 31 March 2017 was £175.66m compared to £137.08m in the previous year. Pretax profits rose from £9.08m to £13.26m.
As in previous years, the bulk of sales and profits came from Sports & Leisure Management (SLM), a Leicester-headquartered business which manages sports and leisure facilities on behalf of over 150 local authorities in England and Wales.
In the year to March SLM won new contracts with the London Boroughs of Westminster and Southwark, Middlesbrough Council, Chichester District Council and Westway Trust, based in London’s North Kensington. In the current year a further clutch of local authorities, including the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham, Slough, Warwick and Bromsgrove, entrusted SLM with the management of their sports and leisure facilities.
Martin Bell, Chief Executive of Castle View Ventures, said: “SLM saw a 30 per cent turnover increase in the year to March, partly from its winning new contracts but also as a direct result of its skills in marketing the availability of first class sports and leisure facilities to communities across England and Wales.
“This has led directly to increased throughput, community participation and physical activity as well as significant savings for our local authority customers. Unfortunately we do not yet act on behalf of any local authorities in Scotland but we are ever-hopeful that we might be asked one day to share our proven business model with them.
“The success of SLM is underpinned by a focus on the quality of service delivery which has been recognised during the year by UK Active who, for the second year running named SLM operator of the year at its Flame Awards event, and by Swim England which recognised it as swimming pool operator of the year for the fifth successive year.”
At Cambuslang-based UIN Foods, turnover was up 13 per cent at £11.7m and pretax profits were £447,200. The company has recently concluded a £5m investment programme which doubles its capacity to produce pizza and other stone-baked products.
The group’s catering software business, Inhouse Manager, provides a comprehensive catering management systems which includes allergen reporting, nutritional analysis and meal ordering modules and helps reduce administration and waste.
Its customers include Great Ormond Street Hospital, NHS Scotland, NHS London, Wiltshire Council and Northamptonshire NHS. Sales in the year to March grew 19.5 per cent to £3.3m and pretax profits were £236,000.
The newest part of the group, Weight Management Centre, specialises in the delivery of obesity and weight management education and intervention programmes. Turnover to March was up 19 per cent to £3.08m and pretax profits were £567,000.
