Contract furniture firm British Thornton sales touch £18m

30th July 2010

Specialist furniture manufacturer British Thornton grew turnover 17.7% to £17.9m in 2009 while before tax profits almost doubled year on year.

The Yorkshire company, a major furniture supplier to the education sector, returned profits of £1.4m, helped by the sales rise but also by a 140 basis point uplift in gross margin to 37.7%.

In 2008 it made £0.733m from sales of £15.2m. Turnover has risen in each of the past five years, helped by the part it has played in supplying some 50 new build schools under the PFI/PPP programme in the past few years.