Sales and profits saga at Aga

Aga Rangemaster Group, which makes and sells premium branded cookers and refrigerators, announced a 19% fall in overall revenues and a pre-tax loss for the half year to 30 June 2009. Larger ticket consumer products saw a substantial sales falls and while the cooker business remained profitable, refrigeration and home fashions operations were not. Cast iron cookers are a central product area for the group under the Aga, Rayburn and Stanley brands and here sales fell by over 25%. Chief executive William McGrath (pictured) said the housing market was the primary driver of sales of range cookers and refrigerators and with housing transactions sharply down, Aga's own sales were unsurprisingly down by around 20% in its core markets of the British Isles and Europe and by more in North America, the most challenging market. "Cost cutting, good cashflow management and resilient trading are central components of our 2009 story. We have the product and sales initiatives in place now to respond should the Autumn selling season bring the hoped for bounce-back in consumer confidence," he said. Revenues in the first half were £117.8 million – down from £145.1 million in the first half of 2008 – leading to a pre-tax loss of £2.4 million compared with a pre-tax profit of £12.3 million in the first half of 2008.