SOUTH Derry manufacturer Moyola Precision Engineering continues to bounce back from the Covid crisis by posting improved sales and turnover in the year to March.
The Castledawson-based company has been winning business with some of the biggest airlines and aerospace companies in the world.
And as the aviation section recovers from the pandemic, so too do the fortunes of the family-owned Moyola, founded in 1976.
Since then it has grown into a world class provider of integrated machining and assembly solutions for its global customers in the civil aerospace, defence, space and industrial sectors.
Accounts filed at Companies House up to March 31 2022 show that the firm's turnover increased from £11.3 million to £13.5 million, keeping it on track to return to the sort of figures in the mid-2010s period, when sales came in at nearly £18 million.
Gross profit amounted to £2,470,555 against £1,565,608 a year earlier, and margins jumped to 18.3 per cent from 13.9 per cent.
On a bottom-line basis, retained profit increased to £994,408 - up from £865,405 in 2021. The company did not pay a dividend.
Moyola saw its payroll generally static at 115 members of staff (114 in 2021), though its salary bill decreased to £3,369,645 (against £3,719,871 the year before).
The combined directors' salaries rose marginally from £240,668 to £242,765, but the highest paid of these took a wages cut from £86,792 to £80,832.
In June Moyola Precision Engineering was confirmed by economy minister Gordon Lyons as one of a number of key partners in Project Scenic, a £9 million collaboration between the Northern Ireland Technology Centre (NITC) and a consortium of aerospace sector companies.
Due to complete by 2023, Project Scenic will address the gap in titanium and hard metal machining by increasing the north’s capabilities to ensure lightweight technologies meet the increasing use of composite materials in the aerospace sector.
And earlier this year, Moyola became one of the first companies in the UK to be awarded Six Star status under the EFQM Model, an internationally recognised change management framework which helps organisations to perform better in line with their purpose and priorities.
Speaking at the time, the firm's chief operating officer Enda Lagan said: “Our EFQM journey started in 2017, and some five years later we have achieved the six-star award – a remarkable achievement for our team.
“The key objective was to ensure that there was a structured and integrated approach to improvement within the company and, of course, validation of our work through an internationally recognised assessment framework.”
