The collapse of MG Rover helped to send Worcestershire tungsten carbide tools specialist Howle Holdings into the red at the half-year stage.
Howle, which has had a turbulent couple of years, yesterday reported a pretax loss of £8,000 on sales 3.5 per cent down at £5.26 million.
The deficit, which compares with a surplus of £4,000 at the same stage last year, followed a provision of £25,000 to cover any losses associated with the MG Rover crash, chairman Garel Rhys, the Cardiff University Business School automotive industry academic, said.
This time last year, Tenbury Wells-based Howle was celebrating a return to profit following the boardroom upheaval caused by the arrival and abrupt departure a month later of corporate raider and former stock market favourite, David Abell.
This time round, however, Prof Rhys was forced to report that "trading conditions are becoming tougher with a slowdown reported across all gorup companies".
The £192,000 dip in sales resulted from a slowdown in business from oil industry customers at Howle Carbides.
Subsidiary Richard Lloyd was hit by a fall in demand from the automotive industry and NPE-Innotek suffered from shrinking volumes in canning. Group margins were squeezed by rising raw material costs, in particular steel and tungsten carbide.
Enodis' shares closed at 101/2p at 108p.
