Drummond warning dents share price

DRUMMOND, the Yorkshire textiles company, said yesterday that difficulties in integrating recently acquired companies would push it into the red this year.

Its shares fell 36 per cent on the profits warning, closing down 12p at 21p.

The company said it would lose money for the half year that ends tomorrow. There will be no interim dividend.

Stefan Simmonds, chairman, added: 'Whilst it is too early to make any estimate for the year as a whole . . . it is unlikely that the group will make any profit.'

It will be the second year in three that Drummond has lost money. For the 12 months to 31 March 1991, Drummond lost pounds 400,000 before tax, but it turned in a profit of pounds 1.1m last time.

Drummond makes woollen and worsted fabric for coats and suits and has spent pounds 1.8m in acquisitions in the past two years. It bought Crowther's, a division of the collapsed Coloroll group in January last year, and in December it bought a woollens divison of Courtaulds, the textile giant.

Drummond said it had production and technical problems in its woollen and worsted divisions and operational problems with the Courtaulds' purchase.