At the start of the month, Adam Vicary took over as the new chief executive of the Black Country engineering group Castings, succeeding David Gawthorpe, who retired from the Brownhills-based group at the end of March (Mr Vicary was the former managing director of Castings and had been shadowing Mr Gawthorpe for the past six months).

Mr Vicary will be looking to rebuild revenue and profits, both of which dipped during the group’s first half due to a softening in demand from one of the group’s main customers.

For the six months to 30 September 2016, its sales dipped to £57.9 million (from £65 million a year earlier), and its pre-tax profits dipped to £7.08 million (from £9.51 million).

Speaking at the presentation of the group’s interim results at the end of last year, chairman Brian Cooke said that the group’s machining business had seen a significant reduction in revenue, following the end of a major contract; he added that the introduction of replacement work remained on course for 2017/18 onwards.

He also said that the pre-production costs associated with this work would affect the current financial year; and while no significant further reductions in output were anticipated, he did not expect to see any improvement for the remainder of the financial year (www.castings.plc.uk).