Brammer (www.brammer.co.uk) — the industrial maintenance, repair and overhaul specialist that has a large operation in Wolverhampton — reports that its profits fell from £32.9 million to £17.7 million in 2014.

The company said it had been affected by investments, acquisitions and items such as a pre-tax operating exceptional charge of £12.6 million, which included the £5 million re-structuring costs for the closure of its Buck & Hickman National Distribution Centre in Coventry and the merger of all its supply-chain operations in the UK.

Chief executive Ian Fraser said: “We continued to demonstrate our resilience in 2014, while expanding our European footprint into Scandinavia. We have invested heavily in growth drivers to counter difficult market conditions. Our continental European businesses have performed well, while the performance of our UK business has been disappointing.

As previously indicated, this was almost entirely due to a small number of large national and European key accounts reducing their spend, reflecting challenging conditions in their end markets.

“We expect that our investment in growth drivers will enable us to continue to gain market share and provide good revenue and profit growth in the years to come.”