New clients added during lockdown

Anglo European has said it added more than £half-a-million in new business during lockdown and into the first week of June.

Returning to work from start of May following temporary closure in response to government guidance on Covid-19, Anglo said it had seen demand exceed its forecasts.

This included the signing of five new accounts in May, plus four in the first week of June, with a further four expected to agree terms before the middle of the month, representing new business win of £half-a-million.

Lee Marriott, Anglo European’s group business development director, said this would mean volume would be back at 60% of its pre-Covid level by the month’s end.

“The demand we have seen has been significantly over and above what we projected,” he said, “and we spent a lot of time projecting. It’s being driven by three things.

“The first of these is that the demand for product has been high and money is flowing throughout the supply chain.

“The second, is that a lot of companies are looking to shore-up their supply chain. A number of reinforcement suppliers didn’t come back last month, and in fact still haven’t come back.

“People are shifting supply to where they can get product, but I think they’re also looking to buy from UK suppliers. We manufacture in the UK in steel made in the UK.

“Then third, they get that they can make savings. They’ve used lockdown to look at costs and their overheads and when they can take them out, without impacting on quality, they are.”

In buying reinforcement direct from Anglo, fabricators can cut the price they paid for steel reinforcement by 30%-40%, the company said.

The figures, which are based on buying-in cut-to-size reinforcement, represent the culmination of labour and employment costs, reduced wastage and the lower unit price achieved through direct supply.

“It’s not just reinforcements, we’ve seen increased demand for aluminium bifold cleats and bay couplers,” Lee said.