Exceptional banking and legal costs of £996,000 as part of the refinancing and restructuring of stone wholesalers Pisani PLC resulted in pre-tax losses of more than £1.1million last year, according to the company’s financial statement filed this month (July).

But Managing Director Costas Sakellarios told NSS: “We have tidied up the books and now it’s a question of keeping overheads low and going forward.”

The losses came on turnover to the end of December 2011 down 24% on the previous year at £16.7million.

However, the company says its underlying health, as measured by an adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation) that removes one off exceptional items, shows earnings of £1,015,000 for 2011 compared with £1,220,000 for 2010.

Costas told NSS that the focus of the company had changed from volume to value.

“It’s at the top end, with the specifiers; that’s where we’re scoring. Top end materials are very much our line of focus.”

Pisani has produced a brochure for its customers (the stone processors) to give to their customers to invite them to visit the Pisani warehouses and showrooms.

Costas says there have been more than 12,000 visitors to the premises in Feltham since Pisani relocated its London operation there four years ago. And when visitors see the range on offer they are more likely to select the rarer, exotic and exclusive stones that Pisani offers. “People visit; they see it; they like it; they buy it. The market cycle is fast.”

Costas says Pisani is managing its exposure to debt but is also working with customers “in a selective way” to provide the project finance that banks won’t. “It’s a slightly more sophisticated way of doing business,” he says.