ONE of East Lancashire’s major employers has signalled an upturn after unveiling ‘resilient’ results.

Home shopping company Findel launched a management restructure and wide-ranging review after what it dubbed a ‘year of turmoil’ in yesterday’s annual results.

The firm, which owns Express Gifts and Kleeneze, discovered accounting irregularities in one of its departments, prompting changes across the business.

It has also attempted to reduce debt by asking investors for injections of cash.

Yesterday’s results reported sales of £532.6 million in the year to April 1, down from £547million in 2010.

However, after exceptional items and ‘terminated operations’ were taken into consideration, Findel reduced pre-tax losses from £74.8million to £1.4million.

Chief executive Roger Siddle said: “These results show a remarkably resilient performance from our businesses against a difficult consumer backdrop and the unavoidable disruption caused by the long period of financial uncertainty that the group has been through.”

Findel last year moved its HQ from Yorkshire and it is now split between Church, where Express Gifts is based, and Cheshire.

Kleeneze is based on the Clayton business park, Clayton-le-Moors.