THE former boss of troubled equipment supplier HC Slingsby has taken back the top job after a shareholders’ vote at its annual general meeting.

Dominic Slingsby, whose great grandfather founded the Baildon-based business in 1893, ousted former chairman and interim chief executive John Waterhouse who has left the company.

Mr Waterhouse’s re-election was defeated by 473,302 votes to 9,583, with the winning margin including Mr Slingsby’s personal holding.

Mr Slingsby was appointed interim chief executive and operations director of the company which distributes 35,000 pieces of commercial and industrial equipment

It is the latest change at the top of a business which is battling falling sales and rising losses.

In April, Mr Slingsby, who joined the company in 1982, stood down as chief executive to become operations director. That was followed by the resignation of Lee Wright as sales and marketing director last month.

The company is looking to appoint at least one more non-executive director by the end of September.

A trading update before the AGM showed that business continues to be tough for Slingsby and its sales performance remains fragile.

It said the sales decline over a year earlier had fallen to one per cent in the five months to May 31, compared with 3.3 per cent in the four months to April.

While the rate of sales decline had slowed, competition had put pressure on margins, resulting in no change to its overall operating performance against a year earlier.

As at May 31 the group’s pre-tax loss was lower than a year earlier due to lower exceptional costs.

Sales this month were likely to fall short of those achieved in June last year and remain fragile - threatening to erode the improved position at the end of May.

Slingsby said: “Management remains focused on realisation of synergies across the group and initiatives to improve its sales performance and commercial proposition in order to drive an improved half two result.”