The Seanamic Group combines in-depth experience in engineering and equipment manufacture with the inspection and integrity assurance of critical assets. Their services are frequently used in the international energy, defence, oceanographic science and seismic industries. Formed in 2014, the Seanamic Group comprises Caley Ocean Systems, Umbilicals International, IMES International and Flexlife.

Gordon Kerr, CFO, Seanamic Group:
Parts of the Group already claimed R&D credits for years with our accountants before engaging with Leyton. By leveraging their expertise in our market we were able to increase our tax savings by 400%, which was a substantial benefit to our cashflow. I think businesses don’t often realise how much R&D they carry out, however Leyton’s engineers have helped ensure we don’t just claim for the low hanging fruit, but cover all bases of eligible day-to-day activities.

What kind of R&D does your business undertake?

R&D has played a huge role as the business has gone through a massive turnaround in the past few years and we have had all sorts of challenges to work through. The support that the R&D tax credit cash has given us has been invaluable. There are actually four businesses that Leyton has helped us with, but essentially our R&D is centred around the fact that we tend not to make two products the same, there is some crossover but each customer wants a slightly differently solution. The majority of our workforce are white collar engineers, and their skills are on the design side of things.

How did you find the process of working with Leyton?

Our Consultants Angela and Kayleigh were brilliant, as a team they were excellent and were very patient with us. Kayleigh has an engineering background and was very technically knowledgeable. Leyton managed to turn our claims around in a short period of time, they worked so well with my team. I have often found that consultants struggle to dumb things down for the user, but Leyton recognised the level of knowledge in the person they were dealing with.

What can you now do differently as a result of the R&D tax benefit?

There has been significant change in the way we capture information and now we tend to capture the costs in a fairly detailed way. Rather than trying to slice and dice what you have, we try to identify it at the time to make the process smoother. Our team now fully understands what Leyton are looking for and how to approach things to ensure our Leyton consultants can get us the maximum benefit.

KeyFacts Energy Industry Directory: Leyton