Member Article

Europa on target to become a market leader

It is a year since Andrew Baxter purchased a 90 per cent stake in the privately-owned forwarder, Europa Worldwide Logistics. Europa, who opened a branch near Wakefield at the end of last year, has gone from strength-to-strength since the acquisition. The company has seen a growth of 14 per cent in turnover year to date, and expects this to accelerate in the latter part of the year. The company was ahead of profit target for the first half of 2014. Based at Calder Park, off Junction 39 of the M1, the 2,500 square foot Wakefield branch is supported by a local distribution partner that covers collection and distribution requirements in Yorkshire. It is one of 11 branches in the UK, plus an office in Hong Kong. Over the past 12 months major milestones for Europa have included signing a deal for a new 262,500 sq. ft hub in Dartford, which the company moves into in May 2015 to increase capacity. Europa is also centralising and launching a separate air & sea division and starting the first phase of a £1.7 million IT investment programme. Andrew Baxter, Managing Director, said: “It’s been a very busy year and started with an exhaustive review of all Europa’s activities. Our plan since has involved investing heavily in many areas of the company as well as restructuring the organisation to ensure that the operation is totally efficient and cost effective.” Europa reorganised its road freight sales and customer services functions with 77 existing staff moving roles and 20 new road freight sales staff recruited. The roles include three Regional Managers, 11 branch managers, 30 account managers, and 46 customer service positions all of which are intended to better service customer needs.

New people have been brought into expand its branch network – which also saw the opening of a Nottingham branch in June. The air & sea operation has also been completely restructured with the creation of a dedicated division, which demonstrates that Europa’s investments and ambitions go beyond road freight. The new division has an expanded team of 30 office staff dedicated to air and sea business operating from Heathrow (air), Birmingham (sea) and Hong Kong. Andrew summarised: “The last year has been hugely successful, we have restructured nearly every part of the business, each time making short term sacrifices for the long term benefit of the business. Budgeting for this in advance was very difficult, so I am delighted that we are ahead of target and seeing such positive growth numbers.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Robert Beaumont .