Member Article

Europa tidies up organisational structure to pave way for future acquisitions

As it draws its most successful year on record to a close, leading independent logistics operator Europa Worldwide Group has announced that it will turn its various operating divisions into separate legal entities.

The Dartford-headquartered business, which employs 650 staff, announced its ambition to set out on the acquisition trail earlier this year and says that it is making good progress on a couple of transactions.

MD of Europa Andrew Baxter and his team of Directors have announced the new company structure, whereby all the divisions of the business – Road, Air and Sea, Showfreight and Warehouse – will become separate limited companies. Going forward, Andrew plans to acquire more businesses and so the new, clear structure will contribute to smoothing the process of new operations becoming part of Europa.

Andrew said: “2017 has been our most successful year on record. Turnover has surpassed £140m, organic volume growth across the business is running at 25 per cent and our presence in the market is stronger than ever before.

“For a large part of the last four years since we acquired Europa, growth was not the primary objective. However, now that the restructuring is complete - in which we introduced divisions to the business for Air and Sea, Warehouse and Showfreight - growing the scale of the business, whilst achieving satisfactory levels of profitability, is the core strategy.”

In the last four years, the business has developed its Air and Sea teams as competitive arms of the business, invested in its Warehouse facilities, attracting major retail brands from across the globe and has significantly expanded its Road operations by introducing the 1hub structure, implementing new IT and significantly increasing the number of daily line hauls to European cities.

Andrew added: “Going forward, we plan to complete one or two acquisitions a year, working to develop all areas of the business. We are looking to develop all of our international markets, not just our Road offering, and we are going to be constantly on the look out for businesses which will add strength to our market position in one of our core sectors.”

Europa Worldwide Group’s 2016 annual results revealed turnover saw a £20m increase on the previous year, while profit before tax increased to £2.3m from a loss of £1.6m in 2015. All divisions of the business – Air, Sea, Showfreight, Road and Warehouse – have also all seen turnover growth respectively this year.

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