Buoyant TPG will move into forwarding
TPG will make its long-promised move into freight forwarding this year, CEO Peter Bakker has pledged.
Announcing the group’s results for 2003, he said this could be by acquisition or through a joint venture.
A group spokesman could not confirm rumours of a proposed t300m acquisition of a European-based forwarder, but said that funding on this scale would not be a problem if TPG achieved the global capability it seeks.
“Exploring these opportunities involves frequent talks with other parties. But their corporate culture and financial performance has to be right, ” the spokesman said.
The group said its express and mail divisions performed strongly last year. It is restructuring its logistics operations and believes its new, unified corporate strategy across the three divisions will bring savings of t200m-300m in the next five years.
China has been identified as the key growth market.
Through its joint venture with Shanghai Automotive, TPG is already the largest logistics company in the country. The group plans to invest up to t200m there and is installing a senior management team, headed by MD Ken McCall, the current VPof TNT Asia.
The group said comparisons with the previous year were affected by the strength of the euro. At constant exchange rates and excluding one-off logistics restructuring costs and higher pension costs, revenues increased by 4.5%, while net income from continuing operations grew by 7.7%.
But taking those factors into account, net income fell by 40.1% to t359m.
