Xpediator: This is an excellent result to end an extraordinary year
Xpediator, a provider of freight management services across the UK and Central and Eastern Europe, has announced the Group expects to deliver profits for the year ended 31 December 2020, significantly ahead of market expectations.
Following higher than anticipated demand for its services in the UK and Europe during November and throughout December 2020, the Group now expects to report adjusted profit before tax of approximately £7.2 million for the year ended 31 December 2020, a 40% increase over the prior year (2019: £5.15 million).
Trading
While Covid-19 initially reduced demand during 2020 for the Group’s fuel card and continues to impact high street retail fashion logistics businesses, the Group benefited from the strength of its diversified activities, with high demand for freight forwarding and warehouse and logistics services together with cost saving initiatives, combining to outweigh the challenges from the pandemic.
The Company’s trading performance was further enhanced by a strong finish to the year. During November and throughout December, the Group traded significantly ahead of budget with strong performances from CEE countries, in particular from Lithuania, positive contributions from Import Services benefitting from high volumes amongst its customers in the toy sector, and a welcome uplift on activity ahead of Brexit in UK freight forwarding.
As importantly, the areas which were impacted by the pandemic, specifically the Group’s Transport solutions division, under the Affinity brand, providing fuel and toll cards improved with the increase of road traffic volumes.
Similarly, the Group’s leading pallet distribution network in Romania under the Pall-Ex brand is performing strongly again up above pre-Covid levels.
As announced on 31 December 2020, the sale of the Group’s B2C e-commerce business ESWD for £0.3 million, a non-core operation that had been loss making, was part of the drive to consolidate and focus on the core proposition. As a result, the Group expects £0.35 million of annualised cost savings with this amount also being a positive adjustment to adjusted profit for the year ended 31 December 2020.
Brexit
In 2021, as widely reported, transport volumes into Europe have been lower from the outset of the year due to the administrative changes caused by Brexit. In essence, there has been an increase in administration and it is taking time for businesses and customs officials to adjust. For Xpediator, as anticipated this is an opportunity to increase administrative support to our clients to enable them to manage the new environment which in time will settle down.
The Company expects to report its audited final results in April 2021.
Commenting on the trading performance, Robert Ross, CEO, said: “This is an excellent result to end an extraordinary year. We have focused hard on our core services and by doing so attracted more customers, then combined this with delivering a consistently good customer service. We still have some way to go to reach our potential but it has been a good start.
2021 has begun well across the Group during which we expect to benefit from the permanent £0.5m of cost reductions made in 2020, the first full year of revenues from the Nidd Transport acquired in October and the ongoing uplift in demand for our services across the Group.”
The information communicated within this announcement is deemed to constitute inside information as stipulated under the Market Abuse Regulations (EU) No. 596/2014. Upon the publication of this announcement, this inside information is now considered to be in the public domain.
