Rico buys majority stake in Circle Express
In a deal which it believes will strengthen its same day delivery offering, Rico has acquired a majority holding in UK-based Circle Express. Circle Express offers a collection and delivery service specifically targeted at the UK air freight forwarding industry.
The company has an annual turnover in excess of £29m with a countrywide fleet of 300 vehicles operating out of eight Aviation Security listed depots near the airports at Heathrow, Aberdeen, Birmingham, Exeter, Glasgow, Leeds, Manchester and a cross dock facility in Milton Park, Abingdon.
Circle Express is licensed to transport all classes of hazardous materials including firearms & ammunition, and Radio-active, toxic, flammable, corrosive and explosive material.
Reporting the news about the deal on its website, Circle Express said that “the day to day operations and management will not change although upper management will have a new reporting structure into Rico”.
Tom Ryan, Circle Express Managing Director, commented: “This great opportunity will give Circle the financial backing and work collaboration opportunities to move forward and strengthen its position in our industry. Rico already have 1400 Sameday Couriers operating in the UK, they are all CRB checked and some also PES checked, so with our ADR training facilities we can quickly up-skill these drivers to ADR capability which is mandatory for our operations, we can then provider a much stronger same day service to our customer base.”
Sam Sharma, Rico Global CEO, added: “We are proud to bring Circle Express into the Rico business, as it’s a fantastic opportunity to expand our Sameday capability, generating higher premium services across the UK. This acquisition will bring us some more depots to add to our existing 48 sameday depots across the country and builds our larger vehicle and trunking capacity within our operations.”
Rico is part of the TVS logistics group, which employs more than 30,000 people worldwide. The UK subsidiary operates over 40 branches around the UK and Ireland from where they control more than 1,400 courier vehicles each day.
