TPG, Deutsche Post in Hays bid?
The consolidation of Europe’s fragmented logistics sector is gathering pace with reports that Hays, the British business services group, plans to sell its logistics units.
TPG, the global mail and express group headquartered in Amsterdam, today declined to comment on reports that it is interested in the business, but said it is committed to boosting its activities in the United Kingdom.
Germany’s Deutsche Post World Net has also been mentioned as a potential bidder along with British rivals Exel and Tibbet & Britten.
The sale is expected to get underway in the coming weeks. Analysts have valued the Hays logistics operation at between $400 million and $650 million.
The news comes just weeks after P&O, the U.K. transport conglomerate, sold its pan-European contract logistics operation to Wincanton, a British transport and distribution company, for £152.3 million ($247 million) in cash.
Hays’ logistics has 15,000 employees in 10 European countries with 3 million-square meters of warehousing space and a presence in the United States that includes a reusable crates business.
