Christian Salvesen Company Profile

Christian Salvesen – 2005

Following re-organisation in the summer of 2005 the following structure has been established by newly appointed CEO Stewart Oades:

Group FD is Julian Steadman and Non-exec Chairman is David Fish.

The group is based at Pavillion Drive, Brackmills, Northampton

Two market sectors are established:

Food and Consumer (based in Salvesen House, Northampton)

Under Food and Consumer there are the following divisiuons:
Food and Comsumer UK – Brian Gaunt now runs this bit
Food and Comsumer – Europe
Christian Salvesen Foods (mainly processing etc)
Support Services

Transport (based at Swift House, Northampton)

Transport UK – this is Steve Hayward’s domain
Transport Iberia – under American Stephen McDonald
Transport France – Didier Darfeuille

Transport UK

Currently: £160 – £165 million turnover, 2,500 employees, 1050 trucks (incl. 500 rigids) and 1,500 trailers operating through 14 corporate / network depots. They have 300-400 customers.

Network business however is only 45% of total turnover -= balance being logistics and FTL / LTL business including large automotive accounts including tyre distribution.

Very 80/20 rule dominated – Top 10 customers account for 51% of turnover and the next 30 for a further 31%.

70-80% of customers use the network to some extent even if only a small amount. The network also handles cages etc as well as pallets. Total network volume is circa 10,000 a night/day. There are currently 2 network operations: Day (2/3rds)– similar to a pallet network and Night (1/3rd) – for VOR activity. 45% of activity is linked to automotive.

The management board, under Steve Hayward as MD and just being established (Nov 05) is:

Finance Director
HR Director
Business Solutions and Marketing Director – Steve Russell
Director of Planning and Operations Support
Plus 4 Regional Directors

Major issue currently is lack of profitability which is said to be due to both too high a cost structure couple with too low yields.