Europa breaks the £100m barrier

Logistics operator Europa Worldwide Group has announced that it has broken through the £100m turnover barrier for the first time, with a total of £116m for the year ended 31 December 2016. This was a £20m increase on the previous year, while profit before tax increased to £2.3m from a loss of £1.6m.

All Europa divisions have seen an increase in revenue in 2016, with Warehouse up 47% on the previous year, Showfreight up 34%, Sea up 24%, Road up 17% and Air up 7%.

Projected turnover for the business for 2016-17 is £140m.

Europa said that achieving the £100m milestone was all the more important as it followed on from a “challenging” couple of years during which Andrew Baxter (who acquired the business in 2013) and his team initiated a significant restructuring programme.

“Our annual results for 2015-2016 are very positive, given the complex process of restructuring which came before,” commented Baxter. “We needed to make these changes in order for Europa to thrive in the future – but it wasn’t easy and there were many obstacles in our way.

“Yet we came out the other side and I’m extremely proud to say we are now stronger than ever before. Our separate divisions – Road, Warehouse, Air and Sea and Showfreight – are at the cutting edge of their sectors, innovating every day in order to offer the best possible service to our customers. I truly believe that by this time next year, we will be the leading operator for European goods distribution – a fantastic achievement which will be, as always, thanks to the commitment, passion and vision of the brilliant people who work for Europa.”

Finance Director at Europa Worldwide Group Rob Ross added: “Our success is no doubt a result of the bold decisions we made three years ago. We made the biggest single investment in Europa’s history when we opened our £30m 1hub in Dartford, which is the UK’s largest European groupage hub. We invested nearly £2m in completely overhauling our IT system by introducing our own, Leonardo TMS software, which was created in-house by our IT team. We closed some warehouses, and we reconfigured others, to ensure they were operating at maximum efficiency.”