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Growth Fueled by Solid Performance of Freight and Logistics Products.

Posted by | Nov 1, 2007 | |

Aramex reported financial results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2007. Aramex revenues rose 25 pct to AED 451.7 million, climbing from AED 360.8 million for the same period last year.

Net profits for the third quarter of 2007 rose by 14 pct to AED 26.0 million, from AED 22.7 million for the same period last year, while net profits for the first nine months of 2007 increased by 31 pct to AED 89.4 million, from AED 68.5 million for the same period last year.

Aramex revenues for the first nine months of 2007 rose by 34 pct to AED 1,289 million from AED 961 million for the same period last year. These results include one time costs of AED 1.8 million of an investment write-off and tax expenses.

“We had solid double digit growth in all our products, especially our freight and logistics services. The gulf region continues to give us very solid results and we are witnessing consistent profitability from our Two-Way acquisition in Europe.” commented Fadi Ghandour, Founder & CEO of Aramex.

“We continue to be optimistic about our full year results coming out on target,” he added.

In addition to significant growth in freight and logistics, the company also demonstrated strong results in the growing document management sector through Infofort; Aramex’s document management arm and a market leader in the Middle East.

1 USD = 3.67151 AED

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DX puts Posties on the beat north of the border

Posted by | Nov 1, 2007 | |

DX has introduced a team of ‘postmen’ on the streets of Edinburgh and Glasgow. Initially, the DX ‘walkers’ will sort and deliver publications and important postal mail to city centre postcodes including EH2, EH3, G1 and G2.

DX has also just made its most important investment in Scotland to date, in order to cope with the ongoing increase in its business in Scotland and to accommodate plans for future growth. The company which opened a new postal facility at Rutland Square, Edinburgh, this summer has announced the opening of a GBP 1m state-of-the-art national hub and customer service centre in Livingston, capable of sorting up to 48,000 mail items per hour.

The company is best known for its Document Exchange service, a UK-wide pre 9 am delivery network for mail and parcels which presently boasts over 2,000 clients in Scotland alone – including leading law firms Dundas and Wilson and Gillespie MacAndrew. In addition, DX offers a range of alternative services including same day delivery between Glasgow and Edinburgh, SecureDX – a low cost alternative to Royal Mail Special Delivery* for important items requiring a signature – a door-to-door parcels services and regular deliveries of mail to the Highlands and islands. Yet, it believes the new Livingston hub will act to further improve the speed and accuracy of its existing services.

Says CEO James Greenbury “We’ve been delivering mail on behalf of our Scottish and UK-wide customers for over 30 years but introducing new services and a new infrastructure including walkers and our new Livingston hub means that Scottish businesses can look at a real, cost-effective alternative to Royal Mail for their mail and parcels requirements .”

* compared to Royal Mail Special Delivery Next Day (Pre 1pm)

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Logistics expert appointed new head of Nightfreight

Posted by | Nov 1, 2007 | |

A West Midland overnight delivery company has appointed a leading logistics industry figure as executive chairman.

Robbie Burns will combined the jobs of chairman and chief executive at Willenhall-based Nightfreight.

His appointment follows surprise departure in July of previous chief executive Steve Allen.

Mr Burns was founding chief executive of Exel Logistics and has held a number of board advisory roles at Tiphook Ryder, Tibbett & Britten and Hays.

He was behind the recent Burns Inquiry into freight taxes and foreign competition on behalf of industry bodies the Road Haulage Association and the Freight Transport Association.

John Aspin, who has been running the business since Mr Allen”s departure, will resume his position as a non-executive director with the Nightfreight group.

The company, which has been through two management buy-outs since 2001, announced in March that it was back in the black after a year of losses.

It posted pre-tax profits of GBP 4.1 million for the year to November 30 2006 compared with a loss of GBP 6.2 million the year before.

The company currently employs more than 2,400 staff at over 70 operating sites around the UK and operates in excess of 1,000 vehicles.

Last year it successfully delivered over 18 million items and has a turnover of GBP 140 million a year.

The privately-held company was founded in Willenhall in 1984 and still has its headquarters in the town.

Mr Burns said: “The UK express freight sector is both dynamic and competitive and has contributed greatly to the growth of the UK economy.

“Nightfreight will be another new challenge and I am looking forward to helping the team move further forward.”

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Germany's CDU party against postal services wage deal applying to whole industry

Posted by | Nov 1, 2007 | |

Germany’s CDU, the senior member of the nation’s two-party ruling coalition, has demanded that an accord between Deutsche Post AG and the ver.di union on minimum wages should not be declared binding for the entire postal services industry.

The collective bargaining agreement cannot be extended, as initially agreed by the government coalition, because it does not cover half of the industry’s employees, Die Welt newspaper cited CDU secretary general Ronald Pofalla as saying.

The Labour Ministry, led by Franz Muentefering from CDU’s coalition partner SPD, insists the bargaining agreement meets the conditions for general validity set forth by the government, Die Welt said.

Deutsche Post Chief Executive Klaus Zumwinkel claims Pofalla is overstating the number of postal services workers, thus underestimating the percentage covered by the agreement, Die Welt reported.

The government in August said it is planning to declare the wage agreement binding for the entire industry, drawing fierce criticism from logistics companies such as PIN Group AG and TNT NV, which are trying to make inroads into the German mail delivery market dominated by Deutsche Post.

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New spare parts centers for sun microsystems located on DHL sites: two companies boost cooperation in Russia

Posted by | Nov 1, 2007 | |

Sun Microsystems Inc. and DHL have announced the results of cooperation in Russia and plans for the future development. The outcome of this cooperation in transport and warehousing logistics has been the creation of a channel for supplies of Sun Microsystems equipment to Russia and other CIS countries. DHL has deployed Spare Parts Centers (SPCs) to support after-sale servicing of Sun customers. The first Spare Parts Center was opened in Moscow in 2002. Three more SPCs for Sun Microsystems were set up in St. Petersburg, Krasnodar and Ekaterinburg in 2007. In the future, DHL projects to offer similar services to other customers as well.

The Spare Parts Center in St. Petersburg was opened in April 2007, in Krasnodar in September 2007 and Ekaterinburg site is planned to be opened in mid November 2007. Sun’s decision to invest in the deployment of the new storehouses has been made with an eye to boost service quality for the regional customers and offer them a choice of service programs, which would guarantee initial after-sale support within the shortest possible period of time (up to 2 hours from submitting the request). It will reduce the equipment downtime to a minimum and enable the customers to utilize Sun’s systems for business-critical objectives.

In January 2006, DHL became the global partner of Sun Microsystems Inc. and the leading logistics provider.

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UPS debuts customs clearance and international returns solutions for small businesses

Posted by | Nov 1, 2007 | |

As the world becomes “flatter” and globalization drives new opportunities for international commerce, how do small- and medium-size businesses (SMBs) jump on the bandwagon?

The Internet allows any business to gather orders and process them across borders very easily at low cost. For SMBs in the U.S., currency fluctuation are working in their favor for overseas commerce. And such free-trade drivers as the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), and World Trade Organization (WTO) measures are making it easier for goods to flow around the globe — at least in theory.

The reality is that small business operators need to jump through complex hoops — especially in a post-9/11 world — to actually move their goods across borders, and back again the event of returns. Recognizing the opportunity and the challenge, UPS in early 2008 is debuting several new services to help SMBs join the Fortune 500 when it comes to expanded markets and international commerce.

UPS is helping to change the face of global shipping by being a market innovator with a solution called UPS Paperless Invoice. It uses UPS applications and the Internet to define commercial shipment invoice data for border clearance, eliminating the customer’s chore of manually applying three paper invoice copies to each shipment. UPS will also soon deliver UPS Returns in 98 countries so shippers can use digital technology and UPS solutions to prepare the proper return labels so goods can be easily returned back across borders when necessary.

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Mail posts gloomy forecast

Posted by | Nov 1, 2007 | |

Royal Mail profits fell by a third in the 2006-7 financial year, mainly as a result of a sharp rise in pension fund costs.

The group faces operating at around break-even this year and next, it said.

Chairman Allan Leighton and chief executive Adam Crozier said pension costs, revenue decline through losses to competition and the overall fall in mail volumes meant Royal Mail’s letters division was heading towards break-even in the current financial year.

They added: “Without the contribution from GLS (General Logistics Systems, the group’s European parcels business), the group could again become loss-making.”

The group said profits for 2006-07 were in line with expectations at £233m, down a third, mainly due to pension costs rising by GBP 193m to GBP 722m.

Competition had developed much more quickly than anyone forecast. Rivals would this year be handling around 4bn letters, around one in every five posted – a level Postcomm had forecast would not be reached until 2010.

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