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Europa boss ready to get his chequebook out; Denmark services upgraded

[ August 7, 2017   //   Chris ]

Europa Worldwide Group managing director Andrew Baxter (pictured) says he plans to expand the Dartford-headquartered company “by buying a £20-60m turnover freight business within the next 12 months”.

Setting out the operator’s plans, he said his goal was then to hit the £200m turnover mark by the end of next year.

He added: “Obviously, these are very ambitious targets, however, we believe that we have the foundations in place to make it happen.”

In the last four years since acquiring the business in 2013, Baxter and his team have  set up a new, bespoke IT system Leonardo – an investment of more than £2m – and launched new services and daily lines.

Baxter added: “We believe that we will continue to have strong organic growth of around 25% across the business this year and we are planning to start developing additional lines to the continent directly from our 10 regional depots.”

In its latest accounts to the end of 2016, Europa, increased its turnover to £116m and profits to £2.3m, with staff numbers increasing to 650.

Europa has meanwhile added two additional services to Denmark having sealed a new partnership with Nordic logistics company, Freja.  The route, which previously ran one way for exports, will now operate in both directions every day between Copenhagen, Aarhus and Europa’s Dartford hub.

Europa’s operations director, Dan Cook, said: “Our decision to work with Freja is set to have implications on our whole European operation, with additional import services already providing huge benefits for existing customers, whilst also attracting new customers who can now capitalise on our increased capabilities.”

He added that FREJA operates some of Scandinavia’s most specialised freight and IT systems.

Tags: Europa