Dentressangle is paying for strikes
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• Norbert Dentressangle failed to convert a 12% increase in revenue into profit growth in 19% because of a 15% jump in its operating expenses, caused in part by the French strikes.
UK managing director Ray McCord says the company is now battening down the hatches in preparation for a new round of strikes.
"They will impact on the business again," he admits, "but we won't cave in. We'd rather bite the loss now than suffer them for years to come." Some 200 ND drivers were involved at the height of last year's strikes.
But the company's five-year financial plan to 2000 remains unchanged, forecasting yearly sales increases of 13% to 14%, split equally between organic and acquisitional growth.
As well as the strike, ND's costs were also forced up by staff expenses; ferry, tunnel and
chartering costs; diesel prices; and rent on vehicles. This contributed to a 210o fall in pre-tax profits to Ffr119m (£12.5m) from a turnover of Ffr2.79bn (£293m).
The company's return on revenue fell more than 2.5% to 4.9%. But volumes were up in the transport of general goods 0%), bulk (17%) and refrigerated products (35%). There were also increases in international groupage (20%), storage (62%) and dedicated logistics (11%).
The company's workforce grew 11% in 1996; 14% of its 5,100 employees are based outside France including 410 in the UK. More than two-thirds of the workforce are drivers.
11 ND's Safety Plan continued to bear fruit last year. The company's accident rate now stands at 0.21 per vehicle per year—down 80% on the 1990 figure. ND drivers now cover an average 500,000km between incidents.