Freightliners in the black
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container haulage £104,000. In 1982, there was Its turnover, thanks to a return to industrial peace on the railways, shot up from 1982's £69.6m to £97.6m, resulting in a trading loss of £3.8m being turned into a profit of £2.5m.
The pre-tax profit was £1.4m, against a loss of £4.5m in 1982, and the retained profit after tax and other commitments was a loss of E1 .1m.
In his annual report, Freightliners managing director Bryan Driver said that record volumes of containers handled reached 975,000 tonne equivalent units (TEU), with further growth of deep-sea traffic. This is the first upturn in traffic since the recession hit in 1980.
The haulage operation is now at its smallest, with a fall from 461 vehicles in 1982 to 458, and the number of employees is down from 2,087 to 2,028. In 1979, 2,522 staff were employed and there were 584 lorries.
Productivity deals for drivers have increased their output by 16 per cent, and more flexible working arrangements have been introduced at the Southampton, Mil'brook, Willesden, Manchester and Swansea terminals.
Gross receipts per employee were £47,600 last year, compared with £34,400 (1983 prices in 1982) and £36,200 (1983 prices) in 1979.
Operating margins are back in profit, at 1.5 per cent last year (1982: —6.3 per cent), but still down on 3.4 per cent in 1979.
The return on assets of 6.2 per cent compared with a negative return of 21.5 per cent in 1982, but looks less happy against the 15.3 per cent return in 1979.
Mr Driver reinforced this point last week when he said: "Over the next four years we have to achieve an adequate return on our assets if they are to be renewed and regenerated.
"Our completed major study of strategic options has confirmed the case for maintaining broadly the shape and scale of Freightliners' UK network and services in the immediate future.
"This means we must now concentrate on increasing our profitable business".