TN wins at home but suffers away
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• Acquisitions and an improvement in performance in some dedicated contracts helped boost Transport Development Group's (TDG) performance last year. Operating profit rose 7.6% to £35.1m on a turnover of £510m, up from £488m in 1999.
The acquisition of Woodrich Distribution, "respectable profits" on Scottish Courage Brands and Courtaulds Coatings' contracts, after start up difficulties the year before, and the merger of Inter-City into Williams Distribution meant a £5.5m rise in profit to £8.9m for the UK industrial division last year. Margins in this division rose to 4% from L7%.
The French tanker business. Innocenti-Royer, stemmed its losses by reducing absenteeism, redundancies and reducing long distance traffic, and contributed a small profit to the non-UK industrial division.
Some £23m of contract busi ness was renewed last year including work with Safeway, lIalfords, ICI, and Boots but was less profitable than when first won. "A lot of those contracts were negotiated in the late eighties and weren't making the kind of profits they were five years ago. That has been reflected in negotiations that have just taken place," says chief executive Alan Cole.
The group's UK consumer division remained stable., increasing profits by just £500,000 to £17.5m. However, profits at its non-UK activities fell by £2.4m after a fall in its Irish cold store business and continuing losses at French temperature controlled distribution company Temperature Dirigee which has been dogging us for some time," says Cole.
The company, based at Wissous, near Paris, is now up for sale.