Margins hit TDG profit
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• Transport Development Group has blamed cut-throat competition and reduced margins on new contracts for flat operating profits of £159m in the six months to 30 June.
Chief executive Alan Cole believes conditions in the haulage industry are now as bad as they are going to get but refuses to speculate about prospects for the second half of the year.
He has ruled out disposals but says the company will continue be run as tightly and as well as it can. In the consumer division, where profits tumbled from £9m in 1995 to £7.4m, Harris Logistics lost a multi-million-pound contract for Mars that dates back to the 1980s. This business is being replaced, but Coles admits that the new work is not as profitable.
TDG profits were also affected by the construction slump, which hit the group's plant hire companies. By contrast vehicle hire is buoyant, says Cole.
News was also better in the industrial division, which made operating profits of 1.3.6m—up from 13.9m in the previous halfyear. Beck & Pollitzer won a £4.5m, three-year contract in the half year for white goods distribution in northern France.