Price and Pierce strengthen Europe operation
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THE Langdon group of companies has been bought for £194,500 by Price and Pierce (Holding Company) Ltd, a subsidiary of Tozer Kernsley and Millbourn, the international finance and , investment group.
The Langdon group, based near Taunton, consists of W. and P. Langdon, Tone Vale Transport, Taunton Meat Haulage, West Somerset Warehousing, Urofrigo (Ireland), Birchside and four nontrading companies.
More than 50 tractive units and some 90 trailers of the Langdon group will thus bolster the European transport services of the transportation services division of Price and Pierce, whose managing director is Dr Brian Roscoe.
The Price and Pierce transport set-up already includes Cawthorne and Sinclair Ltd, of Birtley, and Cave Wood Transport, of Chesham. In Europe, Caw thorne and Sinclair (SA), at Le Havre, provide services to all group member firms. Another group member company Transports Mutte (SA) has depots at Grenoble, Lyons, Paris, Turin and Geneva, Altogether, the P. and P. transportation services division operates nearly 500 tractive units and substantially mgre trailers.
Dr Rosoe todld CM this week that the acquisition of the Langdon group was part of a planned sequence of growth in international road transport. The senior management of the Langdon companies were all covered by service contracts and there would be no changes in local management. All companies in the group were autonomous and there was no plan to abandon the individual trading names of constituent companies, though some thought was being given to the adoption of a group symbol or logo on stationery and vehicles.
The British companies in the P. and P. transport setup were almost entirely withdrawn from the excessively competitive domestic transport market, said Dr Roscoe. Such operations as were undertaken were in the nature of feeder traffic for the European services. The shipping and forwarding business, British Commercial Transport, a group company, provided a growing source of traffic for member firms and the TKM association was also helpful in trading and financial matters.