Most T&L directors Dairy Products Transport
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recruited from Exel
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• :\ n Exel-dominated bi)iird of directors is to run NFO's newly merged BRS-Exel business in a move which appears to leave BRS marginalised.
Robbie Burns, managing director of the merged business UK Transport and Logistics, has chosen seven of his 10 directors from Exel. It is not yet known who will be responsible for BRS's large vehicle and trailer rental fleet.
Burns, who was Exel's managing director, has also decided to keep the two companies' brand names Exel for contract distribution work and BRS for rental.
The moves are the first steps in making savings and improving • customer service following last month's announcement that the two businesses are to integrate. The combined staff of 18,000, including 7,000 drivers, must wait to see how the rationalisation continues, but management cuts are expected.
• Britain's biggest bulk milk carrier is selling off more than half of its collection depots to prepare for the free market in milk next year.
Twenty-three of Dairy Products Transport's (DPT) 40 depots were sold this week to the Milk Marketing Board (MMB) although DPT will continue to operate them as the MMB's agent until next April.
It is then that the MMB will become defunct and Milk Marque, the new producers' cooperative, will be established.
After that the haulage contracts previously operated by DPT will be open to tender in a market accessible to any haulier.
Dairy Crest, which owns DPT, is itself a wholly owned subsidiary of the MMB, so effectively the IVIMB is buying 23 depots from its own subsidiary.
It would be possible next April for DPT to bid for the contracts at the 23 depots it has sold, but it would be competing against other tendering firms.
Dairy Crest has kept 17 of its depots to ensure its own creameries and dairies are supplied direct, says chief executive John Houl iston.