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Steady as she goes at TDG
Page 14
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Preliminary results for 2005 suggest that TDG has been busy standing still — but questions remain about its strategy. Chris Tindall reports.
TDG TURNED IN a "steady" set of preliminary results for 2005, with a £16.1m profit before tax on a turnover almost unchanged from the previous year.
Its European chemicals division has bought Belgian logistics business Mond for £17.9m; TDG chief executive David Garman says this acquisition will extend its coverage of the chemicals market in Northern Europe. TDCi's turnover for the year ending 31 December 2005 was £510.5m, compared with £506.6m in 2004. Operating profit from its UK contract logistics arm remained unchanged from 2004. at £12.0m. Its Irish logistics and freight-forwarding business broke even, and its temperature-controlled arm boosted its profits by £100.000 to 3.7m.
The Dutch operations suffered a loss of L1.3m for the second year running, but the company has no plans to sell this business — Garman says such a move would be "a very retrograde step".
New contracts with Corns, Tesco and Johnson Diversey boosted turnover, but Garman expects performance to be affected in 2006 by "rationalisation in the retail sector".
John Manners-Bell, senior analyst at Transport Intelligence, says there should be some concerns over TDG's Dutch operation he points out that TDG has a history of withdrawing from unprofitable markets: "It does send out the wrong message, but unfortunately TDG doesn't have the depth of resources to make it a major provider [of logistics:' christopher.tindnh@rbi.co.uk