News

Stobart Group, one of the UK's leading multimodal freight companies, has posted strong financial results, including pre-tax profits of £23.9 million, shrugging off the worst effects of the recession.

The Group's revenue rose to £431.1 million. Although, after fleet finance, revenue grew five-fold compared with last year to reach £27.5 million. This was due to mergers with James Irlam, Innovate Chilled and WA Developments.

Andrew  Tinkler, chief executive, says: "We have achieved a great deal in our first full year as a listed company towards realising our vision of becoming the UK's leading provider of multimodal logistics solutions. In particular, the difficult economic climate has provided us with opportunities to make opportunist and strategic acquisitions that are fully aligned to our strategy."

The chief executive also took the opportunity to push the Stobart Group's pay-as-you-go model to retailers, both on environmental and financial grounds. "Reducing waste and being more efficient is the biggest challenge to the industry, retailers and society as a whole," he says. "Retailers need to continue to set a good example for minimising congestion and removing waste (empty miles), but they could do more. In my opinion, this is more important than having their own-liveried fleet. Stobart Group is trying to move this debate on and will continue to work with stakeholders to highlight the cost and environmental  benefits of its pay-as-you-go model."

Stobart Group's financial results were broadly in line with analysts' expectations.

However, the group has still been affected by the economic downturn. Its port operations suffered from falling international trade. "The business has reduced its headcount and vehicle fleet size to match this fall," Stobart Group says in its financial statement.