AMI buys service partner in South Africa
AMI – the world’s largest trade-only freight wholesaler – has taken the next step in its global expansion plan with the purchase of Johannesburg-based MMA Consolidators Pty Ltd. MMA has been AMI’s service partner in South Africa for the past 2 years. MMA was launched in 2002 by Mike Todd, who had already worked in the South African wholesale freight sector for 7 years. Initially MMA only handled imports; however in response to customer demand it soon expanded its portfolio to include export freight. In its first 2 years MMA grew from 2 to 30 employees. It opened additional stations in Cape Town (January 2004) and Durban (September 2006), the latter operating as a satellite office handling sales, reservations, and performing local collections and deliveries. MMA’s main markets are Africa, USA, Europe and the UK. As with AMI in the UK, MMA draws most of its business from agents ranked below the country’s top 10; this gives it an available market of around 120 CASS-registered agents plus a further 300 non CASS agents. All five MMA shareholders will stay with the newly-named AMI MMA operation, with Mike Todd as Regional Director Africa. A change to the full AMI identity is likely in early 2009, bringing the company in line with AMI’s operations throughout Australia, New Zealand, China and the USA which were acquired in 2007. Quelle: Pilot Marketing Services |