Gebrüder Weiss group saw a boom in sea freight in 2013

Gebrüder Weiss turnover rises to EUR 1.2 billion despite volatile market conditions; focus is still on service excellence and expansion of expertise in the Middle East and Central Asia

The Gebrüder Weiss group continues to steer a course of growth. Despite volatile market conditions, the transport and logistics provider was able to increase its turnover for the fourth year in a row, generating preliminary net sales of roughly EUR 1.2 billion for the 2013 fiscal year (up 3,3% on 2012). „Given that the first half of the year was rather disappointing for us, we are quite satisfied with this financial statement,“ says CEO Wolfgang Niessner with regard to the balance sheet for the past fiscal year.

With a consolidated turnover of EUR 801.2 million, the land transport business area put in a strong performance as usual in 2013, thus slightly improving on the previous year. The Europe-wide general cargo and groupage freight product „GW pro.line“ – including the new B2C service „GW pro.line home“ – made a decisive contribution to the good result achieved. In total, around EUR 10.2 million consignments were processed. Multimodal transport solutions played an ever more central role, and increased efforts will also be made in future to develop them further. Moreover comprehensive supply chain solutions have been added to the logistics portfolio.

Despite a high level of volatility in the markets in the area of air and sea freight, consolidated turnover increased by around six per cent, reaching EUR 256.7 million. „This is above all the result of the consistent expansion of our global infrastructure and our efforts to offer special, customer needs-oriented solutions for air and sea freight,“ says Air & Sea Board Member Heinz Senger-Weiss. “GWconsolution” was established as a new groupage freight product for sea cargo, thus developing standardised service levels with direct sea routes as well as uniform process standards.

Special attention was paid to further development of the inner Asian activities and expansion of the specialist know-how in the Far East. In Shanghai, Changchun and Chengdu, warehousing logistics activities were be extended significantly – with a focus on the automotive sector. The newly installed product management for sea freight in Shanghai aims at prospectively implementing the group’s strategy in the region and strengthening relations with Asian shipping companies.

In the number of sea freight container loads, a volume of 125,000 TEU was achieved, representing an increase of 30 per cent as compared to last year. In the air freight sector, the heavily decreased export volume from China in the first half of 2013 caused the processed tonnage to fall short of last year’s value by four per cent at roughly 45,000 tonnes. The relatively new department for special transports “Projects & Break Bulk” posted a turnover of EUR 11 million in 2013.

The strategic orientation of Gebrüder Weiss has also remained constant. In 2013, the group not only consistently pursued its corporate goal of achieving service excellence, but also successfully continued its strategy of expanding eastwards. Gebrüder Weiss made clear moves in this direction with the takeover of the freight forwarder Far Freight, which specialises in the CIS and Caucasus countries, the commissioning of a new logistics centre in Tbilisi, Georgia, as well as the opening of its first Turkish site in Istanbul.

CFO Wolfram Senger-Weiss agrees: „Expanding our expertise in the Middle East and Central Asia as well as in the Caucasus is of great strategic importance for us. It is here that central hubs for transport between Europe and Asia are developed by Gebrüder Weiss – all of them modern logistics facilities in line with the highest Western European standards. This allows us to offer our customers real value added.“

In total, Gebrüder Weiss put together an investment package of around EUR 57 million in 2013, once again significantly increasing its investment volume by 16 per cent compared to 2012. The high equity ratio remained essentially unchanged, guaranteeing the company substantial independence from credit institutions. The ratio stands at just above 58 per cent.

With about 6,000 employees at 162 company-own locations Gebrüder Weiss counts among the leading transport and logistics enterprises in Europe. The Gebrüder Weiss Holding AG with headquarters in Lauterach (Austria) covers – apart from its main business segments land transport, air and sea freight and logistics – several highly specified industry solutions and subsidiaries, including among others the logistics consultancy x|vise, tectraxx (industry specialist for high tech companies), inet-logistics (software solutions for transport management TMS), dicall (telephone service, consulting, tele marketing), Railcargo (rail transport) and the Gebrüder Weiss parcel service, associate of the Austrian DPD.

www.gw-world.com/en

Quelle: LogEastics
Portal: www.logistik-express.com