Freight’s Global 100


t a time when unemployment in the UK for 18- 24 year olds has reached record highs, it is encouraging to see some in the freight industry look to recruit specifically from this age group.


Philip Stephenson A


Chairman, Davies Turner


and, crucially, properly training new recruits, and in that respect the apprenticeship scheme run by Davies Turner is to be applauded.


This is, of course, not just about doling out jobs to people who need them for the sake of it – the logistics industry itself is in real need of identifying fresh blood


The company continues to be owned by the Stephenson family, with Philip as chairman. In 2010, the Sunday Timesdrew up a list of the 250 best privately-owned UK companies, and Davies Turner was listed as number 237.


Andy Thorne Chairman, Kestrel Liner Agencies


ike many of the UK entries on this list, Andy Thorne built Kestrel Liner Agencies up from a two-man operation in Barking to the UK’s largest independent ship agency.


L


His career began straight after school and he soon had a job at a shipping company specialising in the route between the UK and the Caribbean, which include stints working in Trinidad handling vessel calls.


In 1994, he launched Kestrel with then business CEO, Stobart Group


ndrew Tinkler began his career in civil engineering and railway infrastructure, but came to prominence in the freight industry when his company, WA Developments, acquired Eddie Stobart in 2004, and he became the company’s principal shareholder and CEO.


A


Despite the group’s enormous success and its position as the UK’s number-one haulage firm, the following years saw it in need of new investment if it was to retain its leading position.


It ignored overtures from French haulier Norbert


Dentressangle and instead embarked on a complicated reverse public listing which saw it acquired by Westbury Property Fund and then IPO’d on the London Stock Exchange in 2007.


Relaunched as an integrated logistics firm, the Stobart group has pioneered the shipments of chilled products from Europe to the UK by rail and developed an innovative intermodal supply chain for Tesco.


It is also redeveloping Southend Airport as well as a series of port operations.


IFW-Lloyd’s Loading List | Freight’s Global 100 | 2012 45


partner Mark Pattison, who has subsequently retired. Kestrel’s first contract was with Ecuadorian Line, and it has since expanded its operations beyond ship agency work to include FCL and consolidation, air freight, procurement, breakbulk and out-of-gauge project cargo.


In 2010, the company won a Queen’s Award for Excellence and in early 2011 became the UK’s leading ship agency after it acquired the ships agency business of Johnson Stevens.


Andrew Tinkler


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