26 S


Issue 6 2011


Britain’s PTS joins the Greencarrier club


wedish-headquartered logistics specialist Greencarrier


International completed its integration of Ipswich-based UK/ Scandinavia specialist PTS on 1 July and the company was rebranded Greencarrier PTS on 1 November.


of our competitors haven’t been focussing on Scandinavia so much,” is his analysis. Another factor might be that Greencarrier still offers the personal touch of a smaller family-owned company which many customers prefer


Niklas Olsson: Greencarrier is bucking the gloomy trend


Now, Greencarrier will be looking to strengthen its presence on trade lanes between the UK and the Nordic/Baltic region, starting with Finland. Services between the UK and Norway have already been upgraded to a minimum of a twice- weekly trailer departure – with connecting services via the daily Swedish service on other days – plus a weekly container service. PTS UK, which was


Greencarrier’s partner for five years prior to the takeover, is headquartered at Ipswich Docks and has an office in Immingham. It operates 17 trucks from 3.5 to 44 tonnes, along with over 100 trailers including curtainsiders and container flats on regular groupage, part and full-load services to Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland. It also offers facilities for sorting, order picking, re-marking, shrink wrapping and labelling. Greencarrier’s business


between the UK and Sweden has grown by 30% this year, bucking a generally flat market trend, says Greencarrier’s chief commercial officer, Niklas Olsson. “We have gained a number of new accounts and maybe some


to the multinationals that have swallowed up much of the local competition. Greencarrier’s UK business


is also unusual in that it is very well balanced, northbound and southbound. Historically, traffic was vastly skewed in favour of the southbound flow but in the recent recession the situation has turned around completely with northbound traffic out of the UK outnumbering business in the other direction. The fall- off in demand in the UK and the weakening Pound have been the main factors in the turnaround, it seems. Many commentators believe


that this situation is not sustainable and the historic pattern will at some stage reassert itself, though with the world financial markets still in turmoil, it is difficult to guess which way things will move next, says Olsson. “I would think that the market will change back to what it was at some time, but at the moment there’s no sign of that happening,” he told FBJ. Nor is there any suggestion of the


much-predicted double-dip, at least as far as Greencarrier’s UK traffic


is concerned. “Normally transport is an early warning of economic problems but so far there has been nothing,” he said. In fact, all the Scandinavian


countries are doing reasonably well at the moment. The only country that is struggling at the moment is Finland; significantly, maybe, it is the only one of the Nordic quartet that is in the Euro. At the time of the PTS takeover,


Greencarrier CEO Peter Nevagen did not rule out adding air and ocean forwarding services in the UK at some stage. This is still a possibility, says Niklas Olsson, but for the next 18 months the plan is


Moscow in favour of the border posts, and Greencarrier wants to be well-positioned to take advantage. Elsewhere, it will continue to


strengthen its position in the rest of Scandinavia, beefing up its presence in Finland and Denmark. “We would like to be equally strong in all the Nordic countries,” Olsson explains. Although to an outsider, Sweden, Denmark and Norway have


superficial similarities in


terms of culture, language and business methods, creating a truly pan-Scandic organisation has proved a harder nut for forwarders to crack than might be supposed. Almost


without exception, all


///SCANDINAVIA


DSV takes a balanced view


K


arl Timmis, director of full load, contracts, haulage and support


services, at major operator DSV Road, says that over the past couple of years, he has noted a shift in the balance of trade between the UK and Scandinavia, with exports from the UK to Scandinavia increasing strongly while traffic in the reverse direction has remained steady. This has made the trade lane fairly well balanced in both directions. While the sharp increases in exports from the UK now appear to have peaked, the shift in the balance of trade has remained. There are a couple of reasons for the


levelling out of east and westbound volumes, he explains. “Firstly, the decline in the value of the Pound against the Euro and the Scandinavian Kroners had a big impact on the market. It made products from the UK less expensive than they used to be and therefore more affordable for the Scandinavian and European consumer.


this would have a negative impact on exports


from Scandinavia, general


demand growth in Scandinavian products has meant overall export volumes have remained steady and have not declined.” The growth in exports from the


UK initially presented DSV Road with a challenge as capacity in the eastbound direction suddenly became tighter, which drove its costs up, he adds. “To meet this challenge, in 2011 we have invested in containers, reefers and trailers to make sure we have the necessary capacity to meet the changing demands of the market. We will continue to invest in new equipment next year to ensure we continue to provide the level of capacity required by our clients.” DSV is among the top three road


freight operators in Europe and a major international freight forwarder. It has its global headquarters in Denmark with more than 50 locations throughout Scandinavia,


to focus on the markets from the UK to the Nordic countries and the Baltic regions. Greencarrier itself is however a strong air and ocean forwarder and it has just opened its fiſth Chinese office, in Xiamen, and plans to add a couple more, probably in the North of China. Another important strand of


Greencarrier’s strategy will be to increase its market share in the Baltics and Russia, including developing a presence on all the main Russian border posts. There appears to be some pressure from the Government to decentralise customs clearance


away from


the major Scandinavian freight transport firms have their origins in one specific country, be it Sweden, Norway or Denmark and it takes a lot of time and effort to develop genuine strength in depth across the entire region. Some operators have succeeded better than others, the latest to try being the major postal organisations –


Finland’s


Itella and Norway Post’s Bring Logistics. “I think one mistake in the past has been trying to centralise everything,” comments Olsson. “I think you need to leave local decision-making in the hands of local people.”


“Secondly, the last couple of years


have seen the outsourcing of some production from Scandinavia to lower cost regions, such as Eastern Europe and the Far East, which has affected export growth from Scandinavia. The region was arguably a bit behind the rest of the world when it came to outsourcing production to these low cost areas, although it is quickly catching up. But while you might think


and 35 in the UK, offering road freight, seafreight, airfreight and total supply chain services throughout the region – and the rest of the world. Most of DSV’s traffic to and from Scandinavia is transported by ship (85% arrives on the North Sea with the remainder travelling by road across Europe and using the English Channel) using a wide range of shipping lines and ports for its trailer services.


THE NORTH SEA l Linking Immingham & Rotterdam with the Oslofjords, West Coast Norway & Denmark l Weekly service


THE BALTIC SEA l Linking Immingham & Rotterdam with Lithuania, Estonia, Finland, Russia & CIS


l Weekly service www.tschudilines.com


With offices in Norway, Finland, Holland, Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Russia and the UK, we offer:


l Liner agency for Tschudi Lines l Logistics and forwarding services door to door, both by rail and road l Warehousing and distribution including customs clearance l Global reach but with specific focus on Scandinavia, Baltic Sea region, Russia and the CIS


www.tschudilines.com Contact Tschudi Logistics UK - Telephone: +44 (0) 1205 316840


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