Toll in UK double swoop

AUSTRALIA’S Toll Group becomes one of the largest freight forwarders in the UK after it announced the acquisition of Genesis Forwarding Group and WT Sea Air Group. This is the first time there has been a double swoop of UK independents.

“These two UK headquartered acquisitions combine to provide significant scale to our Toll Global Forwarding (TGF) division in Europe,” said Toll Group’s managing director, Paul Little (right). “WT is expected to generate revenue this year of around A$170 million (US$148 million) and Genesis is expected to generate around A$80 million ($70 million).”

Genesis has a strong UK-export business and also specialises in mission-critical international multi-modal freight, predominantly for the defence, aerospace and oil and gas industries across Europe, the US, Asia Pacific and the Middle East. In the 2009 IATA CASS rankings, Genesis was ranked 22nd largest UK forwarder.

WT is principally a UK-import business from Asia, which also has a division in Hong Kong, specialising in global forwarding of fashion items. It also markets value-added services, such as bonded warehousing, pick-pack, garment re-hanging, vacuum packing and final-mile delivery services.

The deal was lead by Toll’s new head of global development, Chris Fahy.

Toll also announced that it has sold its 50 per cent share in the Italian Pacorini-Toll Joint Venture to the Pacorini Group. The venture provided logistics for the metals industries.

“While the joint venture has been a successful business since its formation, it was decided that the ownership interest was not a core asset for Toll,” said Little. “Importantly, Toll will continue its relationship with Pacorini through the provision of warehousing and other logistics services.”