News / Dachser sees revenues fall back, but has an eye on more acquisitions

German road freight and 3PL provider Dachser today reported a 12.5% year-on-year decline in 2023 revenue, due to falling volumes and plummeting freight rates.

It said full-year revenues came in at €7.1bn ($7.73bn) , some 25% higher than pre-Covid 2019 sales, while last year’s transported volumes fell 4.6%, to 77.4m shipments and tonnage decreased by 6.5%, to 40m tonnes.

However, the year was also characterised by nearly €250m spent on acquisitions, and CEO Burkhard Eling said it had drawn up a €500m investment plan for this year.

“In 2023, we deliberately took a countercyclical and farsighted approach to investments, we completed our European groupage network in Italy, with the third-largest acquisition of our company history. We tapped key food logistics markets in the Benelux and Nordic countries. Moreover, we now have our own locations in the large overseas markets of Japan and Australia,” he said.

“In pursuit of our goal of becoming the world’s most integrated logistics provider, we are continuing to invest in expanding and enhancing our networks, in digitalisation, in climate action and, of course, in our employees,” he added.

Last year’s acquisitions included Müller Fresh Food Logistics in the Netherlands, ACA International in Australia and New Zealand, Frigoscandia in Sweden and the buy-outs of its joint-venture partners in Japan, Italy and South Africa.

“Against the backdrop of an ailing global economy and a challenging market environment, supply chains were under considerably less strain in 2023, which allowed us to focus on improving productivity, capacity utilisation and quality. At the same time, we made considerable investments in the expansion of our networks,” Mr Eling continued.

Its road logistics arm – which also includes its food logistics services, saw revenue climb 1.8%, to €5.8bn, while its Air & Sea forwarding business saw revenue fall 46.3%, to €1.3bn. The number of shipments rose by 2.4%, while tonnage fell 7.9%.

In response to transport overcapacity and weak economic demand in its core European market, Mr Eling said the company would look to increasingly integrate its road freight and forwarding arms and added: “In the coming years, significant growth impetus will come from markets outside Europe.

“In order to continue serving our customers worldwide with high quality and reliability, we are linking the processes and systems of our two business fields even more closely in order to develop an integrated global, door-to-door groupage solution that we call Global Groupage,” he said.