News / ID Logistics drives into Europe's big league with €85m purchase of Logiters

French contract logistics specialist ID Logistics looks set to propel itself into the upper echelon of providers after agreeing to acquire Spanish operator Logiters for €85m.

The acquisition still needs the green light from Spanish competition authorities, although ID Logistics says it expects to complete by the end of the summer.

It will be a cash buy from private equity fund Corpfin Capital, leaving ID Logistics with a “leverage ratio of approximately 1.2x proforma EBITDA post acquisition”.

Logiters recorded revenues of €250m last year. It operates 50 warehouses in Spain and Portugal, employs around 3,300 staff and has a client base focused on the automotive and healthcare sectors.

Eric Hémar, ID Logistics chief executive, said: “Logiters’ acquisition is another key milestone in ID Logistics’ growth strategy.

“We are rapidly expanding the scale and footprint of our European operations, by strengthening our leadership position in Spain and by entering the Portuguese market in a significant way.

“Thanks to Logiters’ strong management team. which demonstrates high level of technical expertise and customer relations, ID Logistics has the opportunity to reach high visibility in business sectors such as healthcare/pharmaceuticals or automotive, while consolidating its leading market positions on the traditional FMCG and retail sectors.

“In addition, Logiters will allow us to gain access to even more significant business opportunities and to extract greater benefits for our longstanding and new clients.

“Thanks to our proven capability to acquire new businesses, I am confident that we will rapidly and easily welcome and integrate Logiters’ teams into our organisation and offer them exciting career and business opportunities.”

According to the Transport Intelligence Global Contract Logistics 2016 report, Europe is already the most consolidated of regional contract logistics markets, with the top 10 providers accounting for 36.4% of the market, compared with 33.2% in North America and 22.9% in Asia-Pacific.

While DHL is by far the largest operator in Europe, with annual revenues of €8.3bn, the ninth and tenth rankings are held by DB Schenker and UK firm Unipart, with annual turnover of €952m and €946m respectively.

In 2015, ID Logistics posted revenues of €930m, growth of 6.4% over the year before, and saw net profit rise 18.3% to €21.3m. Assuming Logiters retains its customer base, the addition of its €250m turnover will make ID Logistics of comparable size to German company Fiege.

Luis Marceñido, Logiters chief executive, said: “We are very excited to join ID Logistics. It’s a real opportunity to offer a pan-european solution to our customers.

“We are happy to share same entrepreneurship value and a customer oriented approach. This agreement with ID Logistics opens up an exciting new chapter for Logiters’ teams.”

Alvaro Olivares, partner at Corpfin Capital, added: “Over the past few years, we are proud to have successfully accompanied Logiters through a major recovery phase, working closely with its management teams to reach unique market leadership position in the Iberia peninsula.”

According to the TI report, the Spanish contract logistics market was worth 2.69bn last year, and is set to grow to €3.11bn by 2019.

It adds: “Industry consolidation was a key driver of change in 2015, with a low-growth economy and cheap debt incentivising takeovers to gain scale and new customer accounts.”