Russian Railways-owned 3PL Gefco yesterday reported a 16% EBITDA increase to €201m for 2017, on the back of a 5.1% boost in group revenue to €4.4bn ($5.42bn).
The company said turnover from contract logistics services – other than its PSA Peugeot and General Motors contracts – grew 8.1%, while its freight forwarding and overland transport divisions both returned to profit.
“2017 has been another strong year for Gefco, with progression in both our revenue and profitability, reflecting the strength of our offering to customers and our ongoing drive for operational excellence,” said chairman Luc Nadal.
“Our strategy continues to deliver growth, as demonstrated by an improvement of over 8% year on year in revenue from market clients.
“Our operational excellence programme, commenced in 2014, has made strong progress in turning around the company’s historically loss-making divisions, and reached a milestone in 2017 with both our overland and freight forwarding business returning to profit.”
The group won a series of automotive contracts, including Jaguar-Land Rover, Volkswagen, Tesla, Audi, Volvo and Renault-Nissan, as well as Carglass and London EV Company.
It won new contracts in Food, Retail and Fashion – Amazon, Baron de Rothschild, Kiabi, LC Waikiki and L’Oréal – and well as in its energy, industrial manufacturing, and life sciences and healthcare verticals.
Revenue from outside the automotive sector represented more than 30% of its non-PSA revenue, it said.
The freight forwarding and overland divisions, described as historically underperforming, retuned to the black on the back of new operational measures based on “rigorous KPIs, operating excellence, global monitoring, increased innovation and internal communication to test and share best practices”.
In terms of innovation, it said, Gefco has pilot projects running on data analytics, meta platforms and automation around production means, and recently became a corporate partner of the Paris operation of global start-up incubator Techstars, which could see its sites host other pilot projects.