News / Torus defence supply chain 'a model for other verticals', says CEO

According to new analysis from The Economist this week, global military spending hit $2.9trn in 2025, up 2.9% from the year before, adjusted for inflation – but this was far outstripped in Europe, where policymakers responded to US cajoling and defence investment soared.

“European countries, excluding Russia and Ukraine, accounted for nearly half of these increases,” The Economist writes. “Spending in the region jumped by 14.1% to $864bn. America moved in the opposite direction: its budget fell by 7.5% to $954bn, roughly back to its level in 2021.

“Part of that shift reflects support for Ukraine. America approved no new supplemental budgets for the country in 2025, while European countries expanded theirs.

“Yet Europe’s rearmament now extends well beyond the war: excluding Russia, Ukraine, and related military aid, European defence spending still rose by 13.4%.”

This shift – easily discernible to those paying attention to international policy developments – acted as a catalyst for the formal creation of the Torus Defence Supply Chain grouping of GXO, Maersk, Accenture, and Amentum.

The first discussions over combining their strengths came during a workshop, GXO CEO Patrick Kelleher told The Loadstar during an interview at the company’s UK headquarters in London.

The idea emerged, he said, during “some of the strategy work and discussions we had through the integration of Wincanton, which has been happening over the last five or six months, with CMA [Competition and Markets Authority] approvals”.

“It was the teams coming together and debating ‘what’s the best go-to-market plan?’,” he added.

With the addition of Accenture and US defence contractor Amentum, Mr Kelleher said, the four parties’ roles were relatively straightforward. he explained: “It’s GXO warehouses, Maersk’s transportation, Accenture is the technology partner, bringing enterprise technology, and Amentum is a significant amount of the on-the-ground execution.”

Although GXO staff would operate the warehousing, “there are other aspects of operations that can be included – so if it’s a maintenance-repair operations solution, Momentum can bring the mechanics to the repair facilities”.

He said the move was primarily focused on serving the UK defence industry, and the sales team were still developing its pipeline. In a later interview with The Loadstar, he added that Torus revenues were “not reflected in GXO’s guidance for 2026, but the team is actively engaged in pursuits in the UK”.

“I think, as you would appreciate, being in the UK the decision timeframe for those opportunities is much longer than a traditional 3PL timeline, and we will begin to see the fruits of that,” he said.

In terms of services, he said, it was “very focused on finished goods distribution, MRO [maintenance, repair & overhauls] and returns.

“As in equipment that’s not up to standard, or maybe you have a piece of equipment that goes down and you have a core that needs to be returned. It could be an electrical component that could be a computer box in a tank that needs to be returned and refurbished, and so we split it between the different parts of Torus,” he said.

And he suggested it could also prove to be a model for other verticals.

“Maersk isn’t a pure-play contract logistics operator, but is getting into a lot of things and has obvious strength.

“I love the partnerships, the combined strengths… it’s something we’re very open to doing in other market verticals, because I think it protects and preserves the competitive advantage we enjoy as a pure-play contract logistics provider, while being able to align with best-in-industry to deliver end-to-end supply chain solutions, which I think is a great value for GXO,” he said.