Shaking up the NFC
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• The National Freight Consortium is to merge its nine operating divisions into four new groups.
The proposals, which the company says are still secret, have been outlined in a top level in-house newsletter called NFC Manager no official announcement will be made until later this year, says NFC.
The first of the merged groups will be called the "Transport Division" and will comprise nine current BRS Group companies: BRS Midlands, BRS Northern, BRS Southern, BRS Western, Scottish Road Services, Northern Ireland Carriers and Caledonian Oil, plus Cartransport, Tankfreight and Waste Management from its Special Services Group. BRS is headed by managing director Ron Irons.
The Distribution Group will be the second of the new divisions and it will comprise all of its current companies (SPD, Carrycare, GDL, NFC Contract Distribution, Alpine and NFC Consulting) with seven newcomers. These will be Dauphin Distribution Services from NFC International; Fashionflow, NCCS and Newsflow from the Special Services Group; and Lynx Express and Scottish Parcel Services from Graham Roberts' Lynx parcels' arm. Tempco Union will also report through the Distribution Group in the future.
The third division will be Pickfords Group, incorporating all of the current Pickfords companies (Pickfords Removals, Pickfords Industrial, Pickfords Relocation Services, Hoults, Homespeed, NFC Forwarding and Roadferry) plus all of the NFC International companies except for Dauphin, which will go to the enlarged distribution group. These are: Downard Pickfords, Merchants Home Delivery Service, Intermove Pickfords, Interport Pickfords, Svvire Pickfords and Pickfords Espafia.
The fourth and final grouping will be called Pickfords Travel Service and it will combine the travel service with the NFC's Property Group.
Two NFC member companies, Sonitrol and Britannia Gas, are not included in this regrouping and their future position in the consortium is not known at present, says a senior NFC source.
It is understood that the NFC is keen to make its company reporting structure simpler and more responsive, and to bring together commonly perceived companies which are presently members of separate operating divisions.