TAL Logistics snaps up three in one and aims for top 50
Page 16
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
With one acquisition wrapped up last week, a Sheffield-based logistics company is promising more buy-outs to follow. David Harris reports.
TAL LOGISTICS. the Sheffieldbased firm that last week bought David Park Transport of Gateshead, is negotiating to buy "two or three other companies". Group chief executive Richard Shaw says TA L hopes to seal its next deal by late spring or early summer: it plans to build a firm with an annual turnover of1:50m. He adds: "The fact that we're talking to a few companiesdoesn't mean well be buying them all.The conversion rate [of talks into deals] is notoriously low for things like this, hut we would hope that one of them comes off."
Shaw explains that TAI. wants to he a broad-based operation. running warehouses as well as a fleet of trucks. His target is to grow until TAL is among the top 50 UK hauliers by turnover.
"We have definite turnover and quality aims in mind, but we aren't chasing a wheeled empire." he says. "The firms we buy have Lobe the right ones."
Sheffield businessman Neil Taylor formed .IAL Logistics at the end of 2004 as a holding company to build a logistics group.
Last week's acquisition is a group of three long-established companies: David Park Transport, Freeway Haulage and Old Oak, trading as Galaxy Haulage. The Park group has 30 vehicles, which effectively doubles the size of TAL's fleet. The deal was brokered by 'IAL's accountants, Horwath Clark Whitehill.