Wincanton strong and on the acquisition trail

Commenting on improved half year results, chief executive Graeme McFaull (pictured) said: "Our results for the half year confirm both the strength and resilience of our well-diversified portfolio of activities and the quality of our long-term customer partnerships. We continue to see attractive opportunities to accelerate our growth through infill acquisitions." In the six months to 30 September, the company saw a 16.4% hike in revenue to £1.2 billion and underling pre-tax profits rise 5.9% to £21.4 million Recent acquisitions in container management and aerospace and defence logistics had contributed well to the results, Wincanton said. Skills and expertise brought into the group in spares logistics, in co-packing and in specialist pack design and manufacture, add further to the company’s developing focus on factory and production logistics, it added. The acquisition also introduced Wincanton to a substantial new customer base of blue-chip groups including AgustaWestland, BAE Systems and General Dynamics. On current economics, Wincanton said the need to reduce costs in more challenging times had, in the past, delivered incremental opportunity as customers had sought to improve efficiency by outsourcing both more of their business and, in some instances, new areas of their business. Wincanton also took the opportunity to announce the acquisition of the container transport specialist CEL Group, “making us the UK market leader in a sector which we believe to have very attractive long-term growth prospects”. Looking ahead, chairman David Edmonds concluded that: “although the current economic environment confirms the appropriateness of a note of caution, we continue to anticipate that the Group's financial performance for the year to 31 March 2009 will be in line with management expectations”.