Same Day Road Haulage Express Courier to the Air Freight Forwarding Community Bought Out

UK – Rico, a logistics provider and part of the Indian headquartered TVS Group, has taken a majority shareholding in Circle Express, a previously independent network offering a collection and delivery service specifically targeted at the UK air freight forwarding industry. Circle began life as a Heathrow based mini cab operation and expanded into its present form in 1982, growing influence as a dedicated express road haulage provider to the air cargo community with an operating presence at key UK airport sites.

Currently Circle Express has an annual turnover in excess of £29 million with a countrywide fleet of 300 vehicles operating out of 8 Aviation Security listed depots near the airports at Heathrow, Aberdeen, Birmingham, Exeter, Glasgow, Leeds, Manchester and a cross dock facility in Milton Park, Abingdon. The company claims to be the only UK operator fully licensed to transport all classes of hazardous materials including firearms, ammunition and radioactive, toxic, flammable, corrosive and explosive materials.

It has used this experience to branch into both ADR and CPC training for its clients’ staff and, under the new regime, day to day operations and management will not change, although upper management will have a new reporting structure into Rico. The acquisition was welcomed by Tom Ryan, Circle Express Managing Director, who said:

“This great opportunity will give Circle the financial backing and work collaboration opportunities to move forward and strengthen its position in our industry. Rico already have 1400 same day couriers operating in the UK, they are all CRB checked and some also PES checked, so with our ADR training facilities we can quickly up-skill these drivers to ADR capability which is mandatory for our operations, we can then provider a much stronger same day service to our customer base.”

TVS holds a portfolio of well over 80 subsidiary companies, principally auto industry based but with some notable logistics outfits in the mix. Rico has revenues of £100 million and 40 branches around the UK with operations in fifteen other countries including Europe, Australia and India. Sam Sharma, Rico Global CEO said:

“We are proud to bring Circle Express into the Rico business, as it’s a fantastic opportunity to expand our Same Day capability, generating higher premium services across the UK. This acquisition will bring us some more depots to add to our existing 48 Same Day depots across the country and builds our larger vehicle and trunking capacity within our operations. This is another strategic acquisition for Rico which will continue in the future in order to strengthen Rico’s operational capability and service portfolio across all its different lines of business both in the UK and internationally”