Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Scandinavian Freight Group Acquire UK Haulage Partner

Swedish Operator Seals the Deal with PTS
Shipping News Feature

UK – SWEDEN – Back in September 2009 GreenCarrier International announced they were moving into a new phase of the company’s development. “GreenCarrier is in expansion mode….Our network is growing and will continue to do so” said Björn Eklund, partner in owners the Björk Eklund Group. This week the company announced it had acquired its long term British partner; Ipswich based Scandinavian road freight specialists PTS UK.

With the Nordic countries and the Baltic States as home markets, GreenCarrier provides forwarding and logistics services, based on the concept of one contact person for all types of transportation all around the world. The company name is registered in nine geographical regions from the home country and surrounding states to Shanghai and Hong Kong and forms just one part of the Björk Eklund collection of transport related interests.

The agreement with PTS UK Ltd, which is to be renamed GreenCarrier PTS Ltd in due course, is expected to be completed before the end of May. PTS managing director Robert Gaunt is looking forward to working as part of a larger company and commented:

“GreenCarrier will provide us with access to greater management resources and expertise, and of course to a much bigger market, notably in the Nordic countries and the Baltic states. The UK has a substantial trade with these countries and we expect our share of it to grow rapidly over the next few years.”

With a trailer fleet exceeding one hundred PTS UK has been a well known name to English freight forwarders running both groupage and full load cargo services since its inception in 1980 and, according to Peter Nevhagen, CEO of GreenCarrier International, the new acquisition will increase the GreenCarrier workforce by almost 14%. He said:

“GreenCarrier already had 300 employees working in 26 offices in nine countries and now we are adding another two offices in the UK, in Ipswich and Immingham, where PTS has about 40 employees in total.”