The UK arm of German transport giant Hellmann Worldwide Logistics is poised to take advantage of the opportunities Brexit will bring.

Reporting its annual results to the year ended 31 December 2015, the company said its “significant experience in importing and exporting from outside the EU” would stand it in good stead.

The firm said that the UK’s decision to leave the EU would allow it to “provide additional value added services to its existing and future UK customer base, where the complexity of goods movement increases”.

However, its annual accounts for the year ended 31 December revealed a 5% drop in turnover at its road freight division to £26.3m (2014: £27.8m).

It also described road freight as “the key challenge for the company during 2015”.

In a bid to address this, the company has invested in its road freight sales team and, in a departure from its business model, is now running vehicles out of its Colnbrook site.

"Hellmann UK decided to commission eight vehicles, a further four may follow in Q4. This was to facilitate new contractual business wins during 2016, where a 24/7 operation is required and to manage increased pallet volumes resulting from our successful partnership with the Pallet-Track network,” Marc Jarman, European road freight manager at Hellmann told Motortransport.co.uk.

“Operating eight vehicles, in some instances, 24 hours a day has had a positive effect on our operating profit.

“This initiative does not affect our regular 'day hire' subcontracted fleet, which we continue to entrust to our long term suppliers - we have no intention of changing this successful working arrangement," he said.

Overall, Hellmann’s UK operation recorded a pre-tax loss of £309,000 for the period compared with a loss of £1.8m a year ago.

It added that its trading performance in the first half of this year had been positive.

In July the business's future was, to all intents and purposes, secured after its parent company struck a new deal with its lenders.

  • If you’d like to learn more about the implications of the UK’s vote to leave the EU, we’re holding a free Road Transport Brexit Debate at the Scarman Conference Centre in Warwick on 12 October. Find out more and register at our Brexit Debate micro-site.Brexit stamp

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