Motor Transport Top 100 2017 Interactive Tables – Top 100 Notes

These interactive tables enable you to explore Motor Transport's Top 100 2017.

Click on the tabs at the top of the table to view the different data sets. You can also click on the column headers to sort the table data from highest to lowest (or click again to sort from lowest to highest). If you are viewing on a mobile device some of the columns will be hidden, in order to present the most important information - just click on the + icon against each row to expand the view to show all the data for that row. You can use the search box to quickly find a particular company.

Please refer to the notes to explain the methodology behind each entry.

Advanced Supply Chain reflects the performance of Advanced Supply Chain Group, excluding the results of its

Advanced Forwarding international Freight forwarding division.

Aspray Transport has changed the period of its financial year, so its performance reflects an 18-month trading period from January 2015 to June 2016.

Bartrums comprises of Bartrums Haulage and Storage and Bartrums Road Services.

BCA Automotive comprises of Walon and Paragon Automotive Logistics. BCA Marketplace, parent company to Walon acquired Paragon in July 2016. In bringing together the financial years’ of both businesses, the latest year refers to the 16 month period ending 31 March 2016, while the previous year accounts for the 12 months ending 30 November 2015 in the case of Paragon. In the case of Walon the latest year refers to the 16 months ending 3 April 2016, while the previous year accounts for the nine months ending 30 November 2014. We accept that this is an imperfect methodology but, given the data available, it has been done to give a reflection of the true size of the whole business.

Bedfords results are taken from SP & PL Holdings, the holding company for Bedfords; RPL Logistics and Linq Alliance. The year runs from 28 September 2015 to 2 October 2016, while the previous year results have been restated. It said that the drop from profit to loss was due to the previous year pre-tax profit position benefiting from the sale of a significant asset.

Brit European reflects the performance of parent company Carman (Holdings).

Ceva Logistics has not updated at Companies House since the Top 100 was last published in November 2016.

Circle Express has filed two sets of accounts since the 2016 Motor Transport Top 100, with the previous financial year running from November 2014 to March 2015.

Culina Group consists of the activities of Culina Logistics, Great Bear Distribution, Integrated Packing Services Ltd, Morgan McLernon and CML F&L (Telford). The numbers in the Top 100 were supplied by the company.

DHL comprises of DHL Supply Chain; Exel UK; TradeTeam and DHL International (UK) – which trades as DHL Express. DHL Supply Chain and Exel UK saw turnover of£ 3.09bn and £47.4m respectively, combined its supply chain activities would still rank second in the Top 100 as a business on its own. Turnover at Supply Chain fell from £4.01bn to £3.09bn, with the fall attributable to a change in the way its NHS Supply Chain contract reports revenue. Pre-tax profit at Supply Chain fell from £108.1m in 2015 to £99.4m in 2016. Turnover in Exel UK dropped from £129.3m to £47.4m in the same trading period, with pre-tax profit rising to £1.6m from £521,000. The business continues to renew consumer and retail contracts formerly reported in its Exel UK and Tradeteam divisions in DHL Supply Chain where possible. https://motortransport.co.uk/blog/2017/10/04/nhs-contract-changes-hit-dhl-supply-chain-dhl-express-sees-12-growth/ Tradeteam saw turnover fall from £118m to £106.4m with pre-tax profit falling from £2.7m to £441,000. It would rank 37th in the Top 100 as an individual business. DHL International (UK) saw turnover rise 11.9% to £795.7m, from £711.1m in 2015. Pre-tax profit fell to £15m from £15.8m. It would rank eighth in the Top 100 as a standalone business. DHL acquired UK Mail in December 2016, but has yet to incorporate a full-year of trading as a subsidiary company. As a result, this year we have left UK Mail out of the equation when it comes to DHL’s overall business in the UK. We have also excluded the performance of its Freight Forwarding activities in the UK>

FedEx UK: see TNT UK.

Hargreaves Services – Transport did not supply employee numbers for the most recent financial year, despite requests to the company.

Kuehne + Nagel’s turnover is derived from its contract logistics business (as reported by Kuehne + Nagel Ltd) and Kuehne + Nagel Drinks Logistics. Turnover from its International Freight Forwarding business (£723.9m in 2016, compared to £809.6m in 2015) has been excluded to best reflect the domestic road freight related contributions to the business – much in the same way that turnover contributions from similar business lines at XPO Logistics and DHL have been excluded. Its Contract Logistics division had a turnover of £516.7m (up from £389m in 2015). However, as K+N does not split the two divisions into separate legal entities, we have been unable to breakdown pre-tax profit and employee numbers in the same way. Therefore, and unfortunately, the profit contributions and employee figures include its international freight forwarding business. Were we to list K+N Contract Logistics as a separate business it would have a turnover of £389m and rank 15th on our list. K+N Drinks Logistics had a turnover of £212.2m in 2015 and would rank 23rd on the list.

Lloyd Fraser Holdings has not updated at Companies House since the Top 100 was last published in November 2016.

McBurney Refrigeration has not updated at Companies House since the Top 100 was last published in November 2016.

NFT Distribution comprises NFT Distribution Operations and NR Evans & Son. NFT Distribution Holdings subsidiary Homecrest Bidco acquired NR Evans (Holdings) on 15 July 2016 for £14.8m. The turnover; pre-tax profit and employee numbers are based on combining the performance of NFT Distribution Operations (year-ending 1 March 2016) and NR Evans & Son (year-ending 31 August 2016). The same approach has been taken for the previous year of trading – even though both businesses were trading separately. We accept that this is an imperfect methodology but it has been done to give a reflection of the true size of the whole business.

Redhead Freight: on 1 February 2016 Schenker AG purchased a 75% stake in Redhead Holdings, subsequently the land division of Schenker UK was integrated into Redhead Freight with the Redhead management targeted at eradicating the substantial losses of the division and turning it into a profit. The previous year reflects the performance of Redhead Freight in the nine months to 31 December.

TNT UK has not updated at Companies House since the Top 100 was last published in November 2016. While FedEx’s acquisition of TNT Express was completed in May 2016 both TNT and FedEx UK remain separate legal entities reporting for very different trading periods – for the year-ending December 2015 and June 2016 respectively. As a result it would not be a fair reflection of the trading performance of the business to simply combine the two entities into one entry in the Motor Transport Top 100. Globally FedEx has been integrating TNT Express on a country by country basis, completing 64 counties in financial year 2017 and is moving into larger, more complex markets in 2018.

Turners (Soham) Holdings most recent financial year ran from 3 January 2016 to 31 December 2016, and is compared to the trading period that ran from 4 January 2015 to 2 January 2016. The figures excluded turnover and operating profit contributions from its park homes division. It also includes contributions from the two container hauliers it acquired in 2016: Macintyre Transport and Goldstar Transport (Holdings).

UK Mail: see DHL. UK Mail’s most recent financial year was for the nine-months ending 31 December 2016 as it brings its reporting in line with that of DHL.

XPO Logistics is comprised of XPO Supply Chain UK; XPO Bulk UK and XPO Transport Solutions UK. We have excluded XPO Global Forwarding and XPO Maintenance UK to best reflect turnover and profit derived from domestic road freight.

Yodel Distribution includes subsidiaries Arrow XL and Arrow XL (Scotland). Were Arrow XL to be a separate business it would have a turnover of £82.9m and a pre-tax profit of £2.7m ranking 42nd in the Top 100.