PARIS: French logistics group Norbert Dentressangle has reported a 14.1 percent increase in revenue to €3.375 billion for the first nine months of 2014.
The company produces 65 percent of its annual revenue outside France with the UK accounting for nearly 30 percent and the U.S. its third largest market.
Transport revenue rose 6.8 percent year-on-year to €1.618 billion; logistics increased 18.5 percent to €1.67 billion due to gains in Europe and Russia; and revenue from air and sea forwarding rose nearly 60 percent year-on-year to €149 million.
In August the company completed its acquisition of the U.S. Jacobson Companies (right) to position Dentressangle as a significant supply chain operator in the country. In September it announced a 3PL contract with Pepperidge Farms to operate a distribution and packaging site from Morrow, Georgia and a strategic partnership with Nulogy, a leading provider of contract packaging software systems. Jacobson has now implemented Nulogy's packaging software at its one million sq.ft. warehouse in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
Commenting on the latest financial figures Hervé Montjotin, executive chairman of Norbert Dentressangle, said the company had reaped the benefits of its increasingly international profile: "The French market is still weak, due to the unfavorable economic climate and the uncertainty surrounding the introduction of the HGV tax, until it was dropped in mid-October.
"The integration of Jacobson in the United States, consolidated since 1 September, is proceeding rapidly and smoothly, and the roll-out of the Norbert Dentressangle brand is already underway. Our sustained sales momentum in the United States should generate a high organic growth rate for the end of this year and next," he added.
The group's nine-month results coincide with an OECD report that suggests France's economy could grow by 0.4 percent per annum over the next decade if the country fully implements recently proposed structural reforms.
However OECD secretary general Angel Gurría noted: "The much hoped-for recovery can only gather pace if these reforms are pressed ahead, to continue to restore confidence, achieve increased productivity and improve competitiveness. The structural reforms started in 2012 will have to be intensified to put the French economy on the road to even stronger – and more inclusive – growth."
