Nightfreight on track to profit

Nightfreight is predicting a return to the black this year after posting a pre-tax loss of £2.1m for the year ending 30 November 2010.

The overnight carrier is half-way through year two of a three-year business turnaround plan and says it is on track for a £2m pre-tax profit in November, with turnover expected to reach £123m for 2011. Last year, turnover fell by 3% to £117m from £121m in 2009.

Finance director Ian Horsfall tells Roadtransport.com: “Last year was a difficult trading climate with customers shifting less volume, which led to us re-gearing operations. This year we have been investing heavily in telematics and in-cab technology and getting all our managers to focus on strengthening customer service.”

Chief executive Ian Smith describes 2010 as a “year of consolidation and restructuring”.

Smith adds: “The industry is still in tough times economically but Nightfreight now has a stronger customer
service offering and a very healthy pipeline.”

Testament to this is the fact that every major customer of Nightfreight has renewed its contract with the firm over the past 12 months, the most recent being Office Depot for a further two years.

Smith is acutely aware that differentiating Nightfreight from its competitors is key to the firm’s future success. “Customers now want traceability and assurance with deliveries, which is why we’ve invested heavily in technology to improve the quality of
information our customers can receive.”

Following the implementation of in-cab scanning devices in its two-man home delivery fleet, Nightfreight is planning a phased roll-out of the same technology in its one-man IDW (irregular dimension and weight) overnight fleet over the next 12 months.

Confident of its investment in improving the customer experience, Horsfall is forecasting 2012 results of £4.6m pre-tax profit and £130m turnover.