Wincanton plc

Wincanton plc

Type	Public
Traded as	LSE: WIN
Industry	Logistics
Founded	1925
Headquarters	Chippenham, United Kingdom
Key people	Steve Marshall (Chairman of the board), Adrian Colman (CEO)
Products	Haulage Supply chain management
Revenue	£2.180 billion (year - Mar 2011)[1]
Operating income	£53.0 million (year - March 2011)[1]
Profit	-£25.9 million (year - March 2011)[1]
Number of employees	16,000 (2013)
Website	www.wincanton.co.uk

Wincanton plc is a British provider of logistics with its origins in milk haulage. The company provides transport and logistics services including specialist automated high bay, high capacity warehouses, and supply chain management for businesses.^[2] It also provides container transportation and storage, warehousing solutions and related services such as health and safety, IT services and people transition to numerous industries.^[3] Wincanton's specialist markets include retail, consumer goods, construction, dairy, defence, industrial, fuels and energy.^[4] It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a former constituent of the FTSE 250 Index. Head offices are based in Chippenham, Wiltshire in the United Kingdom.

History of Wincanton plc

• Wincanton was founded in 1925, as Wincanton Transport & Engineering Ltd, a subsidiary of the West Surrey Central Dairy Company, a company which has since been known as Cow & Gate, Unigate and presently Uniq.^[5]
• In the 1970s, Wincanton diversified into new market sectors including petroleum and developed temperature controlled operations for the transportation of food stuffs and refrigerated goods.^[6]
• In the 1990s Wincanton merged with Unigate Chilled Distribution and entered the retail market through the acquisition of Glass Glover.
• Through the 1990s and 2000s, Wincanton grew market share in several sectors. The chilled division became a market leader. Cash generated here enabled growth of the business into additional markets. Technical road transport engineering experience and associated commercial advantage allowed the company to grow its service offering in the petrochemical sector. Long standing contracts exist with Total, Texaco, Exxon Mobil, Q8 and Shell.
• In 2001, Wincanton plc demerged from Uniq, and was listed on the London Stock Exchange.^[6] Wincanton was included in the FTSE 250 stock market index from February 2006.^[7]

Board Members

• Chief Executive Officer, Adrian Colman was appointed on 1 August 2015. He was formerly Finance Director with Psion plc. Other roles include CFO at London City Airport and Financial Controller and Head of Investor Relations at QinetiQ Group plc.
• Chief Financial Officer, Tim Lawlor joined Wincanton on 28 September 2015 as Group Finance Director and an Executive Director on the Board. Tim was previously Director of Finance and Strategy with Serco Group plc. He was Group Financial Controller at Sea Containers Limited.
• Liam McElroy, Managing Director of Retail and Consumer Goods, joined Wincanton in October 2006 with responsibility for B&Q, Argos and Sainsbury’s contracts. Prior to joining Wincanton, Liam worked for DHL Exel, Tesco and Christian Salveson.
• Chris Fenton, Managing Director of Industrial and Transport was appointed on 1 April 2016 having previously served as the Operations Director for Manufacturing and Group Business Transformation. He holds a degree in International Transport from Cardiff University.^[8]

Headquarters

The company's origins are in Wincanton, Somerset, although the head office is now in the Methuen Park district of Chippenham, Wiltshire.^[9]

Operations

Wincanton currently directly employs in the region of 17,500 people across the United Kingdom and Ireland through a network of over 200 sites.^[10] As of 2016, the Wincanton fleet comprises over 3,400 vehicles including conventional trucks and trailers, as well as a range of specialist equipment including skeletal trailers, tankers and construction vehicles.^[10] Until the sale of its final continental European operations on 3 January 2012 it also operated barges and trains, thus providing multi-modal transport.

In 2015, Wincanton sold its records management business (WRM) to Restore for approximately £55.7m to reduce its average net indebtedness, and allow room for growth.^[11]

Solutions and Services

Wincanton offers a number of transport solutions which help customers meet consumer demand and ‘just in time’ production schedules. These solutions include road transport and distribution, container logistics, specialist transport to construction sites, tankers for all liquid and powder products, including petroleum and lubricants, home delivery and fleet management and vehicle maintenance through its subsidiary business, Pullman Fleet Services.^[12]

Its warehouse solutions provide scalable transport solutions for businesses who need to meet demand and manage shifts in buying behaviour such as peak times including summer sales, Christmas and Black Friday. Wincanton offers dedicated and shared user warehousing, bonded warehousing and other services. These include co-packing, automation, eFulfilment, off-quay solutions, returns management, recycling and packaging.^[13]

Wincanton also offers solutions which include integrated IT services, change management and people transition (TUPE) services.^[14]

Market Position

In 2016, Wincanton plc has 121,893,000 shares outstanding which are trading at 185 bringing Wincanton plc’s market capitalisation to 225.50M GBP.^[15]

Financial Results

In the year ending 31 March 2016, Wincanton reported revenue of £1,147.4m (2015: £1,107.4m), which represents a year on year increase of 3.6% (4.4% excluding WRM from both years).Underlying operating profit grew by 2.4% to £50.9m (2015: £49.7m), providing an underlying operating margin of 4.4% marginally down from 4.5% in the prior year. Excluding the profits of the disposed Records Management business, underlying operating profit was £48.7m, up 5.4% from £46.2m in 2015, with margins consistent at 4.3%. Net financing costs were £15.6m (2015: £18.3m), £2.7m lower year on year. Financing charges consist of interest payable on loans and finance leases of £9.9m (2015: £11.0m) and £5.7m of non-cash items (2015: £7.3m) in relation to pension financing charges and the unwinding of discounts on provisions.

On 4 November 2015, Wincanton announced the disposal of the Records Management business, for an enterprise value of £60m, on a cash and debt free basis, and resulting in a pre-tax exceptional gain of £32.4m.^[11]

News

• In July 2016, Wincanton renewed a contract with The Co-operative Group for a further five years which brings the contract to 25 years. As part of the agreement, around 700 Wincanton staff and a fleet of more than 500 vehicles will support the Co-op by making around 130k journeys each year to as many as 1,000 Co-op stores across the UK.^[16]
• Wincanton renewed its distribution deal with J Sainsburys PLC for an additional five years in June 2016. The business has been a customer of Wincanton for the past 21 years.^[17]
• Wincanton gains further growth of its operations at the Port of Southampton after moving to a new base and investing in new equipment, supported by extra rail capacity in April 2016.^[18]
• In March 2016, Wincanton launched EnergyLink, a UK-wide network to support greater flexibility in delivery services for the energy sector.^[19]
• In February 2016, Wincanton partnered with Magnet to produce 44 new double-decker articulated trailers which was an investment of £2 million.^[20]
• In 2016, the BBC reported that an employment tribunal found that Wincanton plc had its employees "followed by private detectives, sacked for smoking an e-cigarette and fired for voicing health and safety concerns" and ruled that three employees had been unfairly dismissed.^[21]

References

External links

• Wincanton Official site
• Subsidiary of Wincanton