Half year revenues driven up to £228m at retail logistics firm

Leeds-headquartered retail logistics firm Clipper Logistics has seen half-year revenues rise 14% to £228m, from £200m in the previous year.

The listed company said its growth had been driven by the opening of its dedicated 615,000 sq ft  warehouse for online retailer Pretty Little Things in Sheffield, which launched in July and is now fully operational – creating 1,200 jobs; as well as new major contract wins with firms including Halfords and Sports Direct. This morning reporting on the six month period ended 31 October 2018, Clipper said its pre-tax profits were up 16.9% at £9.3m (H1 FY18: £8.4m).

Steve Parkin, Executive Chairman of Clipper, said: “The Group continues to be exceptionally well-placed to benefit from the continuing migration to online retailing and the increasing propensity for consumers to choose click-and-collect services when placing orders online.

“Our recent contract wins, including Sports Direct and an extended relationship with Halfords, provide significant earnings momentum into the second half of the current financial year and beyond.

“We are excited about the future growth of our European operations, as the contracts with s.Oliver, ASOS and Westwing evolve.”

Clipper said that within the period, it had delivered a record volume over Black Friday-Cyber Monday weekend for a number of key customers. It also opened a new facility at Crick, Northamptonshire, to accommodate the extended Halfords contract, and a new facility in Poznań, Poland, to accommodate the extended Westwing contract.

The listed firm said it had experienced some inefficiencies as a result of teething problems with new systems and processes on certain operations, which had since been resolved.

Clipper said: “We expect to see the current high activity levels extend through to Christmas and the Boxing Day sales, and further into January with the post-Christmas period being the peak demand period for returns management services.

“We continue to experience some localised pressures on the availability of seasonal labour, in part due to continued Brexit uncertainties and in part due to competitive market pressures around labour rates. We have worked with agency labour providers to mitigate these challenges during the peak trading period through certain innovative recruitment and retention strategies, including our Fresh Start programme, and our customers have supported us commercially with such measures.”

It has introduced several innovations to deal with further logistics, including  using robot-technology in it Superdry operation, an autoboxing machine for Wilko and are currently working with another major client to deliver a significant mechanisation/automation project.

Looking to the future, Clipper said it aimed to continue its European expansion and explore acquisition opportunities.

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