JOC Staff | Dec 06, 2011 8:29AM EST
European transport operator Norbert Dentressangle says its acquisition of APC Beijing International positions the company for larger growth in worldwide forwarding.
The purchase, for an undisclosed sum, gives Norbert Dentressangle 16 new stations in China to go with its existing 23 offices, most of them in Europe. The purchase will give the forwarder more service capabilities in China, but Norbert Dentressangle says its eyes are on global markets.
“With the acquisition, Norbert Dentressangle has positioned itself as a major player in the freight forwarding market, with 500 employees and 39 offices in 10 countries on four continents,” the company said in a statement.
Norbert Dentressangle has doubled in size in the past five years, in part through the acquisition of the France-based contract logistics holdings of TNT. The company also bought Schneider Logistics' forwarding and customs brokerage business last year.
The Lyons, France-based company reported some $3.5 billion in gross revenue in the first nine months of 2011, up 24.9 percent from the year before. More than half its revenue comes from asset-based freight transport in Europe, and the largest share of its 27,000 employees are in the transport and logistics units, but the company is aiming its growth at international forwarding and logistics, where the acquisition of TDG helped push revenue beyond $1.5 billion in the first three quarters of this year.
The completed acquisition of APC Beijing International follows an agreement on the purchase signed in July.