Independent Express doubles profits

IRISH TRANSPORT group Independent Express has shrugged off rising fuel costs and falling prices in 2010 to more than double its profits.

The Dublin-based Independent Express group, which is made up of two subsidiaries – The Pallet Network (TPN) and Independent Express Cargo – recorded an operating profit of €750,000 last year, up from €330,000 in 2009.

Group turnover was slightly higher in 2010 at €16.1 million, but the jump in profitability was mainly due to a fall in marketing costs, which had spiked in 2009.

Chairman Owen Cooke, a former Ernst Young Entrepreneur of the Year finalist, said the group’s profits were “eaten up” in 2009 by expenditure on promotions and advertising, which was part of a “major effort to try to sell our way out of the building trade collapse”.

“We managed to diversify and get good new business wins away from the building trade,” Mr Cooke said. By the second half of 2009, the group had made a good recovery, he said.

In 2010, Independent Express Cargo, an international freight forwarding company, delivered roughly €250,000 of the group’s overall operating profit. TPN, which is a nationwide delivery network with a hub in Dublin, contributed about €500,000 in profits.

The group got off to a promising start this year, Mr Cooke said, recording an initial jump in volumes of 20 per cent. However, that improvement had been “sliding”.

“Currently we’re ahead of our targets in terms of profitability, but we think that there’s a significant possibility that that will slip,” he said, adding the group would be happy if it could maintain the same levels of profitability it achieved last year.