Maritime Containers have taken the Hyundai contract, which employs a considerable fleet, from HCD (an amalgam of Hanbury Davies, Carters, Debens, Brian Rayner and others) effective from the end of May. The work is mostly ex Southampton and Thamesport.
The contract was won by undercutting existing rates by 8%!!
If this is true, the question has to be asked, why do haulage companies continually ■■■■■ each others throats and how can such a cut in rates be commercially viable? I’m sure HCD weren’t making a huge margin on the contract in keeping with most transport operations.
The more important question is what the impact will be on driver pay? The financial squeeze must come from somewhere and driver pay is usually a hot favourite with the number crunchers…
Maritime pays good. & they don`t employ agency drivers. When a driver wants a day off then that truck stands in the yard. Maritime is owned by the Hutchinson Wampoa Group who own many of the container ports around the world. The MD of Maritime used to fly to Hutchinson HQ every fortnight to give his report. I think its in Hong Kong… They are not short of capital… So maybe if they can get the monopoly they can afford to cut rates for an initial period. They are very ambitious…& underated.
And anyone that can knock H/Ds nose out of joint gets my approval…
HCD is just Hanburys/Carters/Debens…Rayner, Jacksons et al are subbies (as I was too at one point, which is how I know).
Carters and Debens are now one and the same, btw. And as far as undercutting goes, they undercut what was then SOCL to get it in the first place, so what goes around come around, eh?
Presumably they’ll just wind HCD up now. Poor Phil.
here we go again
have they offered to do it cheaper for next contract period so they are 8% cheaper than the other contenders for the next umpteen years
or cheaper than the old price
Tramper. I may be out of date but a couple of years ago John Williams was still fying off to Hong Kong once a fortnight. If he bought Maritime he needed a whole army of backers because the recent investment runs into many millions ££. Having said that, he has made a great job of turning the firm around. Before he came on the scene Maritime consisted of clapped out Ivecos & rusty old skellies rented from that wonderfull outfit that begins with C.
We’ve still got plenty of work,get a load of work from Geo logistics,and we’ve still got Hyundai til end of may.
I think the profit margins are larger than you think
I think the fact is that although transport might not make a mint, I doubt it’s as bad as everyone makes out. I mean looking at the local transport firms round here, MBT, CVT etc there is still a lot of executive metal sitting outside their office with personal plates on, so i doubt the firms are that hard up.
Also if someone finds a profitable line of work they’re not going to boast about it and will want to keep it quiet or even tell people it’s hardly worth doing. Reason being if it’s a good line everyone will want some. I mean if you went round telling people how much of a mint you’re making on something, they;'ll just assume they’re paying you too much so want to cut rates.
You could say that larger firms always undercut smaller ones, but then they became larger firms as when they were small ones they undercut others or found a cheaper way of doing something, so had the business there to expand.
harry:
Tramper. I may be out of date but a couple of years ago John Williams was still fying off to Hong Kong once a fortnight. If he bought Maritime he needed a whole army of backers because the recent investment runs into many millions ££. Having said that, he has made a great job of turning the firm around. Before he came on the scene Maritime consisted of clapped out Ivecos & rusty old skellies rented from that wonderfull outfit that begins with C.
Harry, it was “vernonbish777” who said he’d bought it, all I know is that he’s the Boss man and your quite right he has made a great job of turning the firm around. I’ve been subbing to them (2-3 units and trailers) for nearly 3 years, and I’ve no complaints, always like a bit more on th PPM though! A good firm, never had any greif from them at all.
i suppose its ok to cut the rates if you can live with them …problem is…when drivers want a pay rise…and the costs of running the trucks increase…they will have no room to manoeuvre…and will serve them right…
I have no room for companies that do that…and serves them right when the ■■■■ hits the fan…
on saying that …our new work was taken from nobby dressingtable…not by undercutting…bbut because their drivers were running so late …and blew the sugar in the silos too fast…(2 bar)…and caused a considerable amount of damage…
so the rumours on the grapevine at the moment is this …they are closing the only sugar factory in ireland…(due to the subsidy o9f european sugar being taken away )…and the firm we work for will supply the sugar to ireland and all the existing customers of the sugar plant…i`ve heard that our firm is making a bid for all the trucks and trailers who serve these customers…we will also be collecting sugar from luxembourg…germany …belgium…as well as france as we do now…as delboy would say …Lubbly …Jubbly…sad fact is …british sugar …Tate & Lyle etc are going to suffer as a result of the subsidies being withdrawn…but …Who Dares Wins eh !
i worked for maritime at the time when they were owned by thamesport and also after the dock was bought by hutchisons.
if you look at their website it will tell you a bit about them.
i can’t argue about a lot of the trailers we ran with being older, and yes harry, they were from that “C” firm, but as for the trucks being clapped out, this was only right at the beginning in the early 90’s when we were still running a lot of ex Paul Magnus FL7 & 10’s. it wasn’t long before the whole fleet was replaced with new stuff on 3 year leases.
they’ve been growing steadily as part of the thamesport set up right from the off with larry kilby (who was the brain haulage md running the show). because nobody was overkeen on running in to the grain when it first started, thamesport (or Maritime Transport Services Ltd as the holding company was called) decided to set up their own haulage operation to complement the dock, hence, the original Paul Magnus Group was bought out - some of you might remember that Maritime’s Ipswich depot was the old PMG yard. Larry Kilby had seen the writing on the wall at Brains and left before they went bust to join Thamesport (which had Peter de Savary as one of the early “money men”)
now that john williams is the owner they seem to have gone into hyperspace with expansion and can’t knock em for it. they’ve always been a good outfit to work for in my mind and always had a lot of decent work. they took the lions share when hapag lloyd decided to use only 4 hauliers in the UK in 1997 and did it because they sold them a quality operation based on service level which actually resulted in a rate increase !! They did the same when they muscled in on RD’s (Securicor/DHL) Evergreen contract which put a few noses out of joint as RD’s always looked on Evergreen as its top “untouchable” contract.
I can’t believe it’s still afloat.
A good firm, never had any greif from them at all.
