Growing success of Poole delivery firm (From Business in Dorset)

Growing success of Poole delivery firm

8:00am Wednesday 28th July 2010

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AN EXPRESS parcel delivery firm in Poole has grown from handling just 60,000 parcels a year to almost three million.

Poole Express Ltd, which was founded by Wyvern Cargo chairman John Probert in 2008, operates the FedEx UK franchise for most of Dorset and parts of Hampshire, including the New Forest.

With 300 customers, the company handles 8,000 parcels every day – 2.9 million a year – and generates sales of £6m, which is only very “slightly down on last year”, according to chairman John Probert.

There are 43 vans and “a lot of self-employed drivers” says Mr Probert, whose empire generates a £15m turnover and a profit.

Next day delivery has significantly contributed to company expansion, without which the firm wouldn’t be so successful, Mr Probert says.

Both enterprises compliment each other. “There’s an overlap because some customers use both sides of the business due to them having different sizes of deliveries,” said Mr Probert, who joined the ANC parcel franchise network in 1983 when he established Wyvern Cargo. Prior to this, Mr Probert had been trading as Dorset Star Warehouse, a single warehouse storage operator.

“It was important we joined an express parcel network,” he said.

In 2006 ANC was acquired by FedEx UK for £120m. Two years later Wyvern Cargo, which until this time had incorporated the express delivery side alongside its haulage operation, decided that it had grown into a substantial business in its own right and established Poole Express Ltd.

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