Sagawa Express, the second-largest Japanese parcels carrier, has ended its cooperation agreementwith air and sea freight forwarder Kintetsu World Express. The move comes ahead of a restructuring
at the parcels firm and amid continuing strategic realignment in the Japanese parcels and expresssector.The two companies said that their five-year-old alliance had not generated the additionalbusiness and synergies that they had expected. Under the agreement, Sagawa has provided domesticdistribution for air cargo shipments forwarded to Japan by Kintetsu.
The parcels firm announced last summer that it had set up a new international freight forwardingsubsidiary under the name Sagawa Global Express. This was designed to target the Asian markets andwould offer a new international door-to-door delivery service under the SGX brand.
Under its medium-term strategy launched in 2004, Sagawa Express Group is due to restructure intoa holding company with two major businesses in March 2006. Under this restructuring, SagawaExpress will be the domestic freight and parcels carrier while Sagawa Global Express will provideinternational freight services. With the creation of a holding company for central strategicdecision-making and separate operational companies, the group aims to speed up decision-making andincrease shareholder value.
