Australian transport group Toll Holdings announced record profits of AUD 408 million (EUR 242.9million) in the fiscal year ending 30 June, on revenues of AUD 9.95 billion (EUR 5.92 billion).
The group’s express operations further improved year on year, benefiting from increasedrevenues, the group said. “The time sensitive operations of Toll Priority, Toll Ipec and Toll Fastperformed particularly well, benefiting from increased revenues and investment in improvedinfrastructure,” Toll pointed out.“Further upgrades of properties and technology are expected tounderpin growth in earnings from these businesses in the coming year,” the group added.
Group Ebit shot up 35% on the year before to AUD 734 million (EUR 437.2 million) –before taking into account the amortisation of charges after buying Patrick Corporation andSembCorp Logistics.
“Having recently completed the restructure resulting in significant value creation for ourshareholders, at the same time the company has continued to produce solid numbers overall ahead ofthose forecast in the restructure scheme documents, and has already commenced a new growth phase,”said group managing director Paul Little.
The group has just unveiled a new air freight strategy and entered into into a long-termarrangement with Virgin Blue for the provision of freight capacity.
During the year, revenue from continuing businesses grew from $4.4 billion to $7.5 billion.This reflected strong organic growth in the Australian business of approximately 9%, and theinclusion of Patrick Logistics, SembCorp Logistics and Virgin Blue revenues for the full year.
“We are delighted with the current positioning of the business, coming off record results anda number of positive initiatives over and above the restructure, combined with significantfinancial and operational capability and capacity. The prospects for further superior shareholdervalue creation is very strong,” said Little.
Operating conditions throughout Australia remained positive during the year with the growthin activity in the resources sector continuing at high levels. Activity within Asia also continuedstrongly, although relatively flat conditions were experienced in New Zealand, said Toll.
