New Zealand’s largest privately-owned logistics provider, Mondiale Freight Services, has agreed to merge with its major Australian equivalent, VISA Global Logistics, to create a new global freight giant.
The combined Mondiale Visa business will turnover a combined annual revenue of NZ$1.3 billion propelling it into the top 30 ocean freight forwarders in the world, and the largest privately-owned freight forwarder in Oceania.
“The integrated service offering provided in New Zealand and Australia will be unrivalled, given the investment in logistics infrastructure that this merger provides to the market,” says Ray Meade (pictured), who will become CEO of the merged group.
“We work in a sector where scale is increasingly important. The strength of the combined entity, supported by its extremely valued and dedicated staff will deliver significant advantage to both its existing and future customer base.”
Meade said that despite disruption in global shipping and supply chains, there had been a big increase in volumes to deal with, which had lifted the profitability of the shipping companies.
“Our revenue has increased substantially as has the number of shipments that we handle.”
Mondiale and VISA combined currently handle circa 500,000 containers per annum and employs in excess of 1,500 people globally with operations across New Zealand, Australia, North Asia, South East Asia, the Indian Sub-Continent and Europe. Both companies have made significant investments in wharf transport in New Zealand and Australia and offer a total end to end supply chain solution in these two countries
The founding seven executive shareholders of Mondiale and VISA will remain with the company as shareholders in their executive positions.
Freight forwarders like Mondiale and Visa are the intermediaries that arrange how shipments get from A to B. They don’t own the ships and planes that make the journey happen, but handle logistics including but not limited to ocean-freight, air-freight, customs, wharf transport and warehousing.
