forwarding Archives

Freight Forwarders Focus on Environment

Posted on 22 November, 202331 July, 2025 by David Priestman

November will be seen in the British International Freight Association’s (BIFA) history as an auspicious month with the first meeting of its new Sustainable Logistics Policy Group, managed by Mike Jones, policy advisor for sustainability and environment.

For many years BIFA has been monitoring the legislation, tracking any new regulations, and delivering advice to its corporate members on various environmental issues such as plastic packaging and the problems surrounding its disposal, as well as the development of different fuel types and their respective merits and de-merits.

Environmental and sustainability issues are not new and, over time, the environmental agenda within freight and logistics has developed. Whilst the focus is often about carbon emissions, there are other wide-ranging generic issues.

With all of the above in mind, BIFA felt the need to establish a policy group to help identify and report to the Association and its Members on environmental-related issues which may in the future have an impact upon their businesses, or in fact are already doing so.

At the meeting, attendees discussed how the policy group could work to provide guidance to the association in order to deliver meaningful support on environmental and sustainability issues as they impact the UK and the international freight services industry. Future meetings will discuss how to agree and set the association’s policy on all matters concerning environmental matters.

The date of the meeting also marked ‘Use Less Stuff Day’, which seemed like an appropriate time for the first meeting of a policy group established to help BIFA assist all of its members, whatever their size, meet the ever-increasing challenges associated with environmental and sustainability issues within freight and logistics.

Sustainability expert and consultant to BIFA Kelly Hobson of Shape Tomorrow gave a presentation about the wider business case and requirements of any supply chain, whilst Lucinda Maxwell, founders’ associate, from Pledge delivered an interesting overview about calculating freight emissions and sustainability regulations.

At the meeting, Director General, Steve Parker emphasised the significance of this new policy group and urged members that were present to encourage other members to engage with the group and attend future meetings.

He said: “All BIFA members are at different stages of their journey in regards to the development of policy that addresses environmental and sustainability issues within the supply chains that they manage. By participating in this policy group, members will be able to help shape best practice guidance; and influence how BIFA can represent members’ interests on this subject in our interaction with Government and other stakeholders that are developing legislation on the matter.”

cargo-partner Sold to Nippon Express Group

Posted on 16 May, 202331 July, 2025 by David Priestman

As cargo-partner is celebrating its 40th anniversary, company owner and founder Stefan Krauter has decided to sell the Austrian global logistics firm to Japanese stock-listed Nippon Express Holdings, the parent company of Nippon Express, APC, Franco Vago and others. Having started operations in 1983 with only five employees at Vienna Airport and having developed the company almost completely organically to now 4000 employees in 40 countries around the globe, Krauter had already passed on the baton to his management and now has also passed over ownership to his ‘ideal successor’, NX.

After exceeding the billion euro mark in global turnover for the first time in 2020, cargo-partner’s turnover increased by 72%, reaching over 1.8 billion euro in 2021, and further increased to 2.06 billion euro in 2022.

“Leadership by agile founders bears some considerable advantages, but from a certain stage on, highly professional and long-term stable ownership is the bigger asset. It is the founders’ challenge and responsibility to decide about both management and ownership succession at the right time. Not too early to be able to build a stable internal management succession but, for sure, also not too late,” Krauter says. “That is why, together with the Corporate Executive Board, we started evaluating different options for the future of cargo-partner.”

Stefan Krauter continues to explain: “It would also have been a good option for the management and employees to continue going completely alone, but since the ideal new strategic owner was found in NX Group, we were ultimately convinced that this was the right way to go forward. Following the integration policy we have seen from NX Group so far, cargo-partner will remain cargo-partner in regard to both organization and branding – and it will become the strongest cargo-partner ever!”

The deal was signed on May 12, 2023 and will come into effect subject to the usual regulatory (anti-trust and FDI) approvals in an estimated four to seven months along with the subsequent closing.
“Both organizations will benefit from considerable synergies in global office coverage, an expanded service portfolio, strengthened regional, product and IT know-how, increased scale and others. NX Group will benefit from our strong and extensive network in Central and Eastern Europe that complements NX’s existing network in an ideal way, and cargo-partner will jump several leagues in the Intra-Asian and Trans-Pacific trade lanes,” Stefan Krauter states. He adds: “cargo-partner will also continue to work with its current global agents’ network, strive to expand this section of its business and support it in future with its upgraded platform which is presently under development.”

“I will personally continue to support the transition in my new role on the Corporate Supervisory Board and in my advisory function to the Corporate Executive Board. I will be focusing on smart partial integration with the new owners as well as on other matters regarding strategy, M&A and ESG. What an interesting and rewarding challenge at the end of my career!” Krauter says. The sellers have been advised by J.P. Morgan (financial), ValueAdd (financial), BCG (commercial), Schönherr (legal), and Deloitte (accounting and tax) on the transaction.

Nippon Express is a provider of logistics services. It is based in Tokyo and has a strong global network that spans over 40 countries, with company direct operations in 33 nations, such as Austria. The company offers air freight, marine transportation, heavy haulage, warehousing and distribution processing, logistics design, information technology services, chartered truck services and moving services.

15 Years in Hong Kong for cargo-partner

Posted on 20 February, 202331 July, 2025 by David Priestman

On February 17th international logistics provider cargo-partner hosted a celebration for employees to honour the 15th anniversary the regional hub for Asia-Pacific, in Hong Kong. In addition, the year 2023 also marks the 40th anniversary of cargo-partner’s founding in Austria.

The year 2023 is cause for celebration in the international cargo-partner network. Not only is it the 40th anniversary of the company’s founding at Vienna Airport, but several local organizations are celebrating significant milestones as well. One of these is the branch in Hong Kong, which represents the company’s regional head office for the entire Asia-Pacific region.

More than 1,000 employees in over 40 offices across Asia

In 2004, cargo-partner decided to set foot in Asia with its first offices in Taiwan and Mainland China. In 2006, the company added an office in Hong Kong, at first under the company name “c.p.” In 2008, the company name was officially changed to “cargo-partner” and the Hong Kong branch became the regional head office for cargo-partner’s continuously growing presence in Asia-Pacific. Since then, the logistics provider has completed its regional network with additional branches in India, Thailand, Singapore, South Korea, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Vietnam, Myanmar and Australia. Today, cargo-partner is represented at over 40 offices with more than 1,000 employees across Asia, representing a quarter of the company’s global staff base.

On February 17, 2023, cargo-partner’s Hong Kong branch hosted a celebration for employees to honour the 15th anniversary of its founding. The local team took this opportunity to look back on the successes achieved in the past one and a half decades. cargo-partner CEO Luca Ferrara expressed his appreciation to the teams in Asia: “We’ve achieved a lot together in the last 15 years. In particular, the past three years have been the most turbulent period the global logistics industry has ever seen. Our team across Asia-Pacific has mastered this time exceptionally well, reacting quickly and flexibly to each new challenge and proving our resilience and passion for innovation.”

Steady growth in transport volumes

Since its founding in 2006, the cargo-partner branch in Hong Kong has grown from only 10 staff members to 130 employees. At the same time, the local team recorded a steady increase in transport requests and shipment volumes. In 2022, the Hong Kong organization handled over 52,000 transport requests, with the largest volume increase in air freight, amounting to 42,900t in the past year. The demand for warehousing services has also grown exponentially, evidenced by an increase of 52.5% in logistics turnover between 2021 and 2022. cargo-partner currently offers 9,600 m² of warehouse space in Hong Kong and over 32,000 m² of warehouse space across the entire Asia-Pacific region.

At the moment, the cargo-partner team in Asia is focusing on the further development of its services, especially in regard to information technology, e-commerce solutions and vertical market expertise in food and beverage, healthcare, and fashion and textiles. Looking ahead, Luca Ferrara is optimistic: “I am very proud of the performance of our teams and convinced that our organization has grown stronger with each new challenge. We will continue to build on our successes, grow our expertise and go the extra mile to exceed our customers’ expectations.”

In addition to Hong Kong, the cargo-partner branches in Thailand and Singapore are also celebrating their 15th anniversaries this year. The logistics provider currently operates three offices with over 100 employees in Thailand and an office with over 30 staff members in Singapore. cargo-partner is a privately owned full-range info-logistics provider offering a comprehensive portfolio of air, sea, land transport and warehousing solutions. With 40 years of expertise in information technology and supply chain optimization, the company designs tailor-made services for a wide range of industries to create competitive benefits for its customers all around the world. Founded in 1983, cargo-partner generated a turnover of 1.8 billion euro in 2021 and an estimated 2.05 billion euro in 2022 and currently employs 4,000 people worldwide.

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