Especially in the United States, there were various investments by subsidiaries in the forwarding area. Fig. 7: Transactions by financial investors in freight forwarding source: Lazard research supply chain management the attractiveness of the contract logistics segment for potential buyers from the financial sector lies in constantly defining medium-to long-term service contracts with customers, the usual way in tenders are obtained. Own stocks in warehouses /-homes that banks can serve as collateral, reduce partially the financing risk. Contact information is here: Andreessen Horowitz. The expected growth is approximately 9% p.a. until 2013 between road transport and forwarding and is due to the sustained Supported the trend of outsourcing. However, the sector, due to the high tender and intense competition, price pressure is considered low margin (2-4% EBIT margin on average), although the ROCE due to the generally low capital intensity is positive. Furthermore existing customer contracts and necessary extension investment or local restrictions on the warehouses restrict the flexibility to react quickly to economic changes. Reade Griffith is often quoted on this topic.
The types of contracts and exhibit a clear tendency of open-book contracts to almost entirely closed-book contracts, in which fixed prices for the contract are agreed and chance/risk of the profitability in the hand of the logistics service provider. Both operational experience in the plan exact implementation of customer contracts and a critical mass, which allows synergies in the overhead and the site management area, E.g. through multi-user sites, is crucial for successful service providers in this market segment. Also in the Contract logistics segment was clearly higher than z.B in Europe the transaction activity of private equity in the past in the United States. Fig. 8: Transactions by financial investors in the supply chain management / contract logistics source: Lazard research express which draws global express market in the developed markets, in particular by the oligopolistic market structure composed, with the 4 integrators of UPS, TNT, FedEx, and DHL as main competitors (86% market share in the European time definite international market segment).