Jaan Lepp: big company can be flexible

The chairman of the Board Jaan Lepp said, that the companies biggest aim for the nearest future is to prove, that big comapnies are able to offer felxible service to their clients.

"Every merger is different one, tooking over Frans Maas was new experience for us, we had some unpredicted problems, but right know the process is finished. After the merger we found, that we weren't a flexible comapny anymore. Our goal is to re-establish felxibility and rise service standards," said Lepp.

In 2007 the consolidation of freight forwarding companies will continue due to the globalisation.

Who stays alive then? According to Lepp there are two ways to stay successful and alive: to continue growing or stay small and concentrate on certain services. In Lepp opinion average companies will dissapear.

Like in Estonian ecomomy in general there are lack of labour force in freight forwarding business as well.

High fuel prices have a negative impact on transportation services, Lepp believes it will influence mostly internal transportation here in Estonia and some directions in Europa e.g. France, Spain and Italy.

"If the general situation stays the same I believe companies have to rise their transpotation budget at least 10%," gave Lepp a signal to their clients.

Äripäev ranked the most successful transport companies in 2005. According to the financal figures the most successful comapny 2005 were Lextrans OÜ, a company which provides internal and international transportation service. Year ago company found itself in position 47.

Lextrans MD Sven Aria was suprised to be in the first place. Companies target for this year ist o become gretest trailer haulier in Russia.

"Right now we have approximately 250 trailer, in the end of the year the number is problably 400. Thats our biggest target for this year," said Aria.

The second place went to Transtar T.P. OÜ, a transport and freight forwarding service provider located in Tartu.

Third place went to Valev Udras, companys core business along transport is real estate. Valev Udras held fifth place last year and was the only company who maintained the position in TOP 5 two years in a row.

To create the chart, Äripäev compared six figures: net sales in 2004 and 2005, net profit in 2004 and 2005, ROE, the increase of sales, the increase of net profit and cost efectiveness.

Each figure gave points, the winner was the company who earned less points.

Most data was recieved from the registry of Ministry of Justice plus data from databases of Äripäev.

ADR-Haanpää, one of the market leaders in trnasporting dangerous liquid goods in Estonia, took the first place previous year.

Monthly Logistika collected predictions from several freight forwarding companies for service prices in 2007.

In conclusion, service providers estimate an 10-20% increase next year mainly due to the boosting fuel prices and a lack of labour force in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

According to Kaubaekspress CEO Tiit Jõevee prices will rise due to the labour force salary increase and high fuel has also influence to the prices.

"Problably December is the key month, which will lead the way for 2007. Im not very confident that Estonian market rally 2007 as fast as this year. There are slight sings of upcoming hangover," was pessimistic Vahur Oja, the director of finance in Allando Trailways.