Clover Cargo celebrates 15th anniversary

A BOLD decision by two entrepreneurial freight professionals fifteen years ago is what spawned one of the industry’s success stories.
As Clover Cargo International celebrates its 15-year milestone, co-founders Vincent Magnus and Geoff Partridge recall that industry dominance by large corporates, partly driven by the demands of multinational companies, is largely what motivated their decision to launch the company in May 1989.
“Unfortunately, many medium sized importers and exporters felt they were being overlooked and that service levels were deteriorating. Since many of them were competing with multi-nationals they needed the same efficiencies in their supply chain,” says Magnus.
“We believed there was a need for a personalised service to serve this medium-sized sector.”
At that time airfreight imports was where many of the service failures were occurring, says Magnus.
“Most of our experience lay in this sector, so this is where we started the business. Seafreight soon followed as clients requested us to handle more of their portfolio,” he said.
“Clover Cargo set out to provide companies with the sort of hands-on service majors just could not deliver.”
Magnus and Partridge were supported by overseas and local investors John Gomes and Leslie Fry who shared their vision.
This, they believe, created the right blend of financial stability, overseas agency connections, and local management expertise. The company gradually built up a close network of strong overseas partners and also invested in the development of its own operating system.
The group has also invested in property resulting in three national Logistics Centres in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban.
“We’re now a national group of companies offering a full range of international airfreight and seafreight logistics services in all the major centres,” says Partridge. “We have 190 staff countrywide and a turnover approaching
R 1 billion.”
Both are adamant that personal service remains the foundation of the Clover Cargo International service. “All those who work for the company feel at home in an environment where this is the overriding value. Every company claims “People are our greatest asset.” The long service and low turnover record of Clover Cargo is evidence that here it really is true.”
More recently the Group’s buy-in to the BEE transformation process and the Transport Charter led to the development of a BEE Enterprise development company two years ago. This was the start of the group’s commitment to the process.
Rapid growth in airfreight exports culminated in Clover Cargo achieving IATA Top 20 status in 2002. The off-airport degroup facility at the Johannesburg Logistics Centre was a milestone the company reached in the same year.