... as Uniroute Logistics
moves into the picture
Ray Smuts
THE INITIAL concept was appealing - a 'one-stop' centrally-located freight complex in Cape Town - but Freight City has since found itself in troubled financial waters and been provisionally liquidated at the personal instigation of founder Peter Stoffberg.
The Maitland site is however to continue, albeit it with a completely new look, as the Cape Town arm of Uniroute Logistics, said to be the first South African empowerment company offering landside shipping operations on a national basis, with 600 000sqm available in Durban, Johannesburg and now Cape Town.
Stoffberg, who opened Freight City almost six years ago, confirmed the identity of the new operator but was loathe to supply further details for now.
Raj Balmakham, a director of Uniroute Logistics with headquarters in Durban, told FTW he could not divulge too much at this stage as planning of the revitalised Freight City, on which between R4 million and R5 million will be spent, is still underway. A Cape Town launch is in the offing.
Said Balmakham: "I have not bought Freight City. I have bought the trading assets of Freight City and I have bought Table Bay, the property arm, as well to launch our Cape Town branch of Uniroute Logistics." (He declined to say how much the transaction involved)
In a letter to tenants, the provisional liquidator Mr R Millman of St Georges Trustees, advised that the company had been provisionally liquidated in the Cape High Court on August 2.
Millman wrote that it appeared from a preliminary investigation that the company had incurred a trading loss of about R1 million between March and August this year and that there appeared to be very little to be done to reduce the continued loss in the event of the company continuing to trade.
Furthermore, the company had no funds with which to continue trading and had lost tenancy to the premises it occupied. (The land was reportedly leased from Spoornet)
Current tenants at Freight City are Swift Couriers, Royal Wolf Trading Africa, Cape Sugar and Rossouw Plot Cleaners. International forwarders Damco Maritime left in mid-July as did import/export clearing agent Turner's Shipping.
Royal Wolf"s Marguerita Feldman said the company, which is celebrating its first anniversary at Freight City this month, was negotiating with the new operator. "Business has gone very well for us and we are here to stay."
Sean Ingram, a partner in Swift Couriers, said the company had received a "small spin-off" from Freight City but was happy with the central locality and planned to remain. "Our business has improved since we moved here about three years ago."
Uniroute Logistics, with its website fanfare "Setting new horizons in service excellence", operates a wide range of services including FCL/LCL and groupage container unpacking and packing, general warehousing, full and empy container handling, cargo repairs and re-unitising and a transport fleet with equipment specially designed for container cartage.
It has container depots at Kaserne and Isando in Johannesburg and at Bayhead in Durban.
