THE DECISION by Kuehne & Nagel South Africa to start up its own logistics division at the beginning of this year with a rented 2200sq/m warehouse in Jet Park has blended perfectly with the acquisition by its mother company in Switzerland of one of the United States' largest service providers, USCO Logistics.
The acquisition gives K&N full access to the logistics market in North America. USCO manages more than 1,5million sq/m of shared and dedicated space in distribution centres in more than 70 locations in the US, Canada and Mexico, making it
one of the largest warehouse space providers in North America, where it focuses on the high-tech, retail and pharmaceutical industries.
"The acquisition makes us one of the leading suppliers of integrated contract logistics services worldwide," says Karl-Heinz Balzer, regional manager, sub-Saharan Africa.
"We can now offer
one-stop, integrated logistics solutions throughout Europe, the Asia Pacific region and North America. USCO complements Kuehne & Nagel's existing leadership position in the worldwide ocean freight and airfreight forwarding businesses.
"Our Jet Park warehouse includes a bond store and is being used mainly for the handling of our growing export business into Africa by road, sea and air. The US acquisition will now enable us to offer true door-to-door service in the huge international market for our import and export customers in South Africa."
According to Balzer, K&N is also planning to rent warehouse space in other locations in the region and to manage single user, dedicated warehouses for some of the company's clients.
USCO has 3 300 employees in its network, which will be added to the 14 000 employees K&N has at its existing 530 locations in 90 countries.
Kuehne & Nagel acquires US logistics major
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