JWD InfoLogistics plans to diversify amid flat growth
JWD InfoLogistics, a full-service inland logistics service provider, is in search of four more growth engines to diversify business risks.
Chief executive officer Charvanin Bunditkitsada said JWD had trimmed its revenue-growth target for this year from 10 per cent to zero, mainly because of a drop in its cold-storage business due to the impacts of the European Union’s actions against illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing.
“We may increasingly shift our investment overseas, rather than in Thailand, during the next three or four years to diversify risks,” Charvanin said in an interview with The Nation.
JWD aims to increase is revenue-growth engines from four to eight, adding new businesses that could include e-commerce, air and maritime freight, and railway logistics, he said.
Cold storage is one of JWD’s four current business pillars that also include general goods, dangerous goods, and the automotive industry.
JWD is determined to launch a real estate investment trust (REIT) next year, after postponing it from this year. The proceeds will be used to fund three or four merger and acquisition transactions, he said.
One of the M&A targets involves a Malaysian cold-storage service provider that JWD has been in talks with for about 18 months.
“Next year’s growth target is 7 per cent, excluding M&As,” he said.
“Next year, provided everything goes as planned, we expect to resume our [good] performance and realise [return from] our overseas investments.”
According to Fitch Ratings (Thailand), JWD supplies warehousing and transportation for general goods, dangerous goods and automotive products as well as frozen and refrigerated products. These segments contributed between 15 and 23 per cent to its total revenue last year.
Charvanin said JWD was expanding its general-goods and cold-chain warehouses to Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos through joint ventures and expected to expand its overseas footprint to more than 10,000 square metres, mainly in those three countries, by the end of this year and to 12,000sqm next year.
Future projects that will provide an upside for JWD next year include its chemical logistics project in Cambodia, business-to-business and business-to-customer e-commerce plans for Thailand, and the planned acquisition of cold-storage companies in Malaysia and Vietnam, he said.
JWD reported a 3.8-per-cent drop in revenue in the first six months of this year to Bt1.1 billion. Net profit shrank 65.7 per cent to Bt53.7 million as the utilisation rate of its warehouses fell significantly because of the EU’s IUU impacts on the Thai fishery sector and a temporary shutdown of its warehouses in Laem Chabang, Chon Buri, for renovation.
Meanwhile, in his capacity as a member of YPO Thailand, Charvanin said he had gained a lot from joining that global network of business leaders.
“Under our committed mission of ‘Becoming Better Leaders through Lifelong Learning and Idea Exchange’, YPO is a community of chief executives from both listed and family companies, including more than 60 members from Thailand. We meet every month to exchange our viewpoints. They perform like my personnel [personal] board of directors,” he said.
YPO has more than 25,000 members in more than 130 countries.
