Yodel suitor The Delivery Group hails ‘strong’ performance despite ‘challenging’ year

Losses widened at The Delivery Group, which is among the companies who could be able to take over Yodel, during its latest financial year.

According to newly-filed accounts, the business posted pre-tax losses of £3.9m for the year to April 28, 2023, having reported losses of £369,000 in the prior 12 months.

The Warrington-headquartered group’s turnover increased from £254.3m to £258.2m over the same period.

The Delivery Group, which was formally called Secured Express, is backed by private equity firm Next Wave Partners and secured larger banking facilities at the end of 2023 to support its growth. 

During the year the average number of people employed by the group increased from 476 to 508.

The Delivery Group recently hit the headlines when it emerged it was among a number of potential suitors for rival Yodel.

A statement signed off by the board said: “The 12 months ended 28th April 2023 represents another strong trading performance for the group as it continued to deliver on its e-commerce strategy.

“Underlying EBITDA… of £8.2m was ahead of plan despite significant market-driven volume and cost inflation pressures.”

It added: “FY23 was another challenging year for the mail industry with a number of events and a sustained period of high costs impacting postal volumes across the market.

“However, the group was able to mitigate these challenges with new mail contract wins and continued significant growth in the group’s UTrak services where volumes have grown year on year by 33.3 per cent.

“Conditions for businesses wanting to move e-commerce items internationally have remained difficult post-Brexit and Covid, however, our ETrak solution is allowing clients to mitigate these challenges and this has been evidenced by 208 per cent year-on-year growth in these e-commerce services.”