Exel tells market it expects to deliver

TRUCKS to warehouses group Exel, which recently won Belgian brewer Interbrew's entire UK distribution business, has reassured shareholders that it expects to meet full-year market expectations for good profit growth in 2002.

It said it had continued to make good progress in the first five months of the year, winning new business across all sectors and enjoying a high rate of renewals on existing contracts. It added that it had a healthy pipeline of new business leads and that medium-term prospects remained good.

Analysts expect a strong recovery in pre-tax profits in the current year, up from £187m in 2001 to at least £200m in the year to end-December. Exel shares, up by more than 60% since last October, were today marked 17p higher at 837p.

The group was formed through the merger of the privatised NFC (National Freight Corporation), which supplied the trucks, and Ocean, which supplied the boats and planes to create a global freight handling, storage and haulage group in 2000.

Interbrew took a e59m (£38m) charge when it transferred distribution of beers from Stella Artois to Rolling Rock to Exel's Tradeteam unit. The deal was worth about £500m to Exel.

Exel expects to publish first-half results on 29 July.