Parcels giant signals £200m sale or float

BRITAIN'S largest independent parcel delivery company is being groomed for a sale or stock market flotation following the appointment of adviser Hawkpoint Partners.

Target Express, backed by private equity group 3i, is estimated to be worth more than £200m after several years of rapid growth.

It employs 2,800 staff at its network of 50 depots. Turnover reached £135m in 2003.

Chairman David Hoare said: 'We are profitable and very cash generative so there is no need to do anything from a funding standpoint. But we always look at ways to increase our business and we will look at the whole range of options.'

Target Express was sold in 2000 by co-founder Peter Neumark and backer Legal & General Ventures. Neumark, who started the business with Raymond Griffiths and Iain Sharp in Warrington, Cheshire, in 1982, walked away with an estimated £50m. He is now a regular in lists of Britain's richest people.

Target Express has developed links with some of the world's largest companies and clients include blue-chips such as Prudential, Panasonic and 3M.

Meanwhile, Doncasters, the Derbyshire engineering business, has been interviewing banking advisers ahead of an expected £500m stock market flotation. Seven banks are thought to have presented proposals to Doncasters and its backer, Royal Bank of Scotland, but no decision has yet been made.

Financial Mail on Sunday revealed last month that accountant PricewaterhouseCoopers was reviewing the company's options. It is now understood that a float is the preferred exit for RBS, which has owned the business since 2001.