In 20 years AJG parcels have gone from delivering 20 parcels a day to 9,000. In a year this is around 3 million parcels, the company has 140 staff members and has a fleet of 100 vehicles which are all equipped with GPS. Latest available accounts show that the business made a pre-tax profit of £1.65m in the year to the end of June 2014, on turnover of £8.75m. Menzies uses his vehicles to deliver newspapers and magazines throughout the night to customers. A way in which AJG are looking to expand their company is to also start making daytime deliveries.
AJG Parcels operates from two 10,000sq ft hubs one of which is in Inverness; this one provides same-day delivery throughout the Highlands. The second 10,000 sq ft regional hub in Linwood, near Glasgow, services Argyll with daily links to its bases in Dunoon, Lochgilphead, Oban and Fort William. Overall, it has a network of 13 satellite depots providing a next-day service to consumers in many areas including the Western Isles and Orkney.
Managing director Forsyth Black said: “The purchase of AJG is an important step in our ongoing journey to build on our newspaper and magazine distribution business. It is especially significant because it allows us to participate in the fast-growing market of parcel delivery and collection. With our existing geographical reach, especially in harder to access towns, the acquisition further underlines our appeal to companies seeking cost-efficient deliveries to the North and rural West of Scotland. We believe that, by acting as a neutral consolidator in these areas, we can offer a compelling partnership proposition to the UK’s major parcel carriers.”