82 AUGUST 2019 ownerdriver.com.au
interests. Even the simplest overview delivers some
extraordinary numbers: Like, more than 30,000 people
working across the group’s businesses in Australia, New
Zealand and Asia, and a f leet of around 7500 “motorised
units” ranging from ’round-town utes and distribution
trucks to regional and linehaul single trailer and B-double
sets, heavy-duty roadtrain combinations and a specialist
f leet of Armaguard money movers.
In effect, enough vehicles of one sort or another to
generate a fuel bill around $3 million a week. Yes, a week!
As for company turnover, well, since returning to a
private entity after a relatively brief stint as a public
company, Linfox annual turnover is nowadays not for public
consumption. Billions, however, is not an exaggeration.
Yet it’s a candid Peter Fox who admits revenue has grown
markedly despite a substantial and purposeful decrease in
the client base over the past decade and more.
“At the beginning of the GFC in 2008, we had over 300
customers. Today, the customer base in Australia is down to
80,” he explains.
“Our customers have become bigger customers,” Peter
continues, citing the example of BHP which 11 years ago
was a $40 million account. “Today it’s over two and a half
times that.”
As he puts it, the customer base is “... a thing of quality
rather than quantity, a thing of less is more.
“Revenue has, in fact, doubled over that same (11-year)
period but the size of the customer footprint has shrunk
by about two-thirds.”Above: Making a point. With a
sharp eye on the wider world, it’s
a resolute Peter Fox who contends
Australia’s regularly framework is
not keeping pace with the benefits
of modern technology
Opposite below: The general
impression is that Linfox works
primarily in metro areas but
the reality is that the company
has operations across the full
spectrum of Australian road
transport
It is a footprint, however, that for many years now has
stretched way beyond the national horizon.Beyond Shores
Australia, obviously enough, is the centrepiece of Linfox
operations and it’s an emphatic Peter Fox who says simply,
“You don’t forget the importance of this market.
“I’m a diehard fifth generation Australian so you never
really get away from that, but our marketplace has developed
beyond the shores of Australia.”
Indeed it has, with Linfox International Group operating
throughout South-East Asia. “Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam,
Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and now, a couple of other
countries,” he explains. “The last two years we have been very
interested in what’s called the Mekong Delta which is Laos,
Myanmar (Burma) and Cambodia.”
At this point the conversation turns up several
notches as Peter Fox unfurls an expansive grasp of the
cultural, commercial, political and social diversities
of international markets, notably throughout the
Asian region. It is a grasp which to a large extent
determines those markets where Linfox chooses to
pursue opportunities and those where, for any number
of geopolitical, commercial or even cultural reasons,
abstinence is the preferred option.
In quiet conversation it soon emerges that there are
distinct reasons why Linfox eyes the potential of emerging
markets in Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia far more
favourably than, say, the Philippines where there is no desire