[EN-SEA] "Toll" to Resructure Organization, Reshuffle Personnel

INTEGRATED logistics provider, "Toll Group", has announced a number of organisational and personnel changes, as part of a restructuring drive, that will formally come into effect in January.

The company said in a statement that the goals of the restructuring are to develop its global express freight throughout the Asia Pacific; build on its existing customer base in Australia and New Zealand; enhance cross selling throughout the group; provide 'origin' and 'destination' support to Toll Global Forwarding; and establish career paths and succession planning to ensure the company's "growth momentum continues in a logical manner.

With regard to personnel changes, chief operating officer John Ludeke will be retiring from Toll at the end of the current financial year.

"Under John's stewardship, our Australian and New Zealand operations have continued to grow and outperform the industry while at the same time contributing profitable growth and market leadership positions," said Toll Group MD Paul Little, in a statement to the Australian Stock Exchange.

"He has agreed to stay on until he retires and assist in the integration of the Footwork business in Japan and to work with me on a variety of strategic business issues and potential merger and acquisition opportunities."

By restructuring the group, Toll will create three new divisions, namely "Global Express", "Domestic Forwarding", and "Specialised & Domestic Freight", that will each have its own newly appointed divisional director.

The new Global Express division will group together the express businesses of Toll IPEC, Toll Priority and Toll Fast, along with Toll Personnel and Toll Stream Solutions under the leadership of Shane O'Neill as divisional director. He spent the last seven years as group financial controller in Australia and New Zealand.

The new Domestic Forwarding division will group the Toll SPD, Toll QRX, Toll Shipping, Toll Tasmania, Toll Edwards and Toll New Zealand businesses together and will be managed by Paul Ebsworth as divisional director. Mr Ebsworth spent five years as the head of SPD and prior to that managed Edwards/Toll Tasmania.

The Specialised & Domestic Freight division will group together the businesses of Toll Express, Toll Line haul, Westrans, NQX, Perkins, Toll Liquids, Toll Fleet, Toll Chemicals and Toll Transitions under the leadership of Mal Grimmond as divisional director.

Mr Grimmond was recently the acting CFO, but was mainly for the past three years employed in the roles of chief information officer (CIO) and director for Toll Solutions.

Source : HKSG, 28.11.09.