Júlio Simões puts up US$ 83 million distribution center
Valor Econômico
In the mid 90s, Júlio Simões was an average-sized carrier - ranking thirtieth in the sector - when the stabilization of inflation and the overvaluation of the exchange rate that persisted until the end of that decade took place. To cut down the costs in such new environment, part of the great industry started outsourcing their supply chain, activity previously considered strategic and maintained inside the companies. The new niche led Júlio Simões to the first place in the logistics sector of the country, with earnings of R$ 1.47 billion (US$ 746.2 million) in 2009 - more than R$ 300 million (US$ 152.3 million) ahead the runner-up.
The segment of industrial supply, with clients the size of Fibria, Suzano and major car makers, currently represents 51% of the income of the group. Júlio Simões also has great presence in what it calls fleet management and outsourcing - something like a different car rental, in the wholesale - and it performs the conventional cargo carriage. With cash on hand since the IPO that allowed the company to raise R$ 477 million (US$ 265 million) in April, the company has plans to take advantage of the financial breath - its net debt fell by half with the raising of the funds - to reinvest in the fleet, acquire customers and undertake new businesses.
The bet covers the agribusiness - the company has major contracts with companies like Cosan, Bunge and the Odebrecht ETH, and in August it should start the first phase of a R$ 150 million (US$ 83 million) project of a distribution center in an area with 500 square meters in Itaquaquecetuba, West of São Paulo. It is a unique undertaking of the group, an intermodal terminal, integrated to one of the railway lines of MRS that arrive to the capital of São Paulo, at the margins of the Presidente Dutra road, connecting São Paulo to Rio.
Another novelty of the group is the entry in the agribusiness, offering to large groups of the sugar and alcohol segment the service of harvest and delivery of the sugar cane directly at the plant. Today, the segment already corresponds to 5% of the earnings of the group, but it may grow more, getting to 7% of the total. The idea is to grow to the same extent of the goals for the mechanization of the harvest until 2013 - the company already has 126 harvesters. Julio Simões also continues focusing on their management and fleet management service, in which the company keeps 14 thousand of the 16.5 thousand vehicles of its fleet - which, in such case, are cars. The service accounts for 20% of the group's earnings. Besides being responsible for the car fleet of large companies - Aché and Light being among the biggest ones of them - the company also works with the public sector.