Toll nets 7% fiscal year profit gain

Toll nets 7% fiscal year profit gain    Australian logistics company Toll Group on Thursday said its operating profit grew 7.3 percent to $455 million in its fiscal year ending June 30.
   Revenue for the company grew 18.4 percent to $8.6 billion.
   'This is a very credible result for Toll in what has been a very challenging global economic environment,' said Paul Little, the soon-to-retire longtime managing director of Toll. 'This has been exacerbated by a number of tragic natural disasters.
   'We have continued to make good progress in growing our range of businesses despite the weak conditions affecting a number of our operations. We have benefited from both acquisitions and organic growth, while also being affected by macroeconomic conditions.'
   Little said the company's expanding global forwarding unit had 5 percent organic growth on top of niche acquisitions.
   'Toll Global Forwarding has continued to follow its strategic growth path, having completed a number of bolt-on acquisitions during the year,' he said. 'Despite global market conditions remaining challenging, good growth in revenue was achieved.'
   The company operates a diverse portfolio of contract logistics, domestic forwarding and global express units, as well as a unit aimed at Australia's key mining, and oil and gas sectors.
   'The outlook is challenging to predict, although generally we would say that conditions look to have stabilized, at least for Toll,' Little said. 'We will continue to focus on our strategic growth path, achieving the necessary scale in Toll Global Forwarding, and continuing to grow our exposure to the strong resources sector. We have a strong competitive position in the Australian market, which we remain focused on, while also increasing our involvement in the logistics tasks associated with the fast growing online sector of the retail market.'