Brexit supply fears shot down by Eurostar Global MD Carnall

Distributor head is confident there will be no delays or disruption to shipping and deliveries

Eurostar Global Electronics MD Peter Carnall says it will be business as usual when the UK leaves the European Union on March 29.

Carnall said there would not be delays to orders and that there was a “fallacy” in beliefs that there would be bottlenecks at major UK trading ports.

Brexit has caused rival distributors to stockpile products in the event that Britain leaves with no deal to avoid disruption.

Carnall revealed that Eurostar has been exploring contingency options in the last two years, including opening an office within the EU to maintain its international business.

He boldly stated that all partners will still see their demand met with supply.

“There’s not going to be a delay on products entering the UK; if we leave the EU, the goods are still coming to us at the same speed they do now. There’s a fallacy that the doors are going to come down and goods will take forever to be shipped. I don’t think the UK government will allow that to happen,” he said.

Many companies outside the channel have relocated headquarters or moved operations away from Britain since the UK decided to leave the EU. Multibillion-dollar insurance firm Chubb has re-domiciled to France in January. US bank giants Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley and Citigroup have moved £214 billion of assets to Frankfurt, citing Brexit as the reason.

Eurostar Global is targeting to hit £125 million in revenue at the end of its current financial year ending on April 30. Business development director Ewan Davies said the firm would soon break the £100 million mark despite a declining mobile market.

For its last financial year (2017/18), Eurostar’s turnover increased to £78.2 million from £70.8m.

Head of commercial and vendor management Steve Hankey said the firm’s B2B business has grown “exponentially”, but did not quantify this. Eurostar currently has 250 B2B customers.

Davies said the distributor is looking to sign partnerships with large retailers to hit its targets.

Plans are in place to reorganise the B2B team, where no jobs will be lost in streamlining operations as Eurostar looks to strike more retailer partnerships.

Davies said: “We are on that track to be one of the biggest distributors in the country; we’re currently in the mix and people are talking more about Eurostar, and that’s because we are working hard on our goal to be a leader in the distribution space.”

Hankey added: “We have to work twice as hard to compete with larger players. We hold a number of USPs that differentiate us from rivals and the relationships they hold with customers.”