Yang Kee Logistics Pte Ltd has completed its acquisition of New Zealand listed company Fliway Group Ltd for S$52.1 million [about NZ$54.75 million], making it the first and largest Singaporean third-party logistics player to operate in New Zealand and the Oceania region.

This will boost the group‘s revenue by another S$81.9 million, bringing its group revenue to over S$400 million. The combined Yang Kee group will now have more than 1250 employees in 12 countries across Australia, China, Hong Kong, Southeast Asia and the US.

Following the deal announced last October, Yang Kee has acquired all the outstanding shares in Fliway for NZ$1.22 cash per share by way of a scheme of arrangement. This constitutes a change of control of Fliway, which is now wholly owned by Yang Kee, and Fliway has delisted from NZX with effect from 4 January.

“Our vision as a home-grown logistics player has always been to go global, and we are proud that Yang Kee is the very first Singaporean logistics company with 3PL capabilities to operate in New Zealand, with the largest footprint across Oceania. We saw huge opportunities in the Oceania region as both New Zealand and Australia enjoy strong trade relations with Asia, and with each other. This gives us the potential to fully leverage on these key trade lanes, to facilitate cross Oceania trade as well as trade flows between Oceania and Yang Kee‘s existing networks in China and South East Asia,” said Ken Koh, Yang Kee Logistics group CEO.

New Zealand had registered an overall trade surplus of NZ$3 billion, exporting over NZ$70.4 billion worth of goods and services for the year ended March 2017, while total imports were NZ$67.4 billion. Its bilateral trade with Australia reached NZ$24 billion, and Australia remained as New Zealand‘s top trading partner and export destination for goods and services at NZ$12.9 billion for the year, followed by China at NZ$12.6 billion.

With a stronger foothold in the region which comes on the back of Yang Kee‘s first Oceania acquisition of Australian logistics company Axima Pty Ltd in March last year, Yang Kee will be looking into yielding greater synergies from the network integration of shared international freight volumes between Fliway and Axima and cross selling opportunities in their combined customer bases to Asia.

“This is a great milestone for both the Fliway Group and Yang Kee, and significantly strengthens our position across the Tasman and in the Asia Pacific Region – providing opportunities to service our customers beyond New Zealand and offering further project options, centres of excellence, career development and progression for our people locally and globally,” said Duncan Hawkesby, Fliway Group Ltd managing director.

International Enterprise Singapore has been partnering Yang Kee in fuelling its global growth strategy to deepen its foothold in key markets and enhance its end-to-end supply chain networks, and had supported Yang Kee for the Axima and Fliway acquisitions.

“Yang Kee‘s successful completion of the Fliway acquisition further strengthens its value proposition as a global logistics player,” said Law Chung Ming, IE Singapore group director for transport and logistics. “With the combined strengths of Axima and Fliway, Yang Kee now has stronger global networks and supply chain capabilities. This enhances Singapore‘s connectivity to the Southwest Pacific region, allowing Singapore companies to tap its logistics solutions to access the Australia and New Zealand markets. Companies in these two markets can also leverage Yang Kee‘s solutions to expand into Singapore and Southeast Asia.”

The deal was financed by the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited (ANZ) as well as United Orient Capital, a special situation fund sponsored by the United Overseas Bank Limited.

Founded in 1990 in Singapore, Yang Kee Logistics is an end-to-end global supply chain logistics solutions provider. Fliway is one of New Zealand‘s largest fully integrated logistics providers, with more than 150 vehicles across 17 sites in New Zealand.