UK Delivery Firm Evri Recruits 8,000 Drivers After Buyout

Evri is now under new ownership, and the U.K.-based parcel delivery firm is already committing to a hiring spree.

Apollo Global Management acquired a majority stake in Evri from another private equity firm, Advent International, for an undisclosed sum. The Financial Times, which first reported the deal, said it was worth about 2.7 billion pounds ($3.5 billion). As part of the transaction, German retailer and logistics services provider Otto Group will also divest its remaining minority stake in the business.

Evri, which is used by U.K. retailers including Next, John Lewis and Marks & Spencer, as well as online platforms like Etsy and Vinted unveiled plans to recruit 8,000 additional couriers, bringing the company’s self-employed courier workforce to 28,000. The company will begin training and onboarding the new couriers in August.

Couriers at Evri typically earn around 16.50 pounds ($21.18) per hour, with various shifts occurring any time between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. The company says couriers often deliver in their local area, “within familiar surroundings and usually not too far from home to accommodate their other commitments.”

Alongside the new couriers, Evri plans on bringing in 1,000 warehouse employees and other supporting roles this year.

The delivery company says it now delivers 730 million parcels each year, serving 12 million customers a week via its network of couriers, five hubs, 27 depots and 550 delivery units. But the company has a new goal with the hiring push—deliver around 4 million parcels a day.

This would dwarf the record performance the last-mile delivery firm accomplished during its peak festive period, when it grew parcel volumes to more than 154 million over the nine weeks through Dec. 30—or less than 2.5 million parcels per day.

The hiring push could provide the manpower to do it—8,000 couriers brought on this year would exceed the 5,000 drivers Evri brought on during the 2023 holiday season.

According to Advent, the courier tripled in size over the past five years. The firm said that it had invested nearly 200 million pounds ($257 million) to expand Evri since acquiring it in 2020, including upgrading its technology and spending 60 million pounds ($77 million) on a new automated distribution hub.

“We are incredibly proud of the transformative changes that have enabled Evri to efficiently scale while maintaining our focus on on-time delivery and an environmentally responsible model,” said Evri CEO Martijn de Lange in a statement.

Since rebranding from Hermes to Evri in 2022, the company has endured some of the struggles seen in American delivery companies like FedEx, UPS and the USPS amid a wider freight recession characterized by weak freight demand.

In the year to February 2023, Evri reported revenue of 1.46 billion pounds ($1.87 billion), down 0.1 percent from the previous year. Higher interest costs on its debt pushed Evri to a pretax loss of 77 million (98.8 million).

A report from Pitney Bowes measuring 2022 data indicated Evri had the third-highest market share by revenue and volume in the U.K. for parcel delivery firms. The company took in 13 percent of revenue, behind U.K. leader Royal Mail (23 percent) and Amazon (15 percent), and moved 14 percent of volume. Royal Mail (25 percent) and Amazon (17 percent) were also the top two by volume.

But Evri made headway from the year prior, seeing its market share for both revenue and volume bump up 1 percentage point each. Conversely, Royal Mail saw its revenue market share sink 4 percentage points, while volume share decreased 5 percentage points.

Under new ownership and intent on expanding its workforce further, Evri appears to be positioning itself more firmly against the centuries-old Royal Mail. A poll of nearly 2,300 U.K. residents from The Telegraph found that 49 percent of respondents had experienced delays from Royal Mail in 2023, with 48 percent saying service had deteriorated. But Evri itself has been prone to criticisms over delays, with the company even publicly apologizing last holiday for products not getting shipped on time.

The Evri transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of 2024. Alongside Apollo, DHL, Chinese e-commerce giants JD.com and Alibaba, as well as Polish parcel locker firm InPost, all reportedly placed bids on the U.K. courier.

Like Evri, Royal Mail is prepping to be under the auspices of a new owner as competition ramps up. The postal service’s parent company, International Distribution Services (IDS), tentatively accepted a 3.6-billion-pound ($4.6 billion) cash offer from Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky in May.

Shareholders of IDS are due to vote on the deal in September 2024.