Fresh from saving Road Runners, Chas Kelly turns his eye to building new ships.
Chas Kelly has come a long way since establishing Chas Kelly Transport with one truck in 1979.
The Tasmanian transport magnate opened six businesses over the years, with SeaRoad being one of them.
With over 300 trucks across the six businesses, and two freight ships at SeaRoad, it’s Kelly’s conservative approach and selection of the right management team that has seen him come this far.
Kelly is now in the process of building two new ships, which will increase the capacity of freight by up to 50 per cent.
“What that will mean is that we will be more competitive with our competitors and it’ll give us more opportunity to take everybody’s freight every time,” Kelly says.
The new vessels will replace SeaRaod’s Tamar and Mersey ships.
Last year’s acquisition of courier business Road Runners is proof how Kelly operates – it took him only 27 hours to strike a deal and save 50 jobs.
“The way I saw that is that it was a good little courier company, it’s been in Tasmania for 25 years and it would have been a bit of shame to see it disappear overnight,” he says.
“So we decided to buy it and restructure it. I like employing people and turning a business around – there’s a bit of achievement there which I’m happy with.”
See the full story on Chas Kelly in the April edition of ATN. Click here to secure your copy.