The group behind Yodel and ArrowXL saw a near £60m profits swing during its latest financial year to return to the black, newly filed accounts have revealed.
Logistics Group Holdings, which is owned by the billionaire Barclay family, has posted pre-tax profits of £17.6m for the 12 months to June 30, 2021, a rise from the £41.8m loss it reported for the prior year.
Its revenue also surged from £520.6m to £676m over the same period.
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Yodel is headquartered in Liverpool while ArrowXL is based in Wigan.
The new documents filed with Companies House come after Yodel itself said its full-year revenue had increased from £420m to £563m. The figure excluded the revenue of ArrowXL.
A statement signed off by the board said: "The directors are pleased to report a significant improvement in the financial performance across all metrics compared to the prior year.
"The financial performance in the year ended 30 June 2021 was significantly ahead of expectations with the Covid-19 pandemic driving a step change in online shopping volumes.
"Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, both Yodel and ArrowXL have continued to offer industry-leading customer service to their growing portfolio of clients and the directors are highly appreciative of the support and dedication of all colleagues, suppliers and clients through these unprecedented times.
"It is clearly extremely difficult to quantity the impact of emerging from the Covid-19 pandemic on the group.
"However, the group's forecasts continue to be regularly stress tested for a number of scenarios and the group has successfully, to date, deployed strategies and tools to closely manage cash flows and mitigate any issues.
"Actions taken by the group include cost management, tight management of capital spend and trade debtor management.
"Both Yodel and ArrowXL remain committed to achieving customer excellence and continue to deliver significant improvements in service performance."
The number of group employees also decreased from 4,603 to 4,519.
On its outlook the group said: "The UK home delivery market continues to enjoy strong volume growth driven by the increasing shift in consumer demand for online shopping, albeit that as restrictions are eased the public are cautiously returning to the High Street.
"Customers' expectations are increasing with flexibility of delivery options and enhanced tracking becoming critical.
"Both Yodel and ArrowXL continue to invest in this area and have now developed a tangible track record of service and product improvement.
"Both Yodel and ArrowXL continue to focus on providing excellent client and customer service and product offerings, together with winning profitable new accounts.
"Service levels in both businesses remain key to their success and both businesses have continued to deliver significant improvements."
The group also said that it expects both Yodel and ArrowXL to remain profitable on an EBITDA basis in the year to June 30, 2022.
