Massive pressure on the margins
In conversation with Rolf Hadolt, owner and managing director of the Hadolt Group. ITJ correspondent Josef Müller filed this rather personal report from his visit to Graz, where he was warmly welcomed by Rolf Hadolt. The manager is optimistic about business this year, appreciates Austria’s economic strengths, but also criticises policy-makers in Vienna and Brussels. Luckily for him, there’s an amber liquid from his wife’s home country to soothe him after work.
When Rolf Hadolt reviews the past year, he sees a mixed annual balance sheet. Although sales remained roughly at the level of 2022, at EUR 60 million, the pressure on ebit margins was very much felt.
“We experienced this especially in the air and ocean freight business. It wasn’t an easy year for us,” was how Hadolt took stock for the ITJ. The head of the Hadolt Group, with its 250 employees, 150 trucks and own assets, is nevertheless satisfied.
“We have reason to be optimistic on the basis of how 2024 started,” the 63-year-old manager said who, after 47 years in the logistics industry, has now integrated his son Felix into the company.
Precisely calculated sustainability
The noticeable increases in labour costs and the CO2 pricing that has been in force in Austria since the beginning of the year are putting pressure on margins.
Hadolt is committed to sustainability, which can be gauged at headquarters in Kalsdorf, which will become self-sufficient in terms of its energy supply from the middle of this year. Extending the solar system on the facility’s roofs costs the tidy sum of EUR 200,000, but it should really pay off, especially as more and more customers’ invitations to tender also ask for proof of Hadolt’s sustainable activities.
More and more trucks in the fleet are now fuelled by HVO100, which means costs on this replacement for diesel have risen by 5%, but this fact in turn eliminates mineral oil taxes and reduces CO2 emissions by 90%.
Rolf Hadolt’s forehead creases up in a frown when he’s asked about the potential of e-trucks. He’s very clear. “It’s all just wishy-washy! I consider these vehicles to primarily be a PR stunt. I don’t believe long-distance lorries will ever be able to run economically entirely on electricity.”
In his view, hydrogen-powered trucks or e-fuels have a strong future ahead of them as alternative drive technologies. Electric trucks could just be a transitional solution, provided the necessary infrastructure is in place. Hadolt believes that “we mustn’t condemn the internal combustion engine, because its technology is advanced today, diesel fuel is already very clean and trucks consume much less of it than in the past.”
The entrepreneur, whose business model works mainly with trucks, can’t understand why policy-makers force truck manufacturers to produce electric and hydrogen trucks today. He isn’t alone with this opinion. Many colleagues and Austria’s central association for freight forwarding and logistics are strongly critical of political coercion for e-mobility in the overland sector. They call for openness in technology and the free choice for companies as to which trucks they want to deploy.
Diversity and harmonisation
When Hadolt talks about transport policies his cheerful nature is soon obscured. “What we need in Austria is stronger development of the railways and roads, and a coordinated single European transport policy that doesn’t manifest itself through regulatory overkill.”
Hadolt is also a patriot, “We have a well-functioning economy in Austria, we have good products and good companies.” However, the carbon pricing system introduced at the beginning of the year puts Austria at risk as a location in which to do commercial and logistics business.
Hadolt relaxes when he lets his gaze wander over his collection of 3,000 bottles of whisky stored in his office – his second great passion after logistics. It’s probably the largest such collection in Austria. It includes 500 bottles from Japan – which is the home of his wife.