Dave Sullivan
Northern News Services
Yellowknife (Jun 27/01) - Braden-Burry Expediting is on the upswing, recently adding 20 employees to their roster and posting impressive profits.
Revenues for six months ending April 30 are up 97.4 per cent, to $2.65 million compared to $1.34 million the same period a year ago. That translates into a 62.1 per cent gross profit increase.
The number of employees now totals 40.
Last week Braden-Bury Expediting (BBE) announced it will buy the former Canadian Airlines cargo building in Edmonton.
At 24,000 square feet, the $1.1-million warehouse on seven acres is four times the size of BBE's home-base terminal at Yellowknife Airport. That facility is growing too, with construction under way that "almost doubles the size," said president Bernadette Stewart.
One of the North's few publicly-listed companies, Braden-Burry's growth is being fuelled by diamond mining and stepped-up oil and gas exploration in the North.
Shares trading at 14 cents each have started returning just under three cents a share, a 251.3 per cent increase over six months. Earnings per share over the last year are 4.2 cents.
Braden-Burry and other expediting companies solve transportation problems for resource companies set up in remote fly-in camps. The company looks after such logistics for the Ekati diamond mine and De Beers' proposed Snap Lake diamond mine.
Braden-Burry also announced last week a five-year deal which spreads tentacles to southern Alberta. A new BBE facility leased at Calgary International Airport will handle airline Canadian North's cargo needs.
"There isn't going to be a whole lot of cargo at this point ... most of the freight that goes up North gets trucked to Edmonton anyway," Stewart said.
The new Calgary base still makes sense because "the company is also involved with advanced discussions with several other potential clients for services," she said.
BBE will finance its expansion with a combination of cash and bank loans. The Edmonton cargo building purchase is scheduled to be finalized July 29. The company launched its Edmonton operation from the facility May 1 under a lease arrangement with Air Canada.
BBE chairman and Bernadette Stewart's husband Gord Stewart said in a statement that new footings in Calgary and Edmonton provide "a strategic base for an expanded Northern logistics operation that will serve both the company's traditional mining base and the oil and gas industry. It also provides BBE with an opportunity to diversify."
BBE started small in 1977, with founders Max Braden and Rick Burry flying prospectors to remote areas. Mr. Stewart and Dale Vance bought BBE in 1988. Within months Stewart bought out his partner and in 1998 made BBE public. That year BBE hauled more than 24 million pounds of construction materials and other freight to the Ekati mine site.
