Prem Watsa's company seeks to tackle last-mile logistics woes

Canadian billionaire Prem Watsa-controlled Quess Corp, which recently entered the logistics business to cash in on the e-commerce boom, is targeting 25,000 deliveries a day. The Bengaluru-based business services provider has set up a logistics arm called Dependo Logistics to serve e-commerce clients.

The logistics firm is running distribution centres and deliveries across 11 cities. It is currently serving a few e-commerce firms the names of which Quess Corp CEO Ajit Isaac did not wish to disclose. The Quess Group, with a manpower of about 1.20-lakh employees in India and overseas, has about 11,000 people working in its logistics business.

Quess IPO will open on June 29 with a price band of Rs 310-317. The firm is raising Rs 400 crore in return for a 10% stake. The promoters are not diluting their stake, and the fresh equity, Isaac said, will be used to fund business expansion, acquisitions, clearing debt, etc. Post IPO, promoters Thomas Cook and Isaac will have stakes of 60%, and 26%, respectively.

The eight-year old Quess, Isaac said, has moved from being a people supply company to being a superstore for back office functions. "In logistics, for example, we want to manage the last mile of the supply chain," he said.

Dependo is part of Quess's people and logistics vertical that accounted for 56% of Rs 3,442-crore revenue the firm reported in 2015-16. "One of our goals is to help e-commerce firms cut their costs on non-core activities such as handling deliveries and aggregation and disaggregation of goods," he said.

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