Freelancer [ASX:FLN] announced a merger of its freight divisions to form what it called ‘Australia’s largest freight marketplace’.
FLN shares were down 3% on the news in late Thursday trade.
Over the past 12 months, FLN shares are down 60%.
Source: www.marketindex.com
Freelancer’s freight merger
Freelancing and crowd-sourcing marketplace Freelancer will merge its freight divisions Freightlancer and Loadshift to form what it calls ‘Australia’s largest freight marketplace’.
FLN said the two divisions have delivered 125 million kilometres of freight across the country in the last 12 months.
Freelancer CEO Matt Barrie commented:
‘Merging our freight division into one platform is a significant milestone for the business. Combining the two platforms will give our carriers more opportunities to find loads, while offering shippers access to more carriers across Australia. Today, we are moving everything from grain to machinery across the country.’
Freightlancer and Loadshift will merge under the Loadshift banner, with the latter becoming a full marketplace platform for freight.
Loadshift will introduce a 3% fee for shippers and a 10% fee for carriers.
In the last 12 months, FLN said Loadshift processed a notional gross load value of $350 million of freight posted.
Freelancer said that using the new commission-based model will help Loadshift to transform Gross Load Value to actualised revenue at a 13% commission rate.
What’s happening in the freelance world?
Today’s announcement did little to excite investors, with FLN shares down 3%.
It may be unclear to the market whether the merger will materially increase the gross load value or positively affect revenue growth.
In its most recent half-yearly, FLN reported a 5% increase in revenues to $29.2 million but on widening losses of $3.1 million, up 87%.
A lower carbon emissions world
Let’s move aside from the jobs and freight market for a moment and think about the future of our energy consumption.
The lithium-ion battery market is reaching full throttle, EV production is set to expand, especially on the back of government initiatives and funding programs designed to support the production of battery metals.
For instance, US President Joe Biden has publicly campaigned the need to boost production, offering loans to assist companies.
And the EU is set on scrapping higher-emission vehicle sales entirely by 2035.
But our energy expert Selva Freigedo says that despite global efforts to transition to EVs, the industry faces a supply crunch, and the EV battery tech materials race may be entering a new type of frenzy.
Selva has recently released a report on the EV battery tech sector.
You can access it for free, right here.
Regards,
Kiryll Prakapenka
