After Successful Assimilation of Ford's US and Mexico Trade Operations, Vastera Extends Managed Services to Include Canada
DULLES, Va.--March 29, 2001--Vastera , the leading provider of solutions for Global Trade Management, today announced that Ford Motor Company has extended its 10-year managed services agreement with Vastera to include Ford of Canada.
Under the terms of the agreement, Vastera will assume responsibility of Ford of Canada's import and export operations, including classification of products, generation of import / export documentation, calculation of duties, management of customs clearance, and execution of regulatory compliance checks.
Vastera also gains extensive global trade expertise in the form of Ford of Canada employees, who will now form the core of Vastera Canada, based in the Toronto area.
Ford Motor Company established operations in Canada in 1904. The company has three vehicle assembly plants and three engine manufacturing facilities in Canada, where 543 dealerships sell Ford automobiles across the country. Ford of Canada's assembly plants combined to make 630,000 automobiles in the year 2000; 85% of which were exported out of the country.
The engine plants produced 1,511,000 engines during 2000, of which 70% were exported. Ford of Canada is also a major importer, bringing in over 193,000 vehicles from the U.S. and Mexico in the year 2000.
The task of managing such significant volumes of vehicles and engines, where the effective management of duty minimization programs is integral to maximizing efficiencies, is daunting. Vastera will now manage these processes for Ford of Canada, leveraging experienced trade professionals, patented trade processes and its TradeSphere software solutions.
In July of 2000, Vastera acquired Ford's U.S. Customs operations and has successfully completed the transition of 35 Ford U.S. Customs operations employees to its own staff, establishing a new office in Michigan to serve as its U.S. automotive center of excellence. In January of 2001, Vastera launched Vastera Mexico through transition of Ford of Mexico's global trade organization.
Over the past few months, Vastera defined new trade processes and identified new opportunities for cost savings within Ford's U.S. and Mexico's import operations. Because of Vastera's early success in the U.S. and Mexico, plans for Canada were accelerated to adopt Vastera's managed services.
"We continue to drive value to Ford by taking over and managing their global trade operations in different geographies," said Arjun Rishi, CEO of Vastera. "We quickly gain a wealth of talent in Canada by bringing on Ford of Canada's global trade personnel. We believe this group of trade professionals, combined with our technology, will be able to meet not just the demands of Ford, but other companies in Canada as well. We welcome the Ford of Canada team to Vastera."
About Ford Motor Company
Ford Motor Company is the world's largest manufacturer of trucks, and second largest manufacturer of cars and trucks combined, whose divisions include Ford, Lincoln, Mercury, Volvo, Mazda, Jaguar, Aston Martin and Land Rover. Ford has approximately 335,000 employees worldwide.
About Vastera
Vastera is the leading provider of solutions for global trade management. Its solutions including modular, web-native applications, trade management consulting and managed services, are designed to streamline the trade functions of global business.
The foundation of these solutions is Global eContent, a comprehensive, rules-based application of country-specific trade and regulatory data, which is maintained and updated daily.
Vastera's solutions drive quick, tangible benefits for its clients by accelerating the flow of goods through the global supply chain, and reducing the associated labor costs, third party logistics fees, inventory carrying costs, and duties.
Vastera clients include: Ford, Alcatel, Dell, Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, New Zealand Dairy Board, Lucent Technologies and Nortel Networks. For more information, please visit www.vastera.com.
This press release includes statements which may constitute forward-looking statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Statements in this press release that are not strictly historical are "forward looking" statements which are subject to the many risks and uncertainties that exist in Vastera's operations and business environment. These risks and uncertainties may cause actual results to differ materially from the expected results and include, but are not limited to, Vastera's limited operating history, history of losses and anticipation of continued losses, potential volatility of quarterly operating results, the ability to successfully implement Vastera's expansion plans, risks related to the Internet, risks related to legal uncertainty and other risks which are set forth in more detail in Vastera's Registration Statement on Form S-1, as amended, as well as other reports and documents filed from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission.