Sixth main pillar in Europe: time:matters opens branch office in Belgium

• The special service provider for courier, sameday and emergency logistics continues its internationalization strategy with the establishment of another foreign branch office
• As an attractive European logistics location, Belgium possesses great demand potential for time:matters’ “special speed” solutions

Mechelen (Belgium)/Neu-Isenburg (near Frankfurt am Main), September 23, 2008 – time:matters, the special service provider for courier, sameday and emergency logistics which is part of the Lufthansa Group, has established a new branch office in Belgium. The branch that opened on September 1 is based Mechelen, a city located halfway between Brussels and Antwerp. With its new branch in Belgium the logistics service provider, which is headquartered in Neu-Isenburg near Frankfurt am Main, is now represented in six European countries: next to Germany and Belgium also in Austria, Switzerland, Poland and the Netherlands. In addition, time:matters operates a branch office in Singapore that is responsible for the Asia-Pacific region.

The establishment of time:matters Belgium has taken place within the scope of the logistics provider’s internationalization strategy that was introduced two years ago. This strategy is based on the motto: “we are present on site, where our customers are and their logistical needs subsequently arise.” Belgium, which was recently selected as most attractive logistics location (together with the Netherlands) in a Europe-wide ranking - conducted by Cushman & Wake¬field, a consulting company for commercial property - is regarded as a preferred hub for commerce and production due to high productivity and low storage costs. time:matters wants to satisfy the growing logistical needs that arise from this in the “special speed” segment with its range of products. The company sees demand for its transport solutions for extremely time-critical shipments on the Belgian market mainly in the automotive, high-tech and pharmaceutical and life science industries. Companies from these branches as well as their logistics service providers are potential time:matters’ customers.

Customers thereby do not only benefit from fast transport to other international economic centers and highly flexible and customized special solutions. In addition, they also benefit worldwide from the extremely short established handling times at airports and specially authorized quick customs clearance processes. Shipments throughout Europe and beyond can be transported and delivered “sameday”, meaning that very same day. In order to achieve this, the logistics service provider draws on its dense “Air-Rail-Road transport network” that numerous partners belong to – for example airlines such as Lufthansa, Swiss or Air Berlin, but also Deutsche Bahn. Due to this network, important spare parts for car manufacturing can, for example, successfully be delivered from Vigo (Spain) to the Belgian city of Brussels within four hours, where they arrive just in time to prevent production from coming to a standstill at a car assembly plant.

“Our new branch office in Belgium is staffed with local experts who are well familiar with their domestic market and the region’s special and express logistics needs,” emphasizes Franz-Joseph Miller, CEO of time:matters Holding GmbH. According to Miller, the logistics expert Peter Allard will manage the branch in Mechelen. The Country Manager of time:matters Belgium will be joined by extended management - Jan Beullens for Customer Service and Operations as well as Gavin Jones for the area of Sales and Marketing.

time:matters GmbH (Neu-Isenburg near Frankfurt am Main) is the expert in courier, sameday and emergency logistics as well as in international time-critical spare parts logistics, offering each of its clients customized logistics solutions for particularly urgent or complex special logistics assignments. The Special Speed Solutions provided by time:matters both throughout Germany and worldwide are based on the high-speed and reliable transportation of highly urgent and particularly important consignments by air, rail and road. For this purpose, time:matters can access Lufthansa's entire network of scheduled flights and a number of flights offered by other partner airlines (i.e. “Star-Alliance”-Partners, Swiss International Air Lines, Air Berlin, Condor): over 1.200 European and 150 intercontinental flights per day, and some 400 destinations in 90 countries. Whenever air charter solutions are needed, time:matters also closely cooperates with Lufthansa Cargo Charter Agency. Since August 2007, time:matters operates its own terminal for express and courier shipments as an additional service option at Frankfurt Airport. Furthermore, 140 train stations Germany-wide — through which InterCityExpress, EuroCity and InterCity trains pass — are currently available to the logistics service provider. In 2006, the partnership with Swiss WorldCargo and the founding of the first branch office outside of Germany in Zurich, Switzerland, marked the start of the intensified internationalization of the time:matters business model. Thus further subsidiaries and/or offices were opened in Vienna, Warsaw, Singapore, Shanghai, Manila and time:matters Netherlands BV was established following the take over of a company in Amsterdam. The establishment of additional offices in important business and logistics centers is to follow by 2010, whereby the focus is on Asia for 2008. Following a partial overtake of the company shares in 2006, the logistics service provider is majority-owned by funds managed by the growth investor Buchanan Capital Partners as well as the management of time:matters. Lufthansa Cargo AG, which spun off time:matters in 2002, owns 48 percent of the company shares.

Further information:
Mirjam Berle, Head of Public Relations, time:matters GmbH,
Gutenbergstrasse 6, D-63263 Neu-Isenburg, Germany,
tel. +49 (0)6102 36738 868, fax -899,
website at www.time-matters.com, e-mail presse@time-matters.com
Reservation and service line: +49 (0) 800 117 117 7
PR agency: euro.marcom dripke.pr, tel. +49 (0)611 973 150, e-mail team@euromarcom.de