Former Portir Transitários expands in Spain with a new name and invests another half a million euros

Portir Transitários, a Portuguese transport and logistics company, will expand its operations in Spain to reach €80 million in turnover over the next three years. The plan includes a rebranding and an investment of an additional €500,000 in technology.

The formal farewell to ‘Portir’ and welcome to the new name, “Movit”, is just days away, managing partner Nuno Fonseca revealed to ECO. “We think it’s a fresh, more Anglo-Saxon brand, which may also be relevant to the internationalisation process”, he said. At the same time, the company has moved premises in Porto to a larger office, capable of accommodating the team’s ambitions.

The company, based in Leça da Palmeira, in the municipality of Matosinhos, will open offices in Barcelona, Valencia and Vigo by 2028, with the first phase of this expansion being to the Catalan capital early next year.

The Movit brand aims to convey “dynamism, movement and technology” and facilitate this internationalisation, which comes two years after a group of investors, including Nuno Fonseca, bought the company for approximately one million euros in a transaction advised by Oaklins Portugal.

“When we bought the company in June 2023, it was exactly what we were looking for: organised, customer-oriented and with know-how. But our purpose was to have this healthy foundation and, from there, develop a business plan with accelerated growth. The rebranding serves this new, more international cycle, while maintaining the pillars”, said Movit investor and managing partner Nuno Fonseca.

Founded in 2001, the former Portir Transitários has a presence in the cities of Porto, Lisbon, Leiria, Viana do Castelo, Cantanhede and Madrid. Before the acquisition, the company had a turnover of six million euros, and in 2024, turnover was around 30 million euros. The year is expected to end with a 50% increase to 45 million euros.

Spain, which accounts for around 15% of the business, is now the management’s priority. “Today, the Iberian Peninsula is one economy. Logistics is clearly Iberian. We can no longer talk about logistics in the Portuguese market or the Spanish market. There is total integration, so it makes no sense for us to be confined to the national rectangle, our starting point and where we feel comfortable. Going to Spain means stepping out of our comfort zone”, notes Nuno Fonseca.

While Madrid “is important for air cargo with Barajas airport”, Spanish ports are centred on the Mediterranean Sea, in Barcelona and Valencia, the “engines of maritime transport”. Vigo is a different choice and is due to its geographical proximity. “It has been on our agenda for a long time because it is just over an hour from Porto and is a region with some economic dynamism in sectors we are involved in, such as the automotive industry”, he explains.

Movit attentive to acquisitions

The geopolitical context and slowdown in the European economy were less favourable for trade last year, so Movit and its competitors were forced to change their strategy. “We have to become more aggressive commercially, adapt to the new reality and focus on efficiency and productivity. There is almost a process of selection of species in which not everyone will survive. And we also have to take into account that multinationals are merging and acquiring, so the big ones are getting bigger”, says Nuno Fonseca.

For this reason, the Matosinhos-based group refuses (for now) to be ‘swallowed up’ by these sharks, but is open to purchases in Spain because it has a “healthy financial balance sheet” and is debt-free. “We are keeping an eye on the market. If tomorrow something comes up that fits – which is the most important thing in an acquisition and merger for synergies – and that does not jeopardise the stability and ideas of the group… It will be like a puzzle, without haste and without growing for the sake of growing”, explains Movit’s managing partner.

When asked about national airport infrastructure and the Portos 5+ strategy, Nuno Fonseca simply said that “Portuguese ports, compared to others in Europe, work quite well”, but the same cannot be said for airports.

APAT – Associação Portuguesa de Agentes Transitários (Portuguese Association of Freight Forwarders) has alerted the Government to this “barrier to activity” and represented the market in combating its biggest obstacles, says Nuno Fonseca.

“We compete with slightly sexier industries”

One of these is talent. Movit has approximately 100 employees, which it has gained thanks to the momentum of logistics and transport in the post-Covid-19 era. According to Nuno Fonseca, the pandemic was a “positive wave” because the boom in online orders gave visibility and good results to companies in this industry, making it “more attractive”, but they continue to compete with others that “are perhaps a little sexier”.

“It is challenging to hire in both Portugal and Spain. Hiring quality staff is even more difficult. We take on almost one person per week and we have to integrate them, acculturate them, train them… It’s a whole process, which is demanding for the company because it requires monitoring”, says the managing partner.