If it keeps you up at night, we’re talking about it – Logistics UK Finance Forum 2025

More than 50 senior professionals from across the supply chain attended Logistics UK’s third Logistics Finance Forum at RSA House in Central London on 2 July 2025.

Chairing the one-day event was Phil Roe, President of Logistics UK, who summarised the day’s programme in his introduction: “We are going to talk about tariffs, we are going to talk about cyber security, which has consistently been the thing that has kept finance professionals up at night. We’re also going to talk a lot about M&A, and we’re going to be talking about the changes that are happening in taxation, which are having an unexpected hit on the logistics industry.”

The keynote speech was delivered by Alpesh Paleja, Deputy Chief Economist at the CBI, who took delegates through the performance of the UK economy following one year of the Labour Government.

In summary, Paleja said: “We do expect some life in the economy going forward, we do expect a bit of economic growth momentum. But it is quite gradual and it’s very dependent on households shedding some of the caution they’ve displayed over the last few years. Growth is also quite unbalanced, we don’t see much support from business investment, trade or the public sector. It’s very much centred around households as well.   

“The reality is that going forward the global environment – both the global economy and global geopolitics – is going to remain more volatile. That is something the UK will have to steer through in the near future. As I say, very much from a policy perspective that focus needs to remain on boosting productivity and longer-term growth prospects to reach critical growth going forward.”

Following this Matt Harrington and James Hardiman, Senior Managers at Logistics UK, took delegates through the key findings of the business group’s Mergers & Acquisitions Insight Report for 2025, with Harrington later interviewing William Sharpe, Partner at Weightmans, on the same topic.

The forum then took a deeper dive into fiscal matters with Tax Director Tom Whybrow and Senior Manager Jonathan Crisp from KPMG taking delegates through some of the changes introduced in the Autumn Budget and what they may mean for logistics firms.

Two industry panels focused on the topics of global growth in the UK, hosted by Phil Roe, and finance for decarbonisation, chaired by Michelle Gardner, Deputy Director – Policy, Logistics UK.

The first afternoon session focused on a different type of accounting from the financial variety: carbon accounting. Richard Waters, Senior Manager at Bearing Point, Logistics UK’s affinity partner, explained how carbon accounting works for operators.

Then onto a topic that, given recent events with some of the high street’s biggest names, concerned everyone in the room – the current cyber security threat. Delegates heard from Detective Superintendent Patrick Milford, Director of the South East Cyber Resilience Centre, who shared a chilling case study of a haulier who was targeted by a cyber attack and subsequently lost his business.

Arguably the hottest topic was saved until last: the implications of global tariff wars. Mike Garratt, Chair of transport economists MDS Transmodal and Nichola Mallon, Head of Trade and Devolved Policy, Logistics UK discussed the latest twists and turns of Trump’s ever-evolving tariff regime rollercoaster.

Michelle Gardner, Deputy Director – Policy, Logistics UK, concluded the event by thanking the sponsors – Weightmans, Hitachi ZeroCabon and exhibitor Allstar – for supporting and enriching the day’s programme.

“We’re also hugely grateful to our expert speakers today, and to all of you who really contributed to the discussions and helped provide an interactive day,” she said.