The head of UK Mail has today hailed the company's strategic investment in the Birmingham business as it prepares to announce a solid set of annual results.

Chief executive Guy Buswell said the Heartlands-based distribution company continued to perform well with good volume growth as it readied itself for a "transitional year".

In a separate announcement to the stock exchange, the company has appointed a new group operations director, with Carl Moore joining the board after being recruited as operations director in 2007.

In a pre-close trading update, UK Mail said its overall performance in quarter four and the full year to 31 March 2014 was due to be in line with expectations.

Reported group revenues for the quarter were expected to show an increase of six per cent year-on-year, giving total reported revenue growth for the financial year of circa seven per cent.

Group underlying revenue for the year is expected to rise by about five per cent while its parcel business saw volumes increase by 15 per cent in the final quarter, driven by an increase in home deliveries due to online shopping.

Mr Buswell added: "Our business has continued to perform well with good volume growth in both our parcels and mail businesses, showing the strength of our customer offering.

"Meanwhile, our new one-hour delivery window project has been implemented and is being rolled out across our network, enabling us to provide our customers with industry leading services in this key area.

"We are making good progress with strategic investment in our business.  Our new central sortation hub near Coventry is under construction and is currently on track to be operational in mid-2015.

"As expected, the coming year will be something of a transitional period for the group, reflecting the current programme of investment, but our outlook for our trading performance is unchanged."