Aurex operates as a four-layer integrated logistics platform, combining stable infrastructure income with higher-growth logistics and digital revenue. The design deliberately blends toll-like, asset-backed cash flows (terminals and corridors) with asset-light service and technology margins, a hybrid that underpins both defensiveness and growth.

2.1 The four-layer platform

• Layer 1 — Infrastructure assets: Rail-linked terminals, inland container depots and bulk-handling yards, the asset-backed, recurring-revenue foundation.
• Layer 2 — Transport operations: Rail-freight coordination via concessions and partnerships, plus long-haul trucking as a bridging service layer.
• Layer 3 — Logistics services: Warehousing, bonded storage, customs clearing and cargo consolidation, higher-margin, relationship-driven services.
• Layer 4 — Digital platform: Real-time tracking, freight matching, customs-documentation automation and predictive analytics, the scalable differentiator.

2.2 Strategic positioning

Aurex replicates the Grindrod-style integrated logistics model but focuses it on inland mining and agricultural export corridors, a rail-first freight design that lowers cost per ton-kilometre versus road, and an asset-backed recurring-revenue infrastructure model. The strategic unit is the corridor, an end-to-end freight spine, rather than an isolated asset, which is what allows Aurex to capture margin across the chain and build a defensible position.

2.3 Revenue model

Table 2.1 The five revenue lines across the four platform layers.

2.4 Why the hybrid model works

The infrastructure layer provides stable, asset-backed, inflation-linked income that supports debt; the logistics-services and digital layers provide growth and margin expansion with far lower incremental capital. As the mix shifts over the plan toward services and digital, the blended EBITDA margin rises from 10% to 33%, the infrastructure assets carry the early capital intensity, and the lighter layers drive the later margin.