Fleet Management News & Business Info | Commercial Carrier Journal
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Wheelin' and dealin' As trucking faces new challenges and opportunities, mergers, acquisitions and restructurings remain hot. A By Avery Vise fter all the mergers and acquisitions in trucking that took place between August 2011 and August 2012, you might think that the past 12 months would have been a little more quiet. Not hardly – and based on recent activity, you reasonably can expect more deals this year. The ink was barely dry on last year's CCJ Top 250 ranking of the largest for-hire carriers operating in the United States when investment firm Centerbridge Partners announced in August that it had acquired dedicated contract carriage company Cardinal Logistics Management Corp. That alone was noteworthy, but what made the deal a true blockbuster was the fact that Centerbridge already owned Greatwide Logistics Services, which was the largest primarily dedicated carrier company in the CCJ Top 250. In February, Centerbridge merged the two companies as Cardinal Logistics, which after the restructuring is ranked No. 27 this year. Some of the deals involved new ownership of basically the same operation. Just last month, United Vision Logistics (No. 55) announced a change in ownership and a restructuring with management and lead lender GE Capital becoming significant shareholders. Previously, United Vision Logistics principally had been held by private equity firm Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe. Similarly, in January the key operating assets of RoadLink Transportation Solutions were acquired by RTS Holdings, a company founded by industry veterans Ken Kellaway and David McLaughlin with lead financial partner Oskie Capital, and relaunched as RoadOne IntermodaLogistics (No. 118) with many of the same personnel that had worked for RoadLink. In another asset acquisition, Celadon Group (No. 36) in August 2012 obtained certain operating assets of McAllen, Texas-based USA Dry Van Logistics (No. 213 last year), which has ceased to exist. In a somewhat unusual transaction, U.S. Xpress Enterprises (No. 11) late last year announced that its own Arnold Transportation Services unit had merged with LinkAmerica Corp. (No. 152 last year), which was owned by Tenex Capital Management. The succeeding carrier, which operates under the Arnold name, is owned jointly by U.S. Xpress and Tenex Capital. Not all deals resulted in either the same or fewer carriers, however. Due to U.S. Xpress' large minority ownership of Roaring Springs, Pa.-based Smith Transport, CCJ previously had treated Smith as part of U.S. Xpress for ranking purposes. At Beginning this year, much of the detailed data you have seen in the CCJ Top 250 package has moved online to www.ccjtop250.com, where you have more options for viewing and sorting the information than you do in a static print publication. In the pages that follow, you will see where the trucking companies rank and learn a bit more about some of the fleets in the CCJ Top 250. For more about what the CCJ Top 250 represents and how we put it together, see page 80. 60 commercial carrier journal Top250Intro_CCJ0813.indd 60 | august 2013 7/25/13 2:53 PM