newswor thy
M&A activity: will the
deals start flowing again?
private equity firm
takes control of Inttra
ocean portal
THE FINANCIAL MELTDOWN AND DRYING
up of credit markets put a major crimp in what
had been a robust last few years for trans-
portation logistics merger and acquisition
(M&A) activity in the United States. But for
various reasons, hope is springing eternal
that 2010 will be a better year.
Great expectations
Ed McGuire, head of BMO’s transportation investment and corporate banking group, says M&A activity improved in the latter half of 2009 as U.S. and
world economies began to stabilize. Of the 81 deals announced in 2009, 47
were completed in the year’s second half, he says. McGuire expects first-half
deal activity to be 20 percent above the second-half 2009 pace.
McGuire says the first half of last year was marked by relatively p. 16
A private equity firm has invested $30
million in the ocean freight e-commerce platform Inttra, and in so doing
wrested control of the company from
its original steamship owners.
The investment by Baltimore-based
ABS Capital Partners puts 51 percent
of Inttra’s ownership in the hands of
the private equity firm, which specializes in investing in relatively young
companies with proven track records.
Inttra was founded in 2001 as an open
e-commerce portal to support electronic ocean freight transactions. Until
now, the Parsippany, N.J.-based company was controlled by seven
steamship lines and freight forwarder
Kuehne + Nagel.
Inttra said in a Jan. 29 press release
that the funding from ABS will allow it
to develop a “new commercial strategy” that includes creating a dedicated
sales staff for carrier and high-volume
shipper accounts, as well as a “
professional services program” to facilitate e-commerce transactions in the ocean
freight segment.
Don Hebb, ABS’s chairman, and
Bobby Goswami, the firm’s general
partner, will join Inttra’s board. Longtime CEO Ken Bloom will remain in his
current post. Hebb will become chairman of Inttra.
It is expected that none of the now-minority owners will cash out their
investment and leave the partnership.
Inttra had a banner year in 2009 as
the severe global economic contraction failed to dull a growing appetite
for e-commerce transactions in the
ocean freight business. Last year, Inttra
set a record in the number of container transactions handled and reported
a 34-percent increase in what it
termed “network connections.”
