newsworthy
small deals involving weak companies that needed to sell
healthy assets in order to fix balance sheets damaged by the
financial crisis and recession. By contrast, McGuire expects
much larger deals in 2010, with more of the activity involving
publicly traded companies.
Despite the improvements, McGuire says there is still ample
evidence of the so-called expectations gap, where buyers are
“frustrated” by a seller’s unwillingness to pull the trigger due
to inflated value expectations.
The logistics sector was the most active M&A player in the
transport logistics arena in 2009, despite a nearly 32-percent
drop in total transactions from the prior year. Truckload
transactions remained consistent year over year, while rail
decreased to 9 percent of 2009 deals. However, rail contributed significantly to the total dollar value of 2009 deals
due to the $44 billion acquisition of Burlington Northern
Santa Fe railway by Berkshire Hathaway Inc. that was
announced in November and which closed last month.
“Although the high leverage of 2005–2007 is gone, we see an
increased level of targeted ‘tuck-ins’ and strategic acquisitions,” says Gordon. Many of the recent deals that BGSA has
advised on “reflect the continuation of M&A as a strategic
tool,” he added.
While economic and financial pressures have muted M&A
activity over the short term, the secular trend that was established
years ago augurs positively for a return to historical patterns,
experts say. The U.S. transportation logistics market is in a state
of near-perpetual consolidation, which began in the late 1980s
and 1990s with the larger players and has now spread to the mid-size market. Even today, the U.S. transport logistics sector
remains highly fragmented across virtually every form of transport other than perhaps the railroads, making it ripe for continued shrinkage and more M&A action, according to experts.
—Mark Solomon
C.H. Robinson joins ALAN as
gold-level sponsor
The American Logistics Aid Network (ALAN) said in late
January that C.H. Robinson Worldwide Inc., one of the
world’s largest third-party logistics service providers,
has joined the ALAN network as a gold-level sponsor.
“The catastrophe in Haiti clearly demonstrates the
strong need for organizations like ALAN to mobilize the
supply chain community to support and assist humani-
tarian relief efforts,” said Jim Butts, C.H. Robinson’s sen-
ior vice president, in a statement. “Utilizing and capitaliz-
ing on the many talented experts from the industry to
help during natural disasters will have a sustainable
impact. ALAN aligns with our charitable giving efforts and
we are proud to support and use our expertise to help
them centralize and assist in humanitarian relief efforts.”
“We’re very grateful for C.H. Robinson’s commitment
to ALAN,” said Jock Menzies, president of ALAN, in the
statement. “As a non-profit, volunteer-driven organiza-
tion, ALAN depends on support from good corporate
citizens in the supply chain community like C.H.
Robinson to continue our humanitarian relief efforts.”
ALAN relies heavily on sponsorships to achieve its mis-
sion of engaging the supply chain community to assist
with humanitarian relief. In times of crisis, the organiza-
tion provides a central point of contact and an effective
process for distributing much-needed donations.
ALAN uses sponsorship dollars for a variety of needs,
such as enhancing its Web portal to further facilitate postings of relief needs, marketing and communications to
help solicit support from the supply chain community,
and working with relief organizations like the American
Red Cross, the Salvation Army, and Feeding America.
accolades
; Catalog of awards. L.L.Bean was named the retailer with
the best customer service by shoppers participating in the
NRF Foundation/American Express Customers’ Choice survey, which was conducted by BIGresearch. L.L.Bean has held
the number one spot in this category for the past three years.
The NRF Foundation is the National Retail Federation’s
research and education arm.
; Building a fan base. Big Ass Fans has been named one of
the best places to work in Kentucky for 2010 by the Kentucky
Chamber of Commerce, Kentucky Society for Human Resource
Management State Council, and Best Companies Group. Big
Ass Fans manufactures industrial cooling fans for distribution
and manufacturing facilities at its plant in Lexington.
; Medals from Medline.
Associated Material Handling Inc.
and The Raymond Corp. have
received Vendor of the Year honors from Medline Operations, a
distributor of health-care products. Medline is assisted in its distribution by a fleet of more than
1,000 Raymond lift trucks supplied and maintained by
Associated Material Handling.
These include walkie pallet
trucks, order pickers, and counterbalanced lift trucks as well
as Raymond’s Reach-Fork and Swing-Reach model trucks.
