Heartland Express, Inc. Acquires Gordon Trucking, Inc.

I agree with Challenger. Heartland in Phoenix and Gordon in Rancho Cuckoo, and Lathrop. Terminals in OR, Washington and ID. There still is a void between the eastern Rockies and Mississippi. Awwww, you can have everything. I have a funny feeling this is the future of trucking. Mergers and consolidation.

Some industries where companies/names have disappeared in recent years: Airlines. Aerospace/defense. Car companies. (Mazda/Ford, Ram/Fiat??, Pontiac and Oldsmobile names are gone. Those are a few I can think of.

Does any else think there may be a few more of these consolidations in the next few years?

 

Cali Hawk,

I think we may see Swift and or Knight buy more companies. It's only a matter of time. Celadon bought out Landspan and acquired Lisa. Arnold merged operations with Link America. Conway bought out CFI. I have yet to see what/who Werner acquired.

KH

 

Link America is gone, all their tractors are stickered as Arnold and their terminal in Duncan is now Arnold.

 

KLLM just bought FFE too

 

Swift bought Star of Morton, IL. It's only a matter of time until those "top ten" carriers are going to be too big to compete with.

 

Who wants to compete with them anyway? They can't offer what most small companies can, for customers or drivers.

 

Is that Lisa as in FFE and the KLLM deal? I think you are right.
I see Knight as a front runner to go after someone sooner than later. Not knowing what kind of order their house is in. If it is good shape I would say they could improve their position in the trucking business with a successful buy-out.

Swift can be pretty choose y. They probably just need to know if they want someone that does everything they do or do they try to get a very large share of one business unit....van, reefer...or whichever they think is best.

 

I heard a rumor that the sons tried to sell gordon to swift but the old man stepped in and put a stop to it..

Don't know how true it was..

 

My husband is at Orientation with Gordon right now. His first day was today and then we find out about this. I don't know if it's a good thing or not

 

The very idea that the culture of the acquired company, the smaller, older 2,000 seat fleet, will transfer over to the larger, acquiring company fleet of 2,845 seats is sheer fantasy.

Heartland has a better CSA than Gordon for both HOS and Vehicle Maintenance. It is much more a push, push as shown by its 30.7% Driver Safety--good compared to the OTR industry as a whole--but 50% higher than Gordon. No, I don't think Gordon's driver comforts like in-cab fifth wheel release and APU's will transfer over to Heartland's NEWER fleet...

At the conference call tomorrow the combined Heartland/Gordon will explain how it will wring $30 million in new annual operating revenue through optimizing and sale of assets.