Have you seen nice upgraded o/o trucks pulling dry van?

Love to be rolling out here in something like that. Problem for me is some of the places I go would destroy that truck. Or it would make maneuvering in some of the places I go difficult if not impossible.

I need a tough battle ready truck that wont break my heart if it gets scratched or dinged.

I have nice shiny toys at home that give me pride while I am out here working.

Hurst

 

w900 is the truck i dream of. If that eld mandate comes out at the end of next year, I'll need to find pre 2000 built frame along with the title and put studio sleeper along with 6nz cat c15.

 

Don't go dry van man, do reefer or flatbed.

Everyone should go reefer or flatbed, unless after my Dad passes, I go to work for Melton or System, and like it, then everyone should go van or reefer.

Just go reefer in fact, they make the really big money.

 

Really? Guess I'll sell my RGN.

 

Volvo 660 >>>> Pete 379

 

Clothes, shoes, and jewelry? LOL.

 

Maybe if you live in Chee-cago and English isn't your native language.

 

??? Missed the funny part... I'm only 27 years old. Act like a boss dress like one too.

 

Van rates are not good right now. Reefer rates are higher than van, minus the reefer fuel, and the rejected load if something goes wrong with reefer unit. Flat bed is big money right now.

 

I don't subscribe to threads, so if I disappear after you ask me something, I don't know you asked me. I am only posting that because I've gotten some emails asking why won't I answer people.

Anywho that said ... the only way I can explain what I mean is telling you what happened to the company and the owner and how I got it. This will also give you an idea how complex it can get.

He was a driver then an O/O for years. Bought some book to tell him how to be an O/O so he got the bright idea to get his own authority and make big bucks. He ended up hiring others to drive for him went out and bought five used trucks for the drivers, got into some really good money for a long stretch of time - he got some really high rates - then he paid those off to build equity into the assets and then leveraged the equity to buy another five. When the second five were close to 40% paid off, he would go out and buy five more. This went on a couple more times (I think three more times) and everything was going great for everyone. He even bought land, built a nice barn and shop (which I just sold) and got a few cars under the company name (which a couple I'm keeping and the others have been sold).

But then he was hitting a bad streaks with loads, accidents, collections from shippers and with bad drivers, so he stopped paying for things like oil changes and other key things that are very important. Then he started not to pay the drivers and his bills then he stopped paying on the trucks, got 11 of them repo'ed in just one day. He ran it into the ground. he could not borrow money, his debt load was too high and he could (and did) sell a few trucks trucks but still not enough to cover the bills so he put up the entire thing for sale.

He had it up for sale about 3 times the amount of money I ended up offering for it, then he cut it to more than 2 times just before I called him, he was thinking that the assets were worth that much alone, which they were but it was how it was managed that made it near worthless.

BUT he had five potential buyer in the three months before my first contact and he had to off loaded it. They would call him, they would discuss the sale and all of that and then never call back. SO unlike the others, I had him sign an option agreement, put down $1000 to tie it up for 45 days then had him sign off on opening his books/records (including his personal records) for discovery, which meant he could not lie about a thing. I traced all the problems, the debts he owed and so on, discovered he padded some things with taxes (which have been corrected now) and tried to inflate a few of the asset's values - all of which were adjusted then subtracted from the target price. I ended up offering less than half of his asking price plus a contingent of him paying outstanding debts which he had to cover - mainly that was driver's pay. I would assume all the outstanding money owed to the company - collecting from those shippers who didn't pay or take the loss and I would have to cover any liabilities from the sale day forward, no matter what they are. I know I told you a lot but there are a lot of other details I can't discuss.

Overall he overbought without an exit plan, he didn't have sufficient money in the bank to cover the bills and made a big mess of everything when things went wrong, getting emotional over his "trucks" that he loved. I came in and bought it all at fire sale prices.

The story behind this, put money aside, don't think you need to pay yourself when you employ others. Make sure you don't get wrapped up in emotion of buying the trucks, they are tools and nothing more. AND have a plan, one to enter the business, one to run it and one to get the hell out if you have issues.

Hope this helps you and others how not to fail in explaining this little story of a failed fleet owner.