Dive Brief:
- TFI International absorbed another two Canada-based carriers with its acquisition of CMW Express and its sister company FRL Express, TFI announced on LinkedIn Tuesday.
- The carriers are TL and LTL specialists serving the provinces of Quebec, the Maritimes, Ontario and the eastern U.S., TFI noted. Terms were not disclosed.
- The deal follows several other tuck-in deals executed by Montréal-based TFI this year as it integrates its Daseke acquisition and plans to spin off the flatbed giant and its other truckload holdings.
Dive Insight:
None of TFI’s deals have been as splashy as the December news that TFI would acquire Daseke — and Chairman, President and CEO Alain Bédard had cautioned not to expect another of that scale in 2024.
But the CMW Express and FRL Express are part of a spree of smaller deals, largely focused in Canada and cross-border, this year.
TFI announced its acquisition of cross-border LTL provider Hercules Forwarding in March, waste hauler MJ Lavoie in May, food tanker Entreposage Marco in June and flatbed and heavy-haul carrier Groupe CRS Express in July.
TFI’s motivation for a spinoff of its truckload business from its LTL operations is the same as XPO’s in spinning off nearly all of its non-LTL businesses — and, likely, FedEx’s in considering a spinoff of its FedEx Freight LTL unit.
Separating different businesses into pure-play companies is a bid to eliminate the “conglomerate discount” investors place on large companies, TFI and XPO executives have said.
The spinoff trend hasn’t been limited to companies in the trucking industry. One of the country’s oldest major companies, General Electric, completed its split into three separate companies in April.
