XPO Logistics to Slow Acquisitions in Near-Term
October 08 2015 - 11:40AM
Dow Jones News
XPO Logistics Inc. plans to slow acquisitions in the near-term
as it integrates trucking company Con-way Inc.
Over the past four years, XPO Chief Executive Bradley Jacob said
he has built a logistics giant primarily through acquisitions
totaling $15 billion in revenue, about 80,000 employees and more
than 50,000 customers in industries ranging from trucking to
contract logistics. After the $3 billion transaction to buy Con-way
goes through, the company will focus on combining back-office
operations from its recent acquisitions, as well as reducing costs
and improving profitability.
"Now we have to redesign the whole infrastructure," Mr. Jacobs
said at the JOC Inland Distribution Conference in Memphis. "By
being leaner, by being more well-designed, we will function more
effectively, and we'll be able to save costs—a lot of costs, in the
hundreds of millions of dollars."
As a result, "the pace of acquisitions will slow over the next
year. They will not slow over the next five years," Mr. Jacobs
added.
Additionally, Mr. Jacobs said that while further acquisitions
will continue to be on the table, the company may have finished
expanding into new areas of the logistics and transportation
space.
"We don't have a lot more verticals to go into, in fact, I don't
know that we have any more to get into," Mr. Jacobs said.
Mr. Jacobs added that XPO has ruled out going into the small
parcel business after looking at buying several of the U.S.
regional delivery companies to form a larger network a year or two
ago.
"We're several decades too late for that. It's not going to
happen," he said. "We would never be able to compete with UPS and
FedEx."
Write to Laura Stevens at laura.stevens@wsj.com
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
October 08, 2015 11:25 ET (15:25 GMT)
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