JOC Staff | Mar 03, 2011 9:43AM EST
Peter J. Rose, chairman and CEO of Expeditors International of Washington, derided a published report that the forwarder would be a good candidate for a buyout by investor Warren Buffett, saying he would never sell the business to Buffett or anyone else.
Rose told the Puget Sound Business Journal, "I don't like him. He's never had a job. He just buys things."
The company, he said, "never has been" for sale, and "never will be, least of all to him."
Rose was responding to a column in The Wall Street Journal that named Expeditors, the largest freight forwarder based in the United States, as one of six companies that would be good buyout targets for Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway investment business.
The commentary did not suggest Expeditors actually is a buyout target, but named the Seattle-based forwarder among "acquisitions suggestions" based on the standards Buffett has outlined.
The $6 billion company has no debt and earned a $344.2 million net profit last year.
Berkshire Hathaway bought BNSF Railway in 2009 and The Wall Street Journal commentary by Dennis Berman said Expeditors, which gets the largest share of its gross revenue from Asia and trans-Pacific trade, "would be a complementary fit" with BNSF's western U.S. business.