Brown Trucking Buys West Brothers

Southeastern short-haul carrier Brown Trucking acquired West Brothers' Companies, expanding its capacity and adding new lines of business.

The buyout adds warehousing, equipment leasing and brokerage to Brown's portfolio, as well as about 220 tractors or trucks and 600 trailers.

It will expand its dedicated contract carriage business, as well.

Brown now operates a combined fleet of 810 tractors and 3,500 trailers, but the Lithonia, Ga., company is looking for new business beyond its assets.

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"Adding asset-light divisions to Brown, such as the warehousing and brokerage business lines, will increase growth opportunities as well as add value to Brown's existing customers," said John Richardson, a board director of Brown Trucking.

West Brothers' current owners, Tommy and Craig West, will leave the Durham, N.C.-based company. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

The West Brothers' acquisition is a significant step for Brown, which in August acquired Schrader Trucking of Tennessee, adding about 100 trucks to its fleet and expanding its reach from the Southeast into the Midwest and other regions.

"Combining forces with West will diversify our customer concentration across industries, enable us to expand our service offerings and provide significant cross-selling opportunities," said Brian Kinsey, CEO of Brown Trucking.

"Our combined companies can now offer an integrated solution across the supply chain for customers in a variety of industries throughout the Southeast, expanding to other parts of the U.S. and Canada," Kinsey said.

Brown focuses on "the middle of the supply chain," providing time-sensitive regional truckload and dedicated carriage to the paper and packaging, appliance, consumer packaged goods and building materials industries.

West primarily works in verticals such as paper, construction machinery, personal care products, consumer packaging and pharmaceuticals, the company said.

James W. Brown sold the company he founded in 1965 to Navigation Capital Partners in 2008, and the private equity firm is priming it for more expansion.

"Brown is well-positioned for growth as we continue our plan to build the leading provider in the Southeast," said O.G. Greene, a board director at Brown.