Roadrunner Buys Density

While many trucking companies are cutting prices to attract customers, Roadrunner Transportation Services is acquiring them. The multifaceted company is strengthening its West Coast business by purchasing Bullet Freight Systems as part of a broader plan to expand a privately owned business that has run profitably through the recession and to take it public as a recovery unfolds in 2010.

The recession put plans for an IPO in the fall of 2008 on the shelf for a while, but they’ll be revived next year, said Mark DiBlasi, Roadrunner’s president and CEO.

Roadrunner is one of a very few trucking businesses considering IPOs at what they hope is the tail end of the recession. Chicago-based Echo Global Logistics, a freight brokerage business, went public in October.

“We performed very well in 2009 compared with other LTL and truckload companies,” said DiBlasi, a former FedEx and Roadway executive who says a revival of the IPO next year depends on “performance.”

“We’ve been very aggressive about acquiring new business. We’ve been able to weather the recession and been profitable.” For now, he said, “We’re in a growth mode. We’ve added tonnage. We’ve been very aggressive in securing new business and been very successful in the last quarter, and we’ve seen an uptick in November and December. We’re optimistic about 2010.”

Bullet adds muscle to Roadrunner’s connection between Chicago and the West Coast ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, Calif., Portland, Ore., and Seattle.

“We already have a strong presence on the West Coast, but this enhances it,” DiBlasi said. “Bullet has a heavy presence in Southern California and a good presence in the Pacific Northwest and Chicago. They’ll complement our service and help us balance lanes and eliminate empty backhauls. If I can send a truck from Chicago to LA and then haul our own freight back from LA to Chicago, that helps.”

Bullet now will operate as Bullet Transportation Services, he said.

Roadrunner also acquired Bullet’s third-party logistics arm, Caliber Logistics, which will allow the Milwaukee-based company to market its non-asset services, including partial truckload, intermodal transportation and air freight forwarding, to a larger customer base.