Celadon Buys Dry Freight Assets From FFE

Shortly after buying a stake in rival USA Truck, Celadon Group is purchasing the dry van assets of FFE Transportation, as that carrier realigns its business.

Celadon will buy “substantially all” of FFE’s 435 dry van trailers and most of its dry van division’s 290 tractors as it expands Indianapolis-based Celadon Trucking. The transaction with FFE will help Celadon build its driver pool and expand overall capacity in its core dry van business, said President and COO Paul Will.

Will said it would be a “seamless business transition with respect to drivers and shippers.” Terms of the transaction, announced Oct. 19, were not disclosed.  The companies did not say how many FFE drivers Celadon would hire or whether any FFE dry van drivers would shift to the company’s refrigerated business.

Both companies are publicly owned.

Celadon, a $556.7 million truckload carrier, has been steadily building profit, more than doubling profit in the second quarter from a year ago to $5.5 million. Dallas-based FFE Transportation is cutting back its dry freight business to focus on its core refrigerated truckload and less-than-truckload operations.

"Streamlining our dry freight services will greatly reduce, but not eliminate our ability to handle dry freight,” said President and CEO Russell Stubbs. "We will continue to move dry freight via our temperature-controlled trailers, as it meets the needs of customers” and FFE’s profit expectations.

The $369 million company has been struggling to escape losses, reporting a $3.3 million net loss in the second quarter and a $17.7 million loss in 2010.

Contact William B. Cassidy at wcassidy@joc.com. Follow him on Twitter at @wbcassidy_joc