Новая холдинговая компания RTB Holdings запускает масштабную программу скупки грузовых перевозчиков

New holding company builds around Alabama Motor Express with aggressive carrier acquisition plans Key takeaways - RTB Holdings plans acquisitions across truckload, brokerage, dedicated, warehousing, and logistics services. - Freight consolidation is creating opportunities to acquire fleets facing financial pressure after the prolonged downturn. - Supreme Court broker liability ruling could push owner-operators toward larger fleets with established safety and vetting programs. An Atlanta investment firm has set its sights on an acquisition spree across the freight market via a holding company built around Alabama Motor Express, which runs a fleet of more than 500 tractors. Already in the bag for M&T Capital Partners and its newly launched RTB Holdings is the acquisition of JIT-Ex, a Memphis-based truckload carrier that also runs a terminal in Nashville. RTB President Adam McDaniel—who also co-founded M&T in late 2022 after running LTX Solutions for a decade and then holding a senior vice president role at Redwood Logistics—and his team plan to build from there and aren’t planning to stick to asset-based work. “We are beyond excited to partner [with Alabama Motor Express] on scaling, not only the well-established asset division, but bring along other modal service offerings on the non-asset, tech-enabled side in parallel,” McDaniel said in a statement. The RTB team has lined up funding from Oxford Financial and says it wants to move quickly on acquisitions in truckload, brokerage, dedicated, managed services, warehousing, and parts of logistics. The company has also set up an AMX Expedited division to focus on time-sensitive freight. “Our objective is simple: build upon what AMX already does exceptionally well while expanding the solutions we offer customers,” RTB CFO Ryan Tripp said. “By combining strong financial resources, continued disciplined operations, and leading-edge scalable systems, we’re positioned to deliver great value.” In eyeing acquisitions, RTB has plenty of opportunities even as the freight market continues to recover, driven more by tightening supply than surging demand. The downturn that started in 2022 after the post-COVID surge has left many fleets “in a very precarious situation,” Werner Chairman and CEO Derek Leathers told the recent Deutsche Bank Chicago Industrials Summit. And that’s on top of the small and mid-sized fleets that have already gone out of business. Leathers—who early this year paid about $245 million to buy FirstFleet—also said the U.S. Supreme Court’s May ruling in Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II looks set to add to the ranks of trucks and drivers looking for new homes. Speaking to the Deutsche audience, he said the ruling has made vetting individual owner-operators quite tricky, which is likely to lead many to “find shelter” at larger companies. “We are certainly gearing up for that and have seen some early success,” Leathers added. “But it’s very early, and the numbers are immaterial at this point. But we want to have a welcome home for those high-quality drivers that we can bring into our own fleet, make sure that we do the additional vetting that we need [and] wrap them up in our own safety and other programs.” About the Author Geert De Lombaerde Senior Editor A native of Belgium, Geert De Lombaerde has more than two decades of experience in business journalism. Since 2021, he has written about markets and economic trends for Endeavor Business Media publications FleetOwner, Healthcare Innovation, IndustryWeek, Oil & Gas Journal, and T&D World. With a degree in journalism from the University of Missouri, he began his reporting career at the Business Courier in Cincinnati. He later was managing editor and editor of the Nashville Business Journal. Most recently, he oversaw the online and print products of the Nashville Post and reported primarily on Middle Tennessee’s finance sector and many of its publicly traded companies.