Beyond the Page: The Norbert Dentressangle back story

   XPO Logistics’ buyout of Norbert Dentressangle was the byproduct of some unique circumstances.
   Chief Executive Officer Bradley Jacobs had never heard of the French 3PL until they were bidding against each other in 2014 for Des Moines, Iowa-based, warehousing and distribution specialist Jacobson Cos. Norbert Dentressangle won the competition, paying $750 million to Oak Hill Capital Partners.
   Jacobs was surprised at coming in second to a European firm, especially because one of his neighbors and good friends, Denis Nayden, is a managing partner at Oak Hill Capital. Also confounding was the fact that one of XPO’s banks, JP Morgan, served as a financial advisor to Norbert.
   “How am I losing to the French?” he thought.
   So he called ND CEO Hervé Montjotin and asked to meet at an investor conference both planned to attend in Florida.
   Jacobs told the ND chief he wanted to discuss merging the companies, to which Montjotin replied that he would bring along his mergers and acquisition expert.
   The meeting went well until “about 10 minutes into it he realizes I’m talking about buying them. And the meeting became very awkward after that,” he recounted.
   Montjotin had no interest in selling ND, but agreed to meet again at Jacob’s home. They had a lengthy conversation about what their companies would look like combined and it became clear that a deal made sense if there was a good way to structure it.
   Jacobs said to consummate the transaction he needed to meet the man who founded the company that bore his name and still owned two-thirds of it.
   The elderly Norbert Dentressangle and Jacobs immediately clicked because of their entrepreneurial backgrounds and similar approach to building companies.  
   It only took two meetings to cut a deal. About 75 lawyers, financial advisors and other experts then spent two weeks in a Paris law office verifying every conceivable detail about the companies before the final contract was signed.