Knight-Swift back in the M&A game

Now by far the largest truckload carrier in the United States, Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings has made its first acquisition since its merger in fall 2017, purchasing Richmond, Va.-based Abilene Motor Express for an undisclosed sum.    Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings Inc., the new parent company formed from the merger of Phoenix-based trucking giants Knight Transportation and Swift Transportation, is getting back into acquisitions just six months after the company’s $6 billion tie-up last fall.
   Now by far the largest provider of truckload services in the United States—Swift and Knight had been the first and second biggest, respectively, prior to their September 2017 merger—the company has agreed to acquire Abilene Motor Express of Richmond, Va.
   Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchanges Commission (SEC), Abilene brought in an estimated $100 million in annual revenue last year.
   The firm operates a fleet of about 400 trucks, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal, additional capacity that could help Knight-Swift to capitalize on an ever-tightening truck market.
   Thanks to increased demand, a shortage of drivers and stricter adherence to federal hours-of-service regulations following the implementation of mandatory electronic logging devices (ELD), pricing for both full truckload (TL) and less-than-truckload (LTL) services have been on the rise in the last several months, with domestic U.S. TL rates rising for their tenth consecutive month on a year-over-year basis in January, according to analysts at Cass Information Systems.
   Knight-Swift in early February reported a net income of $447.6 million ($2.50 per share) on revenues of $1.4 billion in the fourth quarter of 2017, its first full quarter of post-merger operation.
   For the full year, the company posted net earnings of $484.3 million ($4.34 per share) on $2.4 billion in revenues.