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Love’s factoring business gets bigger, buying trio of companies

Deal is biggest factoring acquisition in the company’s history

John Kingston
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Love's has added three factoring companies to its portfolio. (Photo: Saint John, FreightWaves)
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Key Takeaways:

  • Love's Travel Stops completed its largest-ever freight factoring acquisition, purchasing TBS Factoring Service, Saint John Capital, and Financial Carrier Services to significantly expand its customer base and invoice processing for small to medium-sized carriers.
  • This acquisition is part of Love's aggressive growth strategy in the factoring business, with the company actively seeking further inorganic growth opportunities in 2026 as market uncertainty drives smaller providers to sell.
  • The deal reflects the ongoing consolidation in the factoring industry, where smaller companies struggle with market conditions and the capital needed for technological competitiveness, an area Love's plans to enhance through integration of acquired tech and existing AI.
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Love’s Travel Stops has made its single biggest acquisition in the factoring business by scooping up three companies in a deal that closed Friday.

In an email to FreightWaves, Neely Campbell Thomas, VP of Love’s Financial Services, where its factoring activities reside within Love’s, said the purchase of the three companies for an undisclosed amount was “Love’s largest freight factoring acquisition to date and significantly increases both our number of customers and the amount of invoices we process.”

Being acquired by Love’s are TBS Factoring Service, Saint John Capital and Financial Carrier Services. TBS is in Oklahoma City, where Love’s also is headquartered. Saint John is in Chicago and Financial Carrier Services is in Charlotte.

Various online services including this Terms of Service page on the TBS website, reported that two of the companies, TBS and Financial Carrier Services, were owned by NATF Holdings LLC. TBS acquired Financial Carrier Services in 2022, according to this factoring news service.

But Love’s itself would not disclose the seller, saying only that it was from a “holding company.”

“Love’s has been negotiating with the seller and doing due diligence on these three companies throughout 2025,” Thomas said. 

Specific details on the number of invoices the companies are processing was not disclosed by Love’s. 

Three other purchases this decade

Going back to 2020, Love’s had acquired three other factoring companies to add to its portfolio: Vero Business Capital and Foley Business Capital in 2020, and REV Capital in 2024. 

The three newly-acquired companies primarily service small to medium-sized carriers, Thomas said, which is where Love’s factoring businesses operate now. 

About 100 employees from the acquired companies are making the move to Love’s Financial, Thomas said. About 75 were not retained. “Love’s proactively worked with the seller and a staffing agency to connect affected team members with job opportunities in their area of career expertise, and a multi-week severance package was provided,” she said.

In her statement, Thomas made clear Love’s is still on the hunt. 

“When it comes to inorganic growth, the financial services Love’s offers, especially freight factoring, Love’s forecasts continued opportunity in 2026,” she said. “With market uncertainty, more small factoring providers are looking to get out of the business, and we remain on the lookout to buy, if the opportunity is a right fit for us and the sellers.”

More deals to come?

The factoring business has long been seen as ripe for consolidation, with a bevy of small companies increasingly challenged to keep up with growing companies like Love’s and Triumph Financial (NASDAQ: TFIN).

Technology is a consideration in a smaller company’s decision to sell, as it may find itself without the capital needed to stay digitally competitive.

“Love’s is also assessing some of the technology from these acquired companies to integrate into our operations to serve all our clients even better,” Thomas said. As for the use of AI, she said Love’s Financial “(currently leverages) AI through a document management tool as part of our back office support for customers.”

Full technology integration is expected by early 2026, Thomas said.

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John Kingston

John has an almost 40-year career covering commodities, most of the time at S&P Global Platts. He created the Dated Brent benchmark, now the world’s most important crude oil marker. He was Director of Oil, Director of News, the editor in chief of Platts Oilgram News and the “talking head” for Platts on numerous media outlets, including CNBC, Fox Business and Canada’s BNN. He covered metals before joining Platts and then spent a year running Platts’ metals business as well. He was awarded the International Association of Energy Economics Award for Excellence in Written Journalism in 2015. In 2010, he won two Corporate Achievement Awards from McGraw-Hill, an extremely rare accomplishment, one for steering coverage of the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster and the other for the launch of a public affairs television show, Platts Energy Week.