Two investors acquire controlling stake in Pilot Freight Services

Richard G. Phillips will remain chief executive officer of Pilot Freight Services, and his family “will maintain a significant equity stake” in the company.    Lima, Penn.-based Pilot Freight Services said Wednesday that two companies – the aerospace, transportation, and logistics-focused private equity firm ATL Partners, and the Canadian institutional investor British Columbia Investment Management Corporation – had made a “controlling investment” in Pilot.
   Pilot said in the blog on its website that it had record revenues of $565.5 million in 2015, up 3.25 percent from 2014, and handled 1.4 million shipments throughout the year.
   Current owners, the family of CEO Richard G. Phillips, “will maintain a significant equity stake,” Pilot said.
   Phillips, who will remain chief executive officer, said, “As we pursue increasingly sophisticated opportunities, the Phillips family believes it is important for Pilot to work with experienced partners who can help us to continue to evolve and innovate in order to remain a best-in-class service provider to our customers.”
   Founded in 1970, Pilot provides expedited and time-definite domestic and international freight forwarding, e-commerce and home delivery, and value-added logistics services to its customer base through a network of over 75 stations in North America and Western Europe and 87 core international partners.