The freight giant’s acquisition of CMW Express brought subsidiary FRL Express along with it.
- TFI International absorbed another two Canada-based carriers with its acquisition of CMW Express and its sister company FRL Express, TFI announced on LinkedIn Tuesday.
- The carriers are TL and LTL specialists serving the provinces of Quebec, the Maritimes, Ontario and the eastern U.S., TFI noted. Terms were not disclosed.
- The deal follows several other tuck-in deals executed by Montréal-based TFI this year as it integrates its Daseke acquisition and plans to spin off the flatbed giant and its other truckload holdings.
- None of TFI’s deals have been as splashy as the December news that TFI would acquire Daseke — and Chairman, President and CEO Alain Bédard had cautioned not to expect another of that scale in 2024.
- But the CMW Express and FRL Express are part of a spree of smaller deals, largely focused in Canada and cross-border, this year.
- TFI announced its acquisition of cross-border LTL provider Hercules Forwarding in March, waste hauler MJ Lavoie in May, food tanker Entreposage Marco in June and flatbed and heavy-haul carrier Groupe CRS Express in July.
- TFI’s motivation for a spinoff of its truckload business from its LTL operations is the same as XPO’s in spinning off nearly all of its non-LTL businesses — and, likely, FedEx’s in considering a spinoff of its FedEx Freight LTL unit.
- Separating different businesses into pure-play companies is a bid to eliminate the “conglomerate discount” investors place on large companies, TFI and XPO executives have said.
- The spinoff trend hasn’t been limited to companies in the trucking industry. One of the country’s oldest major companies, General Electric, completed its split into three separate companies in April.