XPO sheds seven Con-way terminals

Since XPO’s acquisition of Con-way in October 2015, XPO has decided to keep the truckload shipping business unit, which had been for sale, according to a recent report from the Wall Street Journal. Con-way mainly operated less-than-truckload (LTL) service, where it would combine orders from multiple customers in each truck, rather than haul full loads for a single customer.

However, XPO closed seven of the Con-way terminals that came with the deal and laid off about 200 back-office employees. XPO’s CEO, Bradley Jacobs, said he thinks he can improve the truckload shipping service by integrating it and bringing in lots of new customers from XPO’s other service lines, such as air cargo.

XPO acquired Con-way for US$3 billion cash, not long after buying French trucker, Norbert Dentressangle, for $3.5 billion. The Con-way deal was XPO’s biggest leap into owning and operating a fleet of trucks. Before acquiring Con-Way and Norbert Dentressangle, XPO was non-asset based, but now it has a fleet of approximately 7,700 owned trucks, 3,200 trucks contracted through owner-operators and access to an additional 12,000 independent carriers.

Cross-selling its various services is a strategy Jacobs plans to use to increase revenue at XPO. Jacobs hired Tony Brooks to lead the Con-way LTL unit. “Now we’re going to go full force on decreasing our empty miles and building on those 10,000 customer relationships we already have,” Jacobs said.