AIT Worldwide buys customs broker Multimodal International

Acquisition to expand AIT’s entries volume by more than 10%, company says

· Thursday, June 03, 2021

AIT acquires Multimodal International to expand brokerage footprint (Image: Jim Allen/FreightWaves

Global logistics company AIT Worldwide Logistics said Thursday that it has acquired Multimodal International Ltd., a customs broker that focuses on the processing and clearance of industrial commodities. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

The acquisition is expected to boost Itasca, Illinois-based AIT’s annual customs entries by more than 10% a year to roughly 50,000 entries, AIT said. Elk Grove Village, Illinois-based Multimodal, which has been in business for nearly 40 years, focuses mainly on the automotive, machine tools, metals, electronics and chemicals sectors.

The purchase follows AIT’s 2020 acquisitions of European firms Panther Logistics and Fiege Forwarding, its 2019 purchase of Los Angeles-based Unitrans International Corp. and the 2018 acquisitions of WorldFresh Express and U.K.-based ConneXion World Cargo.

Mark Solomon

Formerly the Executive Editor at DC Velocity, Mark Solomon joined FreightWaves as Managing Editor of Freight Markets. Solomon began his journalistic career in 1982 at Traffic World magazine, ran his own public relations firm (Media Based Solutions) from 1994 to 2008, and has been at DC Velocity since then. Over the course of his career, Solomon has covered nearly the whole gamut of the transportation and logistics industry, including trucking, railroads, maritime, 3PLs, and regulatory issues. Solomon witnessed and narrated the rise of Amazon and XPO Logistics and the shift of the U.S. Postal Service from a mail-focused service to parcel, as well as the exponential, e-commerce-driven growth of warehouse square footage and omnichannel fulfillment.