Canadian trucking and logistics company Fastfrate Group has acquired third-party logistics provider ASL Distribution Services in a deal that dramatically expands its cross-border e-commerce business.
Fastfrate announced the acquisition on Tuesday and said it will boost annual revenue by CA$120 million ($94 million) in 2021. The deal adds 13 terminals and final-mile hubs in New York and Ontario, Quebec and Manitoba in Canada.
It comes amid a wave of acquisitions in the Canadian trucking and logistics sector since the start of 2021 – the largest being TFI International’s (NYSE: TFII) $800 million deal to buy UPS Freight. On Friday, cross-border carrier XTL announced its first acquisition in history, buying Quebec temperature-controlled trucking firm Transport Savoie. This came a week after Titanium Transportation Group announced it had acquired International Truckload Services, nearly doubling its size.
Fastfrate said the addition of ASL, which delivers more than 2 million packages per month, opens up new growth opportunities.
“Each company in our group brings its own specialization to complement and strengthen every facet of our customers’ supply chain. This latest addition of ASL not only greatly enhances our ability to serve final-mile and e-commerce segments but allows both Fastfrate and ASL customers to benefit from a greater national network,” Ron Teppe, executive chairman at Fastfrate Group, said in a statement.
Fastfrate Group acquired Bestway in 2020 to expand its cross-border trucking services between the U.S. and Canada. Fastfrate Group now includes Fastfrate, Canada Drayage, Fastfrate Integrated Logistics, Bestway and ASL.
Fastfrate Group offers customers asset-based transportation services including cross-border and intermodal less-than-truckload and truckload, warehousing, over-the-road, drayage and transload, distribution and logistics.
ASL’s management team is reportedly staying with the company. “Our working relationship dates back over 30 years. … We’ve engaged strategically to utilize the skills and capacities of each organization over the last few decades to engineer better logistics solutions for our customers,” Cole Dolny, president and CEO at ASL, said in a statement.
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