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TFI grabs another asset, buys Ontario’s Keith Hall & Sons

John Kingston
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In the earnings call last week for TFI International, Alain Bédard, the company’s chairman, president and CEO said when the company restarted acquisitions, “we’re going to start with small tuck-ins.”

On Friday, TFI did just that, acquiring Keith Hall & Sons Transport of Ontario. The price was not disclosed.

In the prepared statement announcing the acquisition, TFI described Keith Hall as “hauling liquid and dry foods and general freight across North America.” It had started as a milk hauler. 

The company had been family-owned.


Annual revenue at KHS is approximately C$30 million, which equates to US $22.3 million. It has more than 100 full-time drivers and about 20 part-time company drivers and owner-operators. 

The fleet has almost 120 tractors and more than 200 trailers, according to the prepared statement. The trailers include tanks, vans and reefers.

“KHS hauls similar products to our various tank companies and we expect to create significant synergies.” Bedard said in the statement. “As our third acquisition within specialized Truckload this year, KHS is another strategic addition to the growing TFI family of operating companies and we are pleased that KHS and its team continue their rapid growth as part of our organization.”

Despite Bedard’s discussion about “restarting” acquisitions, TFI never really stopped. In June, it acquired Gusgo, which is involved in container transportation and storage. The price of that acquisition was not disclosed, but in the conference call, Bedard called it a $3 million company.


TFI also picked up two companies out of the ongoing Comcar bankruptcy: flatbed operator CT Transportation for $15 million and reefer and van company MC Transport for roughly $12.6 million total in two related transactions. 

KHS will be placed in TFI’s specialized segment within its Truckload division. There are more than 30 companies in that segment.

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John Kingston

John has an almost 40-year career covering commodities, most of the time at S&P Global Platts. He created the Dated Brent benchmark, now the world’s most important crude oil marker. He was Director of Oil, Director of News, the editor in chief of Platts Oilgram News and the “talking head” for Platts on numerous media outlets, including CNBC, Fox Business and Canada’s BNN. He covered metals before joining Platts and then spent a year running Platts’ metals business as well. He was awarded the International Association of Energy Economics Award for Excellence in Written Journalism in 2015. In 2010, he won two Corporate Achievement Awards from McGraw-Hill, an extremely rare accomplishment, one for steering coverage of the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster and the other for the launch of a public affairs television show, Platts Energy Week.