Bison Transport adds Hartt to herd

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This article was published 05/01/2022 (1386 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Bison Transport doubled the size of its U.S operations this week with the acquisition of Hartt Transportation Systems out of Bangor, Maine.

With the logistics industry in upheaval and the importance of the stability of the trucking industry in North America emphasized during the pandemic, Bison Transport is making a move to become a significant player in the U.S.

Rob Penner, Bison’s CEO, said the company released a five-year plan a year ago stating its intention to reach $500 million in revenue in the U.S. in five years.

“We’re now well along that path,” he said.

Hartt operates up and down the eastern seaboard with 360 tractors (as well as 160 independent operators working exclusively with Hartt) and 2,100 trailers.

In the past decade or so, Bison has acquired medium-sized firms in the U.S. — Britton Transport in Grand Forks, N.D. and W.O. Wolding out of Amherst, Wis. — and as of Jan. 1 those two operations have been combined and operate as Bison USA.

Penner said Hartt will continue to run as its own brand for the foreseeable future but it will mean the Bison group of companies in the U.S. will now be large enough for the company to conduct business as a Tier 1 carrier, which means it will be large enough to be able to bid on business from the largest companies in the U.S.

In Canada, Bison is the sixth-largest trucking company in the country according to Today’s Trucking magazine with close to 2,000 tractors and 5,100 trailers.

In the U.S. it’s in the top 50, but more than 10 of the largest firms have revenue in the billions of dollars.

It has been a busy year and a half for Bison.

Exactly one year ago it was acquired by James Richardson & Sons Ltd. and Penner said the choppy uncertainty of everything that went on in 2021 presented a significant number of challenges for the company, but that it performed well.

“Shipping volumes are not steady, there was a huge demand in the fourth quarter even though there were lots of industries that were shutting down,” he said.

But the company’s desire to beef up its U.S. presence comes at a key moment with cross-border logistics still rocky.

“One of the things that has really hit our industry hard is the cross-border vaccination mandate,” Penner said. “There are virtually no Americans coming up here these days with as busy as their marketplace is. That will take more supply out.”

Penner said the support and resources from James Richardson & Sons was helpful doing a deal like Hartt Transportation, but he said Bison would have done it in any case and he said the company is looking to do a couple more of similar size.

Penner said, “There is a fair bit of consolidation going in the industry right now.”

In an interview, Jeffrey Castonguay, president and CEO of Hartt Transportation, said the company had many interested suitors but the family-owned, safety-conscious corporate culture of Bison fit with that of Hartt’s.

He said Bison’s intention to aggressively grow Hartt’s business was also encouraging.

“Mr. Hartt (William Hartt, the former owner) always wanted to grow but not to the extent Bison is hoping to do,” Castonguay said. “We’re chomping at the bit to get into the game with them. Absolutely.”

Bison has experience with this sort of dynamic when it acquired Wolding in 2019.

“It was very similar to Wolding… family-owned, big enough but not growing,” Penner said. “Hartt is very well managed, but we will put it back in growth mode and that is exciting to their people.”

The deal, coming as it does one year after Richardson acquired Bison, is an indication that Bison is not going to be subjected to the same fate of many other large Manitoba trucking firms over the past couple of decades that have been sold off to other larger firms.

Aaron Dolyniuk the general manager of Manitoba Trucking Association, said the industry is proud is have a big, successful firm like Bison that is Manitoba-based and Manitoba-owned.

“This (Bison’s acquisition of Hartt) is going against the grain,” he said. “The trend in the last number of years has been the opposite — big local companies sold out to other companies in other parts of Canada and the U.S.”

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca