Hostile Takeover?

Driver Solutions has told me that USA Truck is hiring from my area. After a google of USA Truck, I see that they are in a bit of financial trouble, and Knight Transportation is has offered to buy them out. USA Truck apparently declined their offer, and implemented some sort of "poison pill" defense to keep Knight at bay. I would prefer to not even consider getting involved with a company having such troubles, but my options are severely limited at this point. Does anyone have any idea what would happen with the drivers if Knight were to be successful in their acquisition of USA Truck?

You would be a Knight driver then. Trucking is not like corporate America and they absorb the drivers. Very little every happens to the drivers during company buy outs. Its not something that is even considered when chosen a company.

Swift just bought Central and all the drivers are still there driving. This is a non issue.

Celadon buys out almost a company per week it seems, they rebrand the trailers, replace the tractors if they are older then a year and a half. The drivers are given the equal position to what they had. I actually was able to get hired because the bought houg out of Denver. I live in Las Vegas and they didn't hire out of that area till recently. As per the usual advice on here apply to several school so your not limiting yourself.

One thing to remember is that almost any company you work for will be rumored to be buying someone out, or be bought out by someone else.

Dave

I've been at Central before the buyout and I'm with them after the buyout. Very little has changed.

My pay is the same. My miles are the same.

We are still only using our trailers, I've never touched a Swift trailer.

The only thing that has changed is that a few terminals/drop yards have closed down.

For example, our small terminal outside of Denver has closed down because Swift has a bigger terminal in Denver. So now we go there instead.

Our drop yard in Stockton, CA no longer works with us. Central cancelled it because Swift has a terminal in Lathrop, CA.

So that's the only changes. Not life changing, nothing to really complain about.

Yeah, these guys buy and sell each other all the time and if it's not that they're getting in and out of bed with each other on logistics companies and if not that they're trying to buy or sell each other or talking about it. It rarely affects the drivers and like Dave said there's always rumors. I'll add: there's always drivers that know more about your company's financial health and their contracts than the accounting department does. Oh the company took a big loss. So-and-so company under cut us on a contract. All our paychecks are going to bounce. They just had to sell 500 trucks to a Mexican carrier just to pay the fuel bill. The sky is falling.

In reality it's just Wall Street big business MBA stuff. It's like all the big banks and insurance companies buying and selling each other. Paper money moving around, losses that aren't really losses like you and I might think of them but tax strategies or stock moves. Big business game of Monopoly only with holding companies and subsidiaries and divisions of added in. When one of the big boys do occasionally go under or sell out another one pounces on it and scoops up all their freight, equipment and drivers and keeps on trucking without missing a beat. To the flock in the field it usually doesn't mean a thing except the logo on the side of the truck and on the pay stub might change. A lot of times that doesn't even change. It IS one of the advantages of going with a larger company versus a small family owned one. The big ones don't go under very often and when they sell out the buyer is another trucking or logistics company and isn't some investment bank looking to liquidate the assets and take a loss so they can write it off on their other holdings like real estate or whatever. With the big boys the buyer WANTS that trucking company's assets (drivers are assets too) so they can expand. The flip side is they do tend to be more corporate, less personal and less flexible. The rules and policies are more carved in stone. But they pay on time, have tons of freight, their checks don't bounce and benefits are less expensive (none of them are cheap since the Healthcare Reform Act took affect but they do tend to be less expensive with the large companies than small ones). Lot of small companies struggle borderline month to month and their financial health may be a legitimate concern, but I wouldn't worry much over the financial health of ANY of the big guys and if one sells to another you most likely won't notice it. I'd look more at what the companies you are interested in are offering you for pay, training, hometime, benefits, equipment - that sort of thing.