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New auto-hauling fleet finds ‘early wins’ integrating acquisitions

June 20, 2024

A month after going public and buying five regional companies, the auto hauler fleet's early results include profits and nearly a half million vehicles delivered in three months.

Geert De Lombaerde

After the bright lights of the Nasdaq Stock Exchange come the nitty-gritty of execution.

Rick O’Dell, CEO of newly public Proficient Auto Logistics Inc., told analysts and investors June 18 that his team is scoring some early wins in integrating the handful of auto haulers it acquired about a month ago. This includes a new fuel purchasing deal that will save the company $3 million annually and the beginnings of a more sophisticated pricing system that should boost margins over time.

In mid-May, Jacksonville-based Proficient completed its initial public offering of stock and acquired five regional haulers for a combined $180 million. The first-quarter results its leaders reported this week—a $6.5 million operating profit on nearly $96 million in revenue less fuel surcharges—reflect the unaudited amalgamation of those five firms’ business in the three months ended March 31.

O’Dell, with president and COO Randy Banks, said on a conference call that Proficient’s business started the year relatively slowly due to the after-effects olast fall'she United Auto Workers strill. But volume picked up nicely in the subsequent months, and second-quarter shipments to date are up about 10% from Q1 levels. Contributing to that, O’Dell said, are the nine net new contracts with original equipment manufacturers signed year to date.

In all, the businesses now under Proficient’s umbrella delivered about 460,000 vehicles in the first three months of this year.

In addition to savings from the new fuel contract, O’Dell said another integration priority for the coming quarters is reducing the number of miles Proficient’s trucks drive without carrying vehicles. On top of that, his team is focusing on improving the overall efficiency of its acquired businesses, much of it via various technologies.

“We’re lacking a little bit of sophistication in some of the founding companies with our pricing analytics,” O’Dell said on a conference call. “It will be a really nice enhancement.”

Shares of Proficient (Ticker: PAL), priced at $15 for the company’s IPO, rose more than 1% to $15.25 on the heels of the earnings report. That move grew the company’s market capitalization to nearly $370 million.

About the Author

Geert De Lombaerde | Senior Editor

A native of Belgium, Geert De Lombaerde has more than two decades of experience in business journalism. Since 2021, he has written about markets and economic trends for Endeavor Business Media publications FleetOwner, Healthcare Innovation, IndustryWeek, Oil & Gas Journal, and T&D World.

With a degree in journalism from the University of Missouri, he began his reporting career at the Business Courier in Cincinnati. He later was managing editor and editor of the Nashville Business Journal. Most recently, he oversaw the online and print products of the Nashville Post and reported primarily on Middle Tennessee’s finance sector and many of its publicly traded companies.