C.H. Robinson Worldwide to Acquire Phoenix International

C.H. Robinson Worldwide to acquire Phoenix International for $571.5 million in cash & about $63.5 million in newly-issued C.H. Robinson stock.

Founded in 1905, C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Inc., is a global provider of multimodal transportation services and logistics solutions, serving over 37,000 customers through a network of 234 offices in North America, Europe, Asia, South America, and Australia.

Phoenix,  headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, is a privately-held international freight forwarder. In its most recently completed fiscal year, as of June 30, 2012, Phoenix generated gross revenues of approximately $807 million, net revenues of approximately $161 million and adjusted operating income of approximately $48 million.

Phoenix primarily provides international freight forwarding services, including ocean, air, and customs brokerage, currently serving approximately 15,000 customers globally, having approximately 2,000 employees, located in 76 offices in 15 countries.

“Phoenix is a high quality growth company that brings additional expertise and scale to a key part of our long term growth strategy,” said John Wiehoff, C.H. Robinson chairman and chief executive officer. “Along with their proven track record of success, Phoenix has strong customer and carrier relationships, a talented management team and excellent people, and a performance-based company culture that is very similar to Robinson’s.”

Wiehoff continued, “We see significant long-term opportunity in international forwarding as global trade expands, scale and technology continue to become more important, and shippers increasingly look to transportation providers to provide global services. Together, Robinson and Phoenix will be in a strong competitive position to capitalize on those growth opportunities and continue expanding our market share.”