Pilot Freight Services announces acquisition of Manna Freight Systems

In an effort to expand its last-mile delivery services, Lima, Penn.-based 3PL services provider Pilot Freight Services said this week it has acquired Manna Freight Systems, a Mendota Heights, Minn.-based provider of last-mile logistics services.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Pilot officials said this acquisition is a strategic move to “create unparalleled final mile service for furniture and appliance delivery with installation capabilities. And the company added that Pilot plans to leverage Manna’s network, technology solutions and expertise in final mile delivery in the heavy and hard to handle (“H3D”) category to supplement the company’s existing strength in full mile service for its vast number of e-commerce customers. Pilot has offered last mile services for 20 years.

“Manna complements our existing strengths with additional expertise, services and tech solutions,” said Gordon Branov, CEO of Pilot Freight Services, in a statement. “Just as importantly, when the passion and strengths of Manna and Pilot employees unite, an incredibly exciting future will stand before us as one company.”

Pilot president and CCO John Hill told LM there were a few different reasons factoring into this acquisition.

“We are really bigger than Manna for the full mile e-commerce solution, meaning pick up at a DC, line haul, and the final mile,” he said. “We have been testing the final mile only piece, mostly with furniture. Manna is already in that space, and they do it well today so we felt we did not want to keep building it and testing it ourselves, when we could kind of leapfrog that [with this deal]. Some of our customers that offer a full mile solution are moving towards last mile only, and this gives us immediate access to that right now.”

Hill said that Pilot feels the two main growth areas in the heavy bulk last mile arena are appliances and furniture, which is a space in which Manna excels for final mile delivery and appliance hook up for things like dishwashers and washing machines.

“Manna has some inventive solutions, where they will be delivering directly from the customer’s dock for 150 miles out; we did not do that,” explained Hill. “That was not part of our core competency. We felt that with our customer base and our profile in the business, with the other areas we are in, it would give us easier access by acquiring Manna and its expertise in that area.”

Acquiring Manna enables Pilot to provide “full” solutions to customers, said Hill.

“It is not like we can play in just one aspect of the business,” he said. “If you look at a company bringing in furniture, it can do it via ocean with Pilot into a warehouse, then do the line haul for them into a DC, whether it is the customer’s DC or a Pilot DC, and then do the final mile delivery,” he noted. “We really now have an end solution with this, and this is another aspect that we feel can help us in the market.”

The entire Manna team will become Pilot employees, and Hill said Manna is non asset-based and uses a fair amount of independent contractors. He added that the combined company will have a run rate of around $800 million.

With this deal, Pilot said its domestic mile footprint from 71 to 83 locations, which, it said, will enable greater coverage of its growing customer base.