XPO Logistics closes $137 million IPO

Less than a week after announcing it increased the size of shares for its IPO from 6,000,000 to 8,000,000 shares to the public at $15.75 per share, non asset-based 3PL XPO Logistics said that effort has resulted in roughly $136.7 million in net proceeds.

The IPO, according to an XPO statement, was comprised of a registered underwritten public offering of 9,200,000 shares of common stock, including 1,200,000 shares issued and sold.

As previously reported in LM, XPO Logistics intends to use the proceeds for general corporate purposes, which may include potential acquisitions.

In February, XPO released its fourth quarter earnings results. Total revenue for the fourth quarter was $44.1 million, with a gross margin of $7.2 million, which were up 6.1 percent and 11.6 percent, respectively. XPO had a quarterly net loss of $1.5 million and an EBITDA loss of $2.1 million, which included $1.2 million in compensation and professional fees related to the hiring of its new executive team and $882,000 of non-cash-share-based compensation.

For its individual units, total revenue at Express-1, its expedited transportation division, was up 10.1 percent at $20.3 million; Concert Group Logistics (CGL), its freight forwarding unit, was down 4.9 percent at $16.8 million, which XPO said was due to lost revenue from larger accounts that more than offset an increase in the number of new customers; and Bounce, its truck brokerage business, was up 27.2 percent at $8.3 million.

In June 2011, XPO CEO and Chairman Bradley S. Jacobs, whom is also an entrepreneur and founder and owner of Jacobs Private Equity LLC,  and a and a group of investors made a $150 million commitment into Express-1 Expedited Solutions, a non-asset-based third party logistics transportation provider, and subsequently re-named the company XPO Logistics.  Around that time, he told LM that he had outlined a detailed vision for XPO and where he wants to take it and the steps he wants to take to make it happen.

These steps include, first and foremost, building a multi-billion dollar transportation brokerage business in the coming years, growing organically and through acquisitions, building a comprehensive IT structure, and getting the right management team in place.

And after the fourth quarter earnings announcement Jacobs said in an interview that XPO is on a solid growth track, opening new offices in various U.S. markets, hiring a proven management and sales team, and getting phase one of its IT development done.
What’s more, he explained that XPO is on track to get to a revenue run rate of about $500 million by the end of this year, which is about 2.5 times of its current size.

With this IPO announcement possibly including some financing for potential acquisition, Jacobs told LM that while XPO is not quite yet ready to announce any transactions he did say the company is in active negotiations with a number of targets.

“Regarding the deals we are focusing on now, they are primarily truck brokerage and they are all highly scalable,” he said. “Scalability is a major characteristic that we are looking to acquire. The [acquisition] pipeline is quite robust, and we are quite excited about the opportunities.”