Page 21 - ATR 4 2013

For Sale by owner

An acquisition expert speaks frankly about buying trucking companies

by Todd Traub

Contributing Writer

How do you place a dollar value on
a lifetime of blood, sweat and tears?
How do you tell someone who has
spent his best years building a success-
ful family business that his decades of
sacrifice ultimately mean little, or noth-
ing, to the bottom line?
The Great Recession of 2008 –
2010 may be in the rear view mirror,
but uncertain economic times continue,
and the trucking industry is as suscep-
tible to the financial ups and downs as
any other. This cyclical nature, coupled
with a looming generational change as
many of trucking’s entrepreneurs of the
1980s now look for a financial exit, are
signaling a big change in the industry’s
ownership and structure.
Trucking company owners looking
to sell and buyers looking to become
owners must be aware of a number
of hard realities these days when they
decide to take the plunge. Emotions
have to be locked down and stark, eye-
opening facts and figures have to be
examined before deals are signed and “the uNfortuNate thiNg is Not eVerybody
keys change hands.
Throw in the variables and intan- has somethiNg to sell.”
gibles — natural disasters, regulations, —aNdy aherN, aherN & assoCiates
spikes in fuel prices — that can affect
a company’s income and outgo and it
becomes clear that both sellers and buy-
ers need to be as well informed as they
possibly can to make a deal work out to Phoenix, Arizona. “There is a tremendous amount of
their satisfaction. Ahern makes it his business to put consolidation,” Ahern said of today’s
“It’s a process. And it’s a process sellers and buyers together, working to trucking industry. “Large companies are
that deals a lot with human emotion,” give clients a clear understanding of getting larger and smaller companies
said Andy Ahern, founder and CEO of a company’s value and what a buyer are having a harder time surviving. It’s
the transportation consulting manage- or seller gets into when they decide to
ment firm Ahern & Associates Ltd. in make a move. 

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