Iconic Freight Forwarding and Road Haulage Group Changes Hands

US – As predicted freight brokerage firm XPO Logistics has officially acquired North American road haulage group Con-way in a deal worth $3 billion, a price some investors in the trucking giant thought was under its market value leading to a shareholder filing a lawsuit to halt the takeover. This deal also sees the start of a major rebranding with all of the acquired operations - Con-way Freight, Con-way Truckload, Con-way Multimodal and the freight forwarding arm, Menlo Logistics, now operating under the single global brand of XPO Logistics.

Having hoovered up another trucking giant, Norbert Dentressangle earlier this year, XPO believes that the transaction will propel its brand to become the second largest less-than-truckload (LTL) provider in North America. Following its acceptance of the tendered shares, XPO completed its acquisition of Con-way without a vote of Con-way's stockholders pursuant to Section 251(h) of the Delaware General Corporation Law. Bradley Jacobs, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of XPO Logistics, said:

"We have an unprecedented opportunity to create value for our customers and investors as a result of the Con-way transaction. We're moving quickly to eliminate redundancies and leverage our scale to better serve our more than 50,000 customers."

In connection with the lawsuit, the plaintiff alleges that the defendants breached their fiduciary duties owed to stockholders by agreeing to sell Con-way too cheaply via an unfair process. According to the plaintiff, at least one analyst set the high price for the shares at $59 per share. The plaintiff also evidences the rising total revenues Con-way has posted over the past few years with 2014 reporting $5.8 billion in total revenue.