ORLANDO, Florida — With the acquisition of APC Logistics nearly complete, C.H. Robinson Worldwide is living up to its name, increasingly looking overseas for new routes to global markets. The APC acquisition gives the $13.5 billion company a bigger presence in Australia and ports such as Napier, New Zealand. At the same time, the largest US logistics provider is pushing boundaries in Europe, naming a new transportation operations director and opening shop in Slovakia.
At $225 million, the APC Logistics buyout is the largest acquisition by C.H. Robinson since the $635 million acquisition of Phoenix International in 2012.
“We’re primarily a North American company that has been expanding in Europe and Asia,” Chairman and CEO John Wiehoff told JOC.com Tuesday. “We think we can extend our global presence and global network into other parts of the world, deeper into Asia and deeper into Eastern Europe. It’s a key part of our growth strategy and has been for 20 years.”
C.H. Robinson, with roots in the US produce and truckload markets stretching back to 1905, has been building international business for decades, but its 2012 acquisition of Phoenix International gave the Minneapolis-based non-asset transport operator a serious boost.
“That resulted in an approximate doubling of our (ocean container) volumes” post-acquisition, Wiehoff said in an interview at the 2016 Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals conference here. “We’ve had double-digit growth over the last four years, and we’re now north of half a million TEUs [20-foot-equivalent units] in the [non-vessel-operating common carrier] business,” he said.