Stampede Transportation LLC of Little Rock is merging with Dallas-based fuel-hauling company American Energy Transport.
Stampede, founded as a bulk fuel-hauling and logistics company in 1999, will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of AET and its parent company, AET Holdings. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
AET was attracted to Stampede because of the territory it covers, said Shawn Bhagat, chairman of AET Holdings. Owning Stampede allows AET to operate in Arkansas, Louisiana and Tennessee along with having customers in Mississippi, Texas and Oklahoma.
“We like the operations. We like the customer base,” Bhagat said. “We were looking for growth geographically. … It’s a good acquisition for us.”
Stampede was interested in the deal because AET has the capital to grow its customer base and improve the technology used by logistics managers and drivers. Management is expected to stay intact and Jeff Johnson, Stampede’s managing partner, said his company is in the process of adding drivers as a result of the merger.
Stampede operates 15 trucks with approximately 25 employees. Johnson said when AET’s merger in Georgia is complete, Stampede will run that operation as well.
“We’re immediately looking to hire and expand our second shift,” Johnson said. “Expansion is definitely on the horizon. Not cutting at this point. We are aggressively going after new customers as we maintain our existing base. We didn’t have the capital to do it before.”
AET Holdings formed in 2012 when AET Distribution merged with Empire Petroleum partners. Bhagat said the company has grown rapidly since and made investing in technology a priority. AET opened with six trucks, is up to 32 now and will “hopefully be over 50 with a couple acquisitions by the end of March.”
Stampede and AET reached a deal in about two months. Both sides said it was a quick, smooth process.
“Once the decision was made, cranking out due diligence and all that stuff with everybody getting undressed in front of each other and checking it all out, it went quick,” Johnson said. “That’s a compliment to his team and mine as well. We didn’t let stuff linger. We went quickly, had a target date and stuck with it. A lot of times those closing dates are a moving target.”
Business, Pages 19 on 03/04/2014