Sales Spree Continues; Freightquote Sold to Minnesota Company

Freightquote, one of the Kansas City region’s entrepreneurial shining stars for the past 15 years, is about to get a new owner: C.H. Robinson, based in Eden Prairie, Minn., has announced that it will acquire Freightquote for $365 million.

Pending approval from regulators, the deal would likely close in the first quarter of 2015, the buyer said in a news release. Freightquote was founded in 1999 by Tim Barton, who gave up his CEO duties a year ago but continued as chairman. He built the company from start-up into one of the nation’s largest internet-based freight brokers, offering truckload, less than truckload and intermodal services to  80,000 customers. The firm currently has about 1,000 employees and an estimated $623 million in revenues.

It’s the fourth major sale of a fast-growing Kansas City company in recent months, following the sales of MedTrak Services, the pharmaceutical-benefits program manager; SFP, which specializes in specialty fertilizers and treatments for the agricultural sector; and a merger involving FishNet Security, the digital security company.

“Freightquote is a high quality, innovative, growth company that brings a proven model serving smaller businesses,” said John Wiehoff, C.H. Robinson chairman and chief executive officer. “E-commerce is going to be a bigger part of future supply chain services and Freightquote brings us a leading solution in our industry.”

Barton will serve as a consultant to Robinson after the deal is complete, but the news release offered no specifics about how the acquisition might affect employees at Freightquote’s south Kansas City headquarters, a $44 million building that opened just last year.

C.H. Robinson was founded in 1905 and is one of the largest non-asset based third-party logistics companies in the world. It boasts more than 46,000 customers and 280 offices in North America, South America, Europe, and Asia.