Family-owned Bangor trucking company sold to Canadian conglomerate
File Photo / Tim Greenway
Billy Hartt, president of Hartt Transportation, is shown here in a 2012 file photo.
Hartt Transportation Systems Inc., a 74-year-old family-owned trucking business in Bangor, has sold to a Canadian conglomerate with energy and agriculture operations worldwide.
James Richardson & Sons Ltd. and subsidiary Bison Transport, both based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, purchased Hartt in a deal that closed Dec. 31, according to a news release. Terms were not disclosed.
Hartt operates over 360 tractors and 2,100 trailers, as well as logistics services, and is one of the largest truckload carriers in the Northeast, the release said. The company was founded in 1948 by Delmont E. Hartt and then owned by his son, outgoing President and CEO Billy Hartt.
Richardson & Sons would not say if it plans any changes at the Maine carrier, which has terminals in Auburn and Sumter, S.C., in addition to the Bangor headquarters. The privately held buyer sees a good fit between Hartt and the Bison trucking business, which Richardson & Sons purchased a year ago.
“We are pleased to see Bison continue to grow its existing businesses and by making this significant U.S. acquisition of a company that shares the same values as both Bison and JRSL,” said Richardson & Sons Executive Chair, President and CEO Hartley T. Richardson.
Bison employs 3,700 drivers and staff with a network of terminals throughout North America. The company's fleet numbers 2,100 tractors and 6,000 trailers.
Billy Hartt said, “I am excited for my employees to become part of the Bison family, as we share similar core values and cultures. I am certain that, with the merger of Hartt’s and Bison’s teams, they will produce amazing results and become an even stronger carrier for the future.”
Hartt Transportation had revenues of $121 million in 2011, when Mainebiz profiled the company. It employed nearly 600 people at the time.
Back then, Maine’s 4,760 trucking companies moved 90% of the manufactured freight tonnage within the state, according to the Maine Motor Transport Association. By 2020, the number of companies in the state had grown to 5,300, carrying 98.7% of Maine’s manufactured freight.
The growth and fragmentation of the industry make it ripe for acquisition, according to some experts.
“Since the middle of 2020, North American trucking companies have been being bought at an astonishing rate,” reported the Americal Journal of Transportation last month. “Call it a sell-off, an industry consolidation or simply a pay day for trucking companies surviving COVID-19, the end result is the trucking industry is being reshaped and reshaped quickly.”
Richardson & Sons owns and operates a wide variety of businesses in Canada, the U.S. and the United Kingdom. Most are in the energy and agriculture sectors, and the company’s holdings include such well-known brands as Wesson cooking oil.
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