FreightWaves Today | October 6

Craig Fuller (0:25)

Welcome to FreightWaves Today, I'm Craig Fuller here. It is Tuesday, Julie, big news yesterday, big day.

Julie (0:32)

Big day, talking about the CH. Robinson acquiring RXO. We'll get to talk about it a little bit more today when we have on Chris Wofford, who is founder and managing partner of Wofford Advisors, which is really a boutique firm who specializes in M&A in the freight industry. So that'll be great to dig into the details a little bit more with him.

We also have the co-founder and CEO, Michael Kanko of ImportGenius, who we're going to talk to about what's happening in the freight market regarding what's actually moving on containers and coming into the US. So it should be a great show.

Craig Fuller (1:11)

Yeah. Michael's got a lot of data on import activity, which importers are coming, what skews are moving.

Be able to get really an understanding of this whole trade war that's been going on and really what that means for the overall market. But again, a lot of the attentions on the CH. Robinson transaction, RXO, what does this mean for the industry? A lot of conversation last night about it.

Julie (1:37)

Yeah. Did anything interesting that came up that you haven't really read about yet?

Craig Fuller (1:39)

No, I think everyone's business is going to set off, and we talked to this yesterday, as a whole series of transactions that are going to continue to happen.

It's going to create more M&A pressure opportunities. I'm sure Chris will get up to this in the show. But let's get into the headlines because a lot's going on.

Julie (2:00)

Major leadership overhaul at STG Logistics, where the asset-based intermodal marketing company has installed a new CEO fresh off its massive financial restructuring. Jack Holmes, who spent 37 years with UPS, including serving as president and CEO of UPS Freight before retiring in 2016, took over as CEO effective immediately. He succeeds Jeff Anderman, who successfully navigated the company through a Chapter 11 restructuring that slashed STG's funded debt by a staggering 90 percent. The company entered a prepackaged Chapter 11 agreement back in January, and under the recapitalization plan, reduced funded debt by nearly $1 billion while securing $150 million in new capital from a group of investors including Fortress, Fidelity, and Invesco. STG also appointed Gary Enzor as Chairman, who previously led Quality Distribution, North America's largest liquid bulk chemical trucking network from 2004 up to the 2021 sale of the business to CSX.

Over in Washington, truckers responding to regional emergencies just got some major regulatory relief. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration published a final rule Monday that doubles the length of automatic hours of service exemptions available to drivers providing direct assistance during certain declared emergencies. The rule, which took effect immediately, restores the automatic exemption period from 14 days back to 30 days, following a regional emergency declaration by a state governor, a governor's authorized representative, or FMCSA itself. This reverses a 2023 change that had shortened the window to just two weeks. FMCSA said returning to the longer period should drastically reduce administrative burdens associated with seeking extensions when disaster recovery operations stretch beyond two weeks, and the agency estimates the change will cut annual extension requests from about 50 down to 25

Finally, Class 8 truck orders are climbing as fleets navigate a murky regulatory landscape heading into the 2027 model year. Preliminary net orders totaled 21,300 units in September, marking an 18% increase from August and 3% higher than the same month last year, according to FTR Transportation Intelligence. Year-to-date orders have surged to 263,499 units through September, up a massive 95% compared with the same period in 2025 However, the market is facing significant uncertainty as truck and engine manufacturers make different approaches to complying with upcoming EPA nitrogen oxide emissions requirements, including whether to use non-conformance penalties. FTR estimates NCPs could result in a $6,000 to $7,000 pass-through cost to fleets for a Class 8 truck, compared with an estimated $8,000 to $12,000 upcharge for an engine that fully complies with the new emissions requirements. All right, so it sounds like basically a totally new leadership team at STG.

New CEO, Jack Holmes, prior from UPS, right? New interim CFO, new interim general counsel, and new chairman.

Craig Fuller (5:15)

Yeah, I mean, it came from bankruptcy. It is not unusual. I mean, Jeff, who has been on the show twice, was the CFO of STG during and post-bankruptcy, he became the CEO.

I think it's unusual for the company to want a fresh start. I mean, when you're involved in a bankruptcy, you're having to make a lot of unpopular decisions. It probably impacted his relationship with some of the employees. I mean, you're having to do a lot of things to restructure the business. And that's hard. And it's hard to gain back that trust and support when you sort of recover from these things. And so I don't think it's shocking. Jack Holmes is also on the board of Emerge. And so he's got some industry experience beyond just UPS.