GlobalTranz continues
its rapid expansion, announcing the acquisition of Cerasis on Thursday. It is
the 11th acquisition for the fast-growing third-party logistics (3PL) and
technology solutions company since January 2017.
GlobalTranz CEO Renee
Krug said that acquiring Cerasis will benefit the company as it builds out its managed
transportation business. GlobalTranz is already among the 10 largest brokerages
in the country.
“Cerasis has a strong
history of providing its customers with solutions that help create competitive
and operative advantages,” Krug said in a statement. “Cerasis will help expand
GlobalTranz’s growing managed transportation, final mile and reverse logistics
capabilities. The talented team at Cerasis combined with the talented team of
agents and employees at GlobalTranz will drive increased differentiation and
accelerate growth of our solutions in the marketplace.”
Cerasis’ management will
remain in place and customers will receive the service they have been
accustomed to from Cerasis, Adam Robinson, marketing manager for Cerasis, told
FreightWaves.
“They can expect
business as usual as a Cerasis customer. The same great vendor and inbound
management team, the same freight claims and invoice auditing services teams,
as well as the excellent technology with our TMS,” Robinson said. “The carrier
relations team will still be in place to help secure the best pricing for our
shipper customers.”
Cerasis takes a
technology-focused approach to managed transportation and third-party
multimodal logistics service offerings. It has its own technology suite,
including the Cerasis Rater, its proprietary transportation management system
(TMS). Cerasis, founded in 1997, has grown to offer 3PL and 4PL solutions for
customers in the less-than-truckload, truckload, parcel, and carrier relations
spaces.
“Since the founding of
our business in 1997, Cerasis has helped customers understand fragmented
shipping data to manage costs and make logistics a strategic weapon,” said
Steve Ludvigson, president of Cerasis.
“We have made
transportation management less complicated by bringing together the right
people, processes and technology,” Steve Norall, vice president of business
development at Cerasis, said. “Combining with GlobalTranz allows us to continue
this history while providing our customers with increased service offerings and
access to capacity. I am excited to write the next chapters of the Cerasis
story with GlobalTranz.”
The acquisition will
strengthen the offerings available to Cerasis customers.
“This will improve our
ability to provide stronger LTL and full truckload rates and more options on
the full truckload side,” Robinson noted. “It will also provide more
opportunity for Cerasis employees. Cerasis is strong on the LTL side and with
the GlobalTranz full truckload prowess, in addition to both companies’
technology, it will be a huge win for each of our customer bases.”
Cerasis maintains its
corporate headquarters in Eagan, Minnesota, with additional office locations in
Dallas, Houston and Tulsa, Oklahoma.
GlobalTranz’s network
now includes more than 34,000 carriers and 25,000 customers.
In November, GlobalTranz
was again named to FreightWaves’ FreighTech 100 of the nation’s most innovative
companies. In 2019, GlobalTranz introduced the GTZcommand transportation
management system (TMS) and the next-generation digital
freight matching solution, GTZamp.
In October, GlobalTranz
announced the acquisition
of Global Freight Solutions, a Chicago-based
brokerage. That followed the spring announcement of Circle 8
Logistics being acquired. Also
based in Chicago, Circle 8 is a third-party logistics provider brokering
truckload, flatbed, intermodal, temperature-controlled and less-than-truckload
(LTL) capacity.
