Two longtime Miami companies that started as small family-owned businesses joined forces Monday, when transportation and logistics giant Ryder System Inc. agreed to buy Gator Leasing Inc., the state’s largest independent trucking company.
Ryder is acquiring Gator Leasing’s assets, including its 2,300 vehicles, 300 contract customers and nine locations in Florida. The Gator name will disappear, but it is expected its employees will continue to work for Ryder. Terms of the deal, expected to close in May, were not disclosed.
“They are such a great company with a strong customer service orientation. We’re just pleased they thought about us,” Ryder CEO Greg Swienton said. “It gives us a little bit more presence.”
Swienton said Ryder can offer Gator’s customers added logistics opportunities and a network beyond Florida.
Gator was founded as a three-truck fleet in Hialeah by George Hammel in 1975. After Hammel died in 1982, his sons, Jim and John, directed the company’s growth northward.
Ryder was started in Miami in 1933 by James A. Ryder with the company’s first truck, a 1931 Model A Ford. The company, which went public in the 1950s, now has 165,000 vehicles, Swienton said. It leases and maintains vehicles for commercial customers. At the end of 2007, it had a profit of $254 million on revenues of $6.6 billion.
Jim Hammel, Gator Leasing president, said after 33 years in business it was time for he and his brother to move onto other pursuits. He said they began looking for buyers about a year ago and liked that Ryder was Miami-based and offered an opportunity to keep their 220 employees statewide.
“Of the companies we talked to, Ryder has a very strong presence in the marketplace, is known for good services and we feel our customers will be well taken care of,” said Hammel, who plans to buy an expedition boat and “circumnavigate the globe.”
The Hammels will keep the Doral headquarters for other unspecified use.
The deal is Ryder’s third acquisition in six months. The company bought Pollock NationaLease, a privately owned trucking company with 2,000 vehicles, six locations and 200 contract customers in Canada, for about $75 million in October.
In January, the company closed on its purchase of Lily Transportation Corp., a Massachusetts truck leasing, rental and maintenance company with 1,500 lease units and 240 contract customers, for about $91 million.
David P. Campbell, an analyst at research firm Thompson, Davis & Co., in Richmond, Va., said without the terms of the deal, it’s hard to analyze the move.
But he called it “strategic” and in keeping with Ryder’s other acquisitions.
Ryder shares rose $1.57 to close at $62.18 on the New York Stock Exchange.
Sarah Talalay can be reached at stalalay@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4173.
