Anacostia, BBHCP Form Precision Terminal Logistics
Written by William C. Vantuono, Editor-in-Chief
Anacostia Rail Holdings Co. (ARH) and Brown Brothers Harriman Capital Partners (BBHCP) on Sept. 23 announced the formation of Precision Terminal Logistics (PTL), a jointly owned entity that will operate, build and acquire transloading terminals across the U.S.
PTL, which has acquired select assets from Arrow Material Services, LLC, a provider of transloading and related services, will operate from a headquarters in the Pittsburgh, Pa., area, with 23 terminals and facilities in 15 states. PTL’s terminals will provide materials handling, logistics services, transloading, secure bulk commodity storage and facility construction. PTL has appointed Ray Nixon as its CEO; he brings more than 20 years of transloading experience to the new company.
“While PTL will operate independently, it will leverage the relationships of both ARH and BBHCP to grow its presence and services,” the company said. BBHCP’s investment was made through the BBH Capital Partners Opportunities Fund, L.P. (CP Opportunities Fund), which closed in 2018 with committed capital of $250 million.
“This is a unique opportunity to bring together quality operating experience with Anacostia/Brown Brothers Harriman strategic insight and market knowledge,” said ARH CEO Peter Gilbertson. “We’re excited to collaborate with BBH on PTL and we believe this will be a successful strategic and financial relationship.”
“The PTL team is delighted to partner with ARH and BBHCP, and we believe that this new company has an exciting opportunity in front of it,” said Nixon. “ARH and BBHCP were instrumental in forming an acquisition strategy to purchase these assets, and our collective experience will enable PTL to be particularly effective at providing creative solutions to transportation companies and end-user facilities.”
“The formation of PTL represents an opportunity for us to acquire a series of established assets with a partner that brings strategic and operational capabilities through its deep market knowledge and relationships throughout the rail and transload industries,” said Donald Hardie, BBH Managing Director and Co-Manager of CP Opportunities Fund.
Jeffrey Price, BBH Senior Vice President and CP Opportunities Fund Co-Manager added, “BBH and ARH are two firms with longstanding ties to the railroad industry. This invaluable network of relationships and institutional knowledge will be instrumental in PTL’s future growth.”
BBHCP describes itself as “a private equity strategy of Brown Brothers Harriman that provides friendly capital solutions to growth-oriented middle-market companies. Our flexible investment mandate gives us the ability to act as a control or non-control investor and to structure our investments as a combination of equity and subordinated debt securities as needed. BBHCP typically invests between $10 million and $125 million per platform investment, and our capital is used to support a variety of transactions, including management or leveraged buyouts, growth financings, recapitalizations (including dividend recapitalizations), buy-and-build strategies and acquisitions.”
ARH is a privately held holding company that owns and operates freight railroads throughout the U.S. Combined, ARH’s six owned railroads handle the equivalent of more than one million carloads annually. ARH provides freight services to major metropolitan centers and smaller communities on more than 600 miles of track.
