Roadrunner Scores Fresh Investment, Eyes Deals
Investors are buying out activist Elliott Investment Management and plotting a course for the less-than-truckload carrier to expand
An investment vehicle co-led by the head of Roadrunner Transportation Systems is buying most of an activist’s stake and returning the trucker to the mergers and acquisitions game that hobbled it a decade ago.
Chris Jamroz, Roadrunner’s executive chairman and chief executive, is teaming up with Milwaukee investor Ted Kellner to take a more than 80% stake in the carrier that will reduce activist Elliott Investment Management to a minority shareholder.
“We’re putting additional fresh capital on the balance sheet,” Jamroz said, and “starting to hunt for M&A targets.”
Jamroz declined to specify the size of the deal, which closed Thursday, or how much money is on the balance sheet beyond saying the figure totaled “tens of millions” of dollars.
Jamroz said that he and Kellner will control the Downers Grove, Ill.-based carrier through Prospero Staff Capital, an investment vehicle owned by Jamroz’s investment company LyonIX Holdings. Elliott will retain a minority stake.