Intermodal trucking and logistics services provider RoadLink USA said earlier this week it has acquired Transus Intermodal LLC, an Atlanta-based provider of intermodal trucking services to the southern United States.

Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Transus, with $40 million in annual revenues, is comprised of 300 drivers, of which the majority of are owner-operators. The company has 12 service centers located in Atlanta, Ga., Birmingham, Ala.; Charleston, SC; Charlotte, NC; Dalton, Ga; Greensboro, NC; Greenville, SC; Jacksonville, Fl.; Memphis, Tenn.; Nashville, Tenn.; Norfolk, Va.; and Savannah, Ga.

RoadLink USA president and CEO Ron Sorrow told Logistics Management that this acquisition provides the company with a key expansion into the Southern U.S. market that RoadLink’s customers have been asking for.

“Our current customer base has long been telling us that they wanted RoadLink to fill out our national service network by expanding into the very important southern U. S. markets so that we could bring the technology and service benefits being provided across the rest of the U.S. to them in the South,” said Sorrow. “Following the acquisition of RoadLink by Fenway Partners in September 2006, we immediately focused our resources on creating a major RoadLink presence in key intermodal transportation locations in the South.”

Sorrow added that when RoadLink formed in October 2000 through the acquisition and merger of seven major intermodal trucking companies, its operations were concentrated in the Midwest, the Northeast, and the West Coast. He added that the company’s initial priorities were to build service capabilities and truck density within those key intermodal markets, and said RoadLink did this by making several additional acquisitions in this areas and increasing organic expansion in the regions.

Key ports and inland markets in the southern U.S. are seeing major growth as a result of imports and exports into the region, noted Sorrow. And he added that Transus was ideally positioned to provide RoadLink with the broad southern region geographic coverage and the concentration on international traffic RoadLink wanted.

“Our experience has shown us that incremental, organic growth was too slow a process if you wanted to open an entirely new service region, so we decided to make key acquisitions in the South as the foundation for launching this expansion,” explained Sorrow. “In addition to a geographic need to expand to the South, our strategy also included a component to significantly expand RoadLink's participation in international traffic to take advantage of accelerated intermodal transportation growth due to global outsourcing.”