Plastic returnable packaging specialist ORBIS Corp. has agreed to acquire the North American material handling business of LINPAC Group Ltd. of Birmingham, England. The acquired LINPAC business manufactures bulk containers and pallets used in automotive, food, beverage and general industrial applications. Included in the purchase are manufacturing facilities in Georgetown and Bardstown, Ky. The transaction also includes LINPAC's sales, engineering and testing capabilities in Shanghai, China. ... Con-way Inc. has renamed its Con-way Transportation company Con-way Truckload Services Inc. to align its truckload asset-based business with its non-asset truckload brokerage and intermodal marketing operation (previously called Con-way Full Load). The two will now operate under the Truckload Services banner. ... National Distribution Centers, a New Jersey-based third-party warehouse operator, has purchased the assets of Crum and Crum. As part of the deal, NDC will acquire two distribution facilities totaling nearly a million square feet in West Sacramento, Calif., and Hebron, Ky. ... Hytrol Conveyor Co. is offering a comprehensive guarantee for on-time shipments. The company says it will begin paying the freight if it fails to meet the published lead time for any 24-hour, one week, two week or four week standard product. ... TNT has completed the sale of its logistics division to affiliates of Apollo Management, LP, a private equity firm. Dave Kulik was named CEO of the new company. ... Tom Zosel Associates, a logistics consulting firm headquartered in Chicago, has opened a new office in Atlanta as part of its expansion into high-growth markets. ... Savi Technology has received approval from the China State Radio Regulation Committee to use its family of RFID products throughout the country. ... SEKO, a company that provides freight forwarding and logistics solutions, has opened an office in Sao Paulo, Brazil. ... The PWC Logistics group of companies, which includes GeoLogistics, Transoceanic and Trans-Link, will re-brand itself with a new company name—Agility. The company has 20,000 employees in over 100 countries. ... Lockheed Martin, which acquired Savi Technology in June, is establishing a new organization to provide integrated real-time information solutions and services known as the Savi Group. The new entity, to be led by Vic Verma, aligns Lockheed Martin's decision support expertise for large government in-transit visibility, cargo security and asset management with Savi Technology's real-time RFID-based data collection and management capabilities. ... Sterling Commerce, a subsidiary of AT&T, is acquiring Comergent Technologies, a developer of eBusiness software. Sterling will pay $155 million in cash for Comergent.
The New Hampshire-based cargo terminal orchestration technology vendor Lynxis LLC today said it has acquired Tedivo LLC, a provider of software to visualize and streamline vessel operations at marine terminals.
According to Lynxis, the deal strengthens its digitalization offerings for the global maritime industry, empowering shipping lines and terminal operators to drastically reduce vessel departure delays, mis-stowed containers and unsafe stowage conditions aboard cargo ships.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
More specifically, the move will enable key stakeholders to simplify stowage planning, improve data visualization, and optimize vessel operations to reduce costly delays, Lynxis CEO Larry Cuddy Jr. said in a release.
German third party logistics provider (3PL) Arvato has agreed to acquire ATC Computer Transport & Logistics, an Irish company that provides specialized transport, logistics, and technical services for hyperscale data center operators, high-tech freight forwarders, and original equipment manufacturers, the company said today.
The acquisition aims to unlock new opportunities in the rapidly expanding data center services market by combining the complementary strengths of both companies.
According to Arvato, the merger will create a comprehensive portfolio of solutions for the entire data center lifecycle. ATC Computer Transport & Logistics brings a robust European network covering the major data center hubs, while Arvato expands this through its extensive global footprint.
The new funding brings Amazon's total investment in Anthropic to $8 billion, while maintaining the e-commerce giant’s position as a minority investor, according to Anthropic. The partnership was launched in 2023, when Amazon invested its first $4 billion round in the firm.
Anthropic’s “Claude” family of AI assistant models is available on AWS’s Amazon Bedrock, which is a cloud-based managed service that lets companies build specialized generative AI applications by choosing from an array of foundation models (FMs) developed by AI providers like AI21 Labs, Anthropic, Cohere, Meta, Mistral AI, Stability AI, and Amazon itself.
According to Amazon, tens of thousands of customers, from startups to enterprises and government institutions, are currently running their generative AI workloads using Anthropic’s models in the AWS cloud. Those GenAI tools are powering tasks such as customer service chatbots, coding assistants, translation applications, drug discovery, engineering design, and complex business processes.
"The response from AWS customers who are developing generative AI applications powered by Anthropic in Amazon Bedrock has been remarkable," Matt Garman, AWS CEO, said in a release. "By continuing to deploy Anthropic models in Amazon Bedrock and collaborating with Anthropic on the development of our custom Trainium chips, we’ll keep pushing the boundaries of what customers can achieve with generative AI technologies. We’ve been impressed by Anthropic’s pace of innovation and commitment to responsible development of generative AI, and look forward to deepening our collaboration."
The Dutch ship building company Concordia Damen has worked with four partner firms to build two specialized vessels that will serve the offshore wind industry by transporting large, and ever growing, wind turbine components, the company said today.
The first ship, Rotra Horizon, launched yesterday at Jiangsu Zhenjiang Shipyard, and its sister ship, Rotra Futura, is expected to be delivered to client Amasus in 2025. The project involved a five-way collaboration between Concordia Damen and Amasus, deugro Danmark, Siemens Gamesa, and DEKC Maritime.
The design of the 550-foot Rotra Futura and Rotra Horizon builds on the previous vessels Rotra Mare and Rotra Vente, which were also developed by Concordia Damen, and have been operating since 2016. However, the new vessels are equipped for the latest generation of wind turbine components, which are becoming larger and heavier. They can handle that increased load with a Roll-On/Roll-Off (RO/RO) design, specialized ramps, and three Liebherr cranes, allowing turbine blades to be stowed in three tiers, providing greater flexibility in loading methods and cargo configurations.
“For the Rotra Futura and Rotra Horizon, we, along with our partners, have focused extensively on energy savings and an environmentally friendly design,” Concordia Damen Managing Director Chris Kornet said in a release. “The aerodynamic and hydro-optimized hull design, combined with a special low-resistance coating, contributes to lower fuel consumption. Furthermore, the vessels are equipped with an advanced Wärtsilä main engine, which consumes 15 percent less fuel and has a smaller CO₂ emission footprint than current standards.”
The Port of Oakland has been awarded $50 million from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Maritime Administration (MARAD) to modernize wharves and terminal infrastructure at its Outer Harbor facility, the port said today.
Those upgrades would enable the Outer Harbor to accommodate Ultra Large Container Vessels (ULCVs), which are now a regular part of the shipping fleet calling on West Coast ports. Each of these ships has a handling capacity of up to 24,000 TEUs (20-foot containers) but are currently restricted at portions of Oakland’s Outer Harbor by aging wharves which were originally designed for smaller ships.
According to the port, those changes will let it handle newer, larger vessels, which are more efficient, cost effective, and environmentally cleaner to operate than older ships. Specific investments for the project will include: wharf strengthening, structural repairs, replacing container crane rails, adding support piles, strengthening support beams, and replacing electrical bus bar system to accommodate larger ship-to-shore cranes.