Cold chain giant Lineage Logistics buys its own rail operator

Michigan firm buys extensive cold chain railcar fleet owner Cryo-Trans.

cryotrans train car
January 5, 2021
DC Velocity Staff
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The fast-growing cold storage giant Lineage Logistics LLC is adding another notch to its belt of recent acquisitions, saying today it has acquired a cold chain rail operator in a move to create a “seamlessly integrated” supply chain solution for its food and beverage customers.

Novi, Michigan-based Lineage bought Cryo-Trans, which owns North America’s largest private fleet of cold chain railcars. The Maryland-based firm manages more than 40,000 annual rail shipments and owns over 2,200 refrigerated and insulated railcars. Cryo-Trans also uses its rail management program to provide real-time visibility on tracking, tracing, and expediting rail shipments.

Terms of the transaction were not disclosed, but published reports said the deal values Cryo-Trans at more than $500 million. Lineage has plenty of financial backing to make purchases of that scope, since revealing in 2020 that it had raised $1.6 billion in equity funding “to drive business growth and support further investment in technology and automation.”

And even before that funding round, the company had been on an acquisition tear, buying up some 10 temperature-controlled operations in the past 24 months. That strategy has helped the company create a vast network now measuring 1.9 billion cubic feet, making it the largest global, temperature-controlled, industrial real estate investment trust (REIT), Lineage said.

“Welcoming the dynamic team from Cryo-Trans further diversifies Lineage’s comprehensive suite of multi-modal services and creates a unique, under-one-roof solution for our customers in which warehousing and transportation are seamlessly integrated,” Greg Lehmkuhl, Lineage’s president & CEO, said in a release. “Combining our leading facility footprint, a railcar network and data-driven transportation management systems enables us to further optimize freight, create greater efficiencies, generate unprecedented supply chain visibility and provide a new ease of doing business for our customers.”