BUYER POOL ANALYSIS
Selling a Trucking to Strategic / Industry buyers
Industry operators, larger competitors, and corporate buyers acquiring for synergies, geographic expansion, or capability fill. Typically pays a premium for clear strategic fit but discounts for integration cost and overlap.
Quick answers
- What multiple does this buyer pool pay?
- Median EV/EBITDA 5.6x across 15 disclosed deals (P25: 5x, P75: 7.4x). Median EV/Revenue 0.8x across 42 deals. Median deal value: $93.5M.
- How many disclosed transactions?
- 43 deals total (43 from 2018+), filtered to Strategic / Industry acquirers of trucking businesses.
- Most active buyers
- Werner Enterprises (3) · TFI International Inc. (3) · TFI International (2) · Covenant Logistics Group, Inc. (2) · Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings Inc. (2) · Heartland Express (2)
Recent disclosed deals
Strategic / Industry acquisitions of trucking businesses with named target, named acquirer, and disclosed financials.
| Year | Target | Acquirer | EV | EV/EBITDA | EV/Rev |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | FirstFleet Inc. | Werner Enterprises | $282.8M | — | 0.46x |
| 2024 | Buckshot Trucking LLC | Enservco Corporation | $5.5M | 2.4x | 0.67x |
| 2024 | Cardinal Logistics | Ryder System | $297.0M | — | 0.30x |
| 2024 | Cowan Systems, LLC | Schneider National | $390.0M | — | 0.63x |
| 2024 | Coyote Logistics, LLC | RXO, Inc. | $1029.0M | 12.0x | 0.32x |
| 2024 | Daseke Inc. | TFI International | $1100.0M | 6.0x | 0.70x |
What this buyer pool prices for
Strategic buyers — operators in adjacent geographies, larger competitors, or corporate consolidators — price for synergies and capability fill. They tend to discount integration cost and overlap risk but pay above market when there's clear strategic fit (key customer relationship, license, geography, technician/professional team). Multiples are competitive with PE for fee-viable deals; below PE for sub-scale acquisitions.
Methodology note
Multiples shown are computed from disclosed M&A transactions in the ExitValue.ai database, filtered to trucking businesses acquired by strategic / industry buyers. EV/EBITDA outliers outside the [0.5x, 60x] band and EV/Revenue outliers outside [0.05x, 25x] are excluded from medians. Where available, post-2018 transactions are weighted; otherwise the all-time sample is used. Deal counts shown reflect deals with disclosed financials only — total transaction count for this buyer pool is typically 2-3x larger. Full methodology
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