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just curious what everyone thinks will it be all at once or will the new world order keep contracting the size of the company slow but sure
 
I believe they will continue to downsize until they can stop the bleeding. They have no choice if they what to be sustainable.
 
Well I hate to do it but I have to. Yep I'm wading into the PJAX vs Vitran pool. Just curious if any of you former PJAX employees looked at your company's financials before the purchase in 2006? In 2006 Vitran operated at a 93.7, after the purchase of PJAX (which had $26 MILLION DOLLARS OF DEBT) Vitran's O/R began to fall. It's my understanding that PJAX relied heavily on GM and other large accounts for its business? That's fine until your big account decides to move it's manufacturing and parts suppliers out of the country. There was an interesting article published in "The Journal of Commerce" by Michael Scheid, it lays out how at one time SAIA and Vitran were roughly the same size and had the same area, and yet SAIA has been growing and operating in the mid 90's for the last several years compared to Vitran's massive losses. How did SAIA do it? By not panicking and closing a bunch of terminals in 2007-2008, by having a large sales force and focusing on smaller customers and convincing them they don't need a 3PL. What we have is a major philosophy difference. They companies that Vitran originally purchased had a high coverage rate with a lot of terminals and focused on a lot of small shippers with the occasional large account. PJAX aka Mark Kosovec seemed to be just the opposite. Almost every terminal we closed another freight company came in and opened one up and in many cased hired our former drivers.

You want to go back to the PJAX footprint? GOOD Then let's start lobbying Canada to split the company up into an east and west that are completely independent of each other, you can go back to PJAX and the rest of us can come up with a new name that doesn't have the Vitran baggage and we can run it the way it used to be.....profitable.
 
If they can survive the next 6 months, I think closing many outlying terminals and just focusing on major metro areas would work. There have been tons of companies that serviced Chicago, St. Louis, and Dallas but few areas in between and still have been able to make a go of it.
 
We will have to see how it plays out.

I do not believe we can cut our way to profit. Each cut that saves money also reduces opportunity. Perhaps a losing terminal carriers profitable freight through it. It seems like a web that is really too complicated for someone like me to make a statement of certainty on.

However, I would say that if V could have a profitable 10 terminal system that would beat the Hell outta what we have now. One investor from Canada even suggested closing all US terminals and start over opening terminals in the US.
 
I am an east coast driver and don't know of much going on past Toledo.Since this new fed ex policy came into effect,morale,drivers and customers have disappeared.We used to average b/t 300 to 500 bills a night,if we have 175 now that is a busy night.Customers keep leaving,drivers,mangers forced to leave and this fed ex mentality from management is "Clueless" to what is going on.Our freight moves more from inbound trlrs to dock to trap trlrs than to customers.This progressive loading for city drivers.WTH are you people thinking.Equipment is new and is out of service on a regular basis,trailers ha,ha,ha, we have more O>O>S> equipment and our CCM fires our night mechanic because they got into a dispute.Really?If we last thru March of 2014 it will be a miracle.Or they will have owner operators running freight like in Toledo,PLG,SPF,SPC and only the great and powerful OZ knows where else.I was hoping to make it one more year but I don't think it will happen.For those who bid on runs ,new bids again end of Sept and start of Oct.
 
biglarry28 said:
Well I hate to do it but I have to. Yep I'm wading into the PJAX vs Vitran pool. Just curious if any of you former PJAX employees looked at your company's financials before the purchase in 2006? In 2006 Vitran operated at a 93.7, after the purchase of PJAX (which had $26 MILLION DOLLARS OF DEBT) Vitran's O/R began to fall. It's my understanding that PJAX relied heavily on GM and other large accounts for its business? That's fine until your big account decides to move it's manufacturing and parts suppliers out of the country. There was an interesting article published in "The Journal of Commerce" by Michael Scheid, it lays out how at one time SAIA and Vitran were roughly the same size and had the same area, and yet SAIA has been growing and operating in the mid 90's for the last several years compared to Vitran's massive losses. How did SAIA do it? By not panicking and closing a bunch of terminals in 2007-2008, by having a large sales force and focusing on smaller customers and convincing them they don't need a 3PL. What we have is a major philosophy difference. They companies that Vitran originally purchased had a high coverage rate with a lot of terminals and focused on a lot of small shippers with the occasional large account. PJAX aka Mark Kosovec seemed to be just the opposite. Almost every terminal we closed another freight company came in and opened one up and in many cased hired our former drivers.

You want to go back to the PJAX footprint? GOOD Then let's start lobbying Canada to split the company up into an east and west that are completely independent of each other, you can go back to PJAX and the rest of us can come up with a new name that doesn't have the Vitran baggage and we can run it the way it used to be.....profitable.
Click to expand...

The bottom line is we are where we are and the past at this point does not matter. But it is obvious you are a legacy Vitran employee that is willing to state verbage as if it were fact. There is no doubt that Vitran paid way too much money for PJAX but that was simply another foolish thing that Rick Gaetz did. The PJAX merger actually made sense, all the other ones were simply ignorant purchases made by Gaetz with the vision of being a national player. As for who was better PJAX versus Vitran, they were both mid tier players on their own. PJAX operated in the 1990's with an operating ratio several points better than Vitran throughout that decade and until they merged with Vitran. They did this by having a lower cost structure than Vitran using far fewer terminals and hence fewer managers, supervisors, office clerks etc. They also had around 28 sales reps where Vitran had 80. As for relying on large national accounts and 3PL customers to survive, that is where we were and still are. This company has a very unhealthy 70% of our business with around 10 national account reps. The other 70 local reps have the remaining 30% of the business.
 
biglarry28 said:
Well I hate to do it but I have to. Yep I'm wading into the PJAX vs Vitran pool. Just curious if any of you former PJAX employees looked at your company's financials before the purchase in 2006? In 2006 Vitran operated at a 93.7, after the purchase of PJAX (which had $26 MILLION DOLLARS OF DEBT) Vitran's O/R began to fall. It's my understanding that PJAX relied heavily on GM and other large accounts for its business? That's fine until your big account decides to move it's manufacturing and parts suppliers out of the country. There was an interesting article published in "The Journal of Commerce" by Michael Scheid, it lays out how at one time SAIA and Vitran were roughly the same size and had the same area, and yet SAIA has been growing and operating in the mid 90's for the last several years compared to Vitran's massive losses. How did SAIA do it? By not panicking and closing a bunch of terminals in 2007-2008, by having a large sales force and focusing on smaller customers and convincing them they don't need a 3PL. What we have is a major philosophy difference. They companies that Vitran originally purchased had a high coverage rate with a lot of terminals and focused on a lot of small shippers with the occasional large account. PJAX aka Mark Kosovec seemed to be just the opposite. Almost every terminal we closed another freight company came in and opened one up and in many cased hired our former drivers.

You want to go back to the PJAX footprint? GOOD Then let's start lobbying Canada to split the company up into an east and west that are completely independent of each other, you can go back to PJAX and the rest of us can come up with a new name that doesn't have the Vitran baggage and we can run it the way it used to be.....profitable.
Click to expand...

I don't even know where to start, as a PJAX legacy driver when I started out we didn't go any farther west than Toledo (terminal wise), during the following 6 years we opened sag, ftw, ind, chi, sbn, lou, split det off tol, and the Hammels told us that was as far as we would grow, why? because they had something to sell.... next day service, and the footprint was as big as it could be and still sell the next day service (or 2 day out of a few terminals) I know out of Det there was not ANYWHERE we could not service in one day, we had a blue chip service but hardly ever needed it, as for financials we were a privately held family owned company so the financial records were to my knowledge not open for public viewing but the one thing I do know is there were NEVER any questions over the raises,, we got one every 6 months if for some reason one was missed they made it up in a hurry,and when you needed repairs they got done in a reasonable time frame. as for the "big" accounts we didn't have very many of them, what we did have was multiple bills going all thru our system or volume loads going in to auto plants with 10+ bills per trailer.I remember when we took over GM, for a company that relied on "big" accounts we almost lost it as fast as we got it because it crippled many terminals (mine for one) for weeks and weeks (doesn't sound like a company that was used to handling "big" accounts). the one thing I saw was OSD was a lot lower, but then we didn't use mostly pups with triple stacked freight, and the freight didn't get handled 4 or 5 times. I know when the buyout happened we were all caught off guard, even the girls in Pitt had no idea what was going on, and we were told the reason for the sale was Donny JR was wanting to retire and the kids wanted nothing to do with the company (even his own brother reportedly didn't want the sale) so as opposed to shutting the doors he sold the company off, and if PJAX was in such dire condition as everyone seems to believe we were why did Vitran buy us and not just wait for the doors to close? As for the SAIA deal when they bought the connection out within 6 months there was not a trace of the connection left, can you say that about our "merger" I don't think so, here it is 7 years later and I still go in and pick up PJAX freight, and there have been lots of customers who tell me they haven't seen a sales person in months or even years (that's one way to lose business) and if you look honestly the only terminals that got closed in the 07-08 years were the ones where there was a PJAX and a Vitran in the same or nearly the same city, then yes one of the two were closed. I could keep going on and on but the bottom line is there were LOTS of things done wrong in the buyouts/mergers. its like in the movie unstoppable someone hit the throttle full forward then jumped off to grab a cup of coffee and now we are trying to stop a runaway train from the rear before it derails.
 
PJAX was a privately held company, while I am sure they held some debt because of purchases of terminals and cash flow, that information would not have been public. Your statement is indicative of the attitude with dealing with any Vitran Legacy employees... "We invented trucking and you PJAX people should be adopt OUR ways."

The attitude became even worse after Kimack was canned and Kosovick was put in charge. From my perspective the Vitran side was always about blame and covering ones behind. Vitran people simply could never let go of the "blame somebody else" mindset and work toward common goals. Hub and spoke was the only thing Vitran people ever knew and they thought it was "stupid" to try kick and pick, wave loading, or anything else new.

Even now your fall back position if blame somebody . . . but its not your fault. Kimack brought that mindset from his former employer Consolidated Freightways. And Kimack was a master of that business model. Unfortunately, he instilled it in all the VP's and Managers as a very foundation of employee relations. Punitive employee relations or quazi-military management has always been a failed system. Just go to the CCX or Fedex board and see just how many problems they have and it all goes back to the blame game/punitive employee relations.
 
i laugh when the vitran legacy drivers blame pjax for all the troubles and still drive their old school tractors they had before the merger, still in denial that the merger ever happened.
 
Popswasnatlman said:
The bottom line is we are where we are and the past at this point does not matter. But it is obvious you are a legacy Vitran employee that is willing to state verbage as if it were fact. There is no doubt that Vitran paid way too much money for PJAX but that was simply another foolish thing that Rick Gaetz did. The PJAX merger actually made sense, all the other ones were simply ignorant purchases made by Gaetz with the vision of being a national player. As for who was better PJAX versus Vitran, they were both mid tier players on their own. PJAX operated in the 1990's with an operating ratio several points better than Vitran throughout that decade and until they merged with Vitran. They did this by having a lower cost structure than Vitran using far fewer terminals and hence fewer managers, supervisors, office clerks etc. They also had around 28 sales reps where Vitran had 80. As for relying on large national accounts and 3PL customers to survive, that is where we were and still are. This company has a very unhealthy 70% of our business with around 10 national account reps. The other 70 local reps have the remaining 30% of the business.
Click to expand...
However you slice it the merger failed not because of anything other than it was not managed correctly. It's funny how ego's of men can destroy even the simplest of things....Was a power struggle between two men the reason for our downfall. It appears so. Was it that Kimack and Kosovick where part of the problem and not part of the solution. Or did it go much deeper than that. I don't quite understand where it all went wrong. Because I don't know the history of the two. Being from the South I can only be from the outside looking in. My perception is that there was some sort of a power struggle. Correct me if I'm wrong. I was always taught you should put your petty differences aside and work together with compromise and find a solution that works for the overall health of the company. A pissing contest that went horribly wrong with no winner. But a big fat loser.....Vitran express
 
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runawaytrain said:
However you slice it the merger failed not because of anything other than it was not managed correctly. It's funny how ego's of men can destroy even the simplest of things....Was a power struggle between two men the reason for our downfall. It appears so. Was it that Kimack and Kosovick where part of the problem and not part of the solution. Or did it go much deeper than that. I don't quite understand where it all went wrong. Because I don't know the history of the two. Being from the South I can only be from the outside looking in. My perception is that there was some sort of a power struggle. Correct me if I'm wrong. I was always taught you should put your petty differences aside and work together with compromise and find a solution that works for the overall health of the company. A pissing contest that went horribly wrong with no winner. But a big fat loser.....Vitran express
Click to expand...

I agree. I have said it before and will probably have the opportunity to say it again, "Vitran drivers swear PJAx destroyed them, and that Vitran was the best LTL firm in the world before. PJAX swears Vitran destroyed them and PJAx was the best company in the world before."

Whatever happened there were two mediocre trucking companies that merged on paper, but not in the real world, and everyone but the ones responsible suffered.
 
Yes I am a Vitran legacy employee. And I was extremely skeptical of the PJAX merger, I dont like mergers they rarely turn out for the best. As for PJAX operating better than Vitran in the 1990's great, but let's see some company memos, sales brochures or press releases for 2000-2006? Larmar as for the 26+ million in PJAX debt that isnt a number I made up, it comes directly from the SEC filings at the time of the merger, you can look it up in the SEC archives, PJAX had to open its books at the time of the merger.
We did not just close overlapping terminals in 2007-2008...Duluth, Grand Forks, Watertown SD, Pierre SD, Benson MN, Winstead MN, Albert Lea MN, Sioux city IA, Waterloo IA, Keokuk IA, Springfield and Jefferson city Missouri, Wausau and Green Bay Wisconsin, Mattoon Illinois, Grand Island Nebraska....thats not even a complete list.
Funny isnt it how the tail is wagging the dog?
Vitran purchases PJAX then PJAX gets control of the company, torches Vitran's original territory, and moves the HQ to PA. So who is it that really has the attitude " its my way or the hiway"?
"My fallback position is to blame someone"? So you think this was just some accident?
 
biglarry28 said:
Yes I am a Vitran legacy employee. And I was extremely skeptical of the PJAX merger, I dont like mergers they rarely turn out for the best. As for PJAX operating better than Vitran in the 1990's great, but let's see some company memos, sales brochures or press releases for 2000-2006? Larmar as for the 26+ million in PJAX debt that isnt a number I made up, it comes directly from the SEC filings at the time of the merger, you can look it up in the SEC archives, PJAX had to open its books at the time of the merger.
We did not just close overlapping terminals in 2007-2008...Duluth, Grand Forks, Watertown SD, Pierre SD, Benson MN, Winstead MN, Albert Lea MN, Sioux city IA, Waterloo IA, Keokuk IA, Springfield and Jefferson city Missouri, Wausau and Green Bay Wisconsin, Mattoon Illinois, Grand Island Nebraska....thats not even a complete list.
Funny isnt it how the tail is wagging the dog?
Vitran purchases PJAX then PJAX gets control of the company, torches Vitran's original territory, and moves the HQ to PA. So who is it that really has the attitude " its my way or the hiway"?
"My fallback position is to blame someone"? So you think this was just some accident?
Click to expand...
Come on....Was there some sort of power struggle or am I way off base?
 
had enough said:
i laugh when the vitran legacy drivers blame pjax for all the troubles and still drive their old school tractors they had before the merger, still in denial that the merger ever happened.
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I don't even understand this comment, I wish I had an old school truck, old school trucks=power+no DPF to fail. Who is in denial? I'm reminded of this disaster every Friday, no safety pay, no 401k match, no raise and no miles. I guess I should really blame Chris Truck Lines or maybe Overland...would that make you feel better?
 
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Today is the 5th year anniversry of the "big" bank filing for bankrupcuy. Do all of you not remember 2008 and the down fall of this countrys economy? Vitran n pjax happened at the worst time. Yellow n roadway happened at the worst time. They both happened around the time this country went into a depression. So as a former vitran "legecy" driver, i believe whole heartedly that the banks(aka the greedy sob's) are to blame on all of the trucking worlds problems. Seriously, you cant take on that much debt,when the country tanked. All the mergers and buy outs in 07--08 where bad timing. Plain n simple, the ones that got a bail out ( banks, wall street, and the auto industry) dont feel the pain that us in trucking felt. Thats why we should all sit at home at least one or two or three of the days in october 12-14th. Lets see how well off this country will do hen WE THE TRUCKERS FORGET ABOUT THEM, AS THEY FORGOT ABOUT US.!!!
 
I think they will continue to close terminals as long as it buys them time. Keylon and cronnies know that they get get paid as long as they are still around. Also they will be searching for there next place to screw up. When they find a new gig they will walk just like all the rest. When you see Keylon leave that means he has fulfilled his contract and his services are no longer needed. He would have been gone a long time ago, but the board didn't want to pay him and let him go and do something else. It would have sent a bad message to customers and given the competition ammo to help take whatever biz they wanted sooner. Plus when Keylon leaves they will shut the doors so they can let everyone know it was his fault not ours.
 
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