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On The Desk

M&A

UPDATE: C.H. Robinson acquisition of RXO may give a jolt to industry consolidation

C.H. Robinson announced Monday that it will acquire RXO in a deal valued at about $5.8 billion, combining the country’s largest 3PL with one of its biggest brokerage and managed-transportation rivals. RXO shareholders will receive $17.25 in cash plus 0.0856 shares of C.H. Robinson stock per RXO share — roughly $30.25 a share based on C.H. Robinson’s 16-day average price as of Oct. 2, with about 57% of the consideration paid in cash and 43% in stock. RXO holders are expected to own around 11% of the combined company. C.H. Robinson says the deal pairs both companies’ truck brokerage and managed transportation businesses with its global forwarding and RXO’s expedited and last-mile strengths, and it’s targeting about $300 million in net run-rate cost synergies within two years of closing. The cash portion will be funded with new debt, backed by a bridge facility from Morgan Stanley, and the deal still needs regulatory and RXO shareholder approval, with a close expected in the first half of 2027. RXO shares had already jumped about 9.5% Friday to $23.38 ahead of the news, then traded up roughly 22% in pre-market Monday, while C.H. Robinson shares were down nearly 5%. FreightWaves is treating it as a developing story.

John Kingston  |  October 5, 2026  |  Read More →

Cargo Theft

A Conversation With EAIGLE’s Leadership on Cargo Theft, Data Ownership and What a Smart Gate Actually Knows

In a follow-up to its look at the Loblaw rollout, FreightWaves questioned EAIGLE CEO Amir Hoss on whether automated gates make strategic cargo theft easier or harder. His answer: harder, as long as the gate is well integrated and validates bills of lading rather than just purchase orders. He said the system commonly catches fraud such as an expired bill of lading paired with a trailer number that’s off by a single digit, flagging cases like that two to three times a month at higher-volume sites, and that a top-five CPG customer saw three theft attempts in the first month. The platform also reads a carrier’s DOT number off camera, pulls its theft and claims history, and scores it against a risk profile the customer sets in advance, with tiered responses that can escalate to a driver license-and-selfie check. Hoss said the system’s responsibility depends on the customer’s standard operating procedure, with EAIGLE on the hook if it checks, finds a mismatch and still opens the gate. Customers own their data and per-site model improvements, pricing is an annual software fee plus one-time hardware, the smallest site runs about 50 transactions a day, and roughly half a dozen of its 30-plus clients are testing autonomous operations. The reporter noted EAIGLE offered no example of a feature it had to pull back.

Adam Wingfield  |  September 28, 2026  |  Read More →

The Stack

Owner-Operator Pay

Transportation provider accused of hiding freight revenue from owner-operators

A group of owner-operators filed a proposed class action Sept. 17 in federal court in Michigan against Red Line Logistics and two company officials, alleging the carrier understated what it was paid for loads and kept the difference. Under leases cited in the complaint, drivers were to receive a percentage of load revenue — one agreement specified 80% to the driver and 20% to Red Line — but plaintiffs say they were paid from lower figures than what customers actually paid. The suit claims Red Line recorded true load values in one transportation management system, Apex, that drivers couldn’t see, then had a dispatcher enter reduced values into another, Sylectus, which drivers used to accept loads, followed by emailed settlement statements that allegedly didn’t disclose the real amount. The plaintiffs bring RICO claims alleging wire fraud, estimate a class of 50 or more owner-operators and seek more than $1 million in damages, which could be tripled under RICO. The allegations haven’t been proven, and Red Line and the individual defendants hadn’t responded in the docket or to FreightWaves’ requests for comment.

Noi Mahoney  |  October 1, 2026  |  Read More →

Freight Rates

U.S. Bank: Contract rates open 22-cent gap over spot freight

The October edition of the U.S. Bank Freight Payment Index, produced with DAT Freight & Analytics, shows contract dry van rates ended August 22 cents a mile above spot, two months after spot briefly priced higher than contract. Spot linehaul fell to $2.17 a mile in August from $2.35 in July, while contract edged up to $2.39, gaining every month since April. Both remain well above a year ago — spot up 35.6% and contract up 20.1% from August 2025 — and with fuel included, spot slipped 3.4% to $2.87 while contract rose to $3.09. Fuel surcharges climbed to $0.70 a mile from $0.62 in July, and DAT’s Patrick Pretorius said fuel’s share of the broker-to-shipper spot rate rose from about 21% in June to 24% in August, with diesel trending higher into fall. The report ties the gap to capacity leaving the market faster than demand is falling, and Pretorius said higher fuel costs push smaller, thinner-margin carriers out, shrinking the driver pool further. Spot loads in the index fell 3.2% in August and contract loads fell 1.3%.

Thomas Wasson  |  October 3, 2026  |  Read More →

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