APX Fallout Claims More Victims
Traffic World reports in its April 24 issue that “more third-party firms in the package market tied to the U.S. Postal Service are folding their tents, hit hard by trends that drove the giant parcel consolidator APX Logistics out of business.”
According to the article, DDU Express has already folded, its telephones disconnected, while Parcel Corporation of America was “telling people it was also preparing to close, and sources there said the immediate cause was the APX bankruptcy”.
APX: Package Collapse
Traffic World reports in this week’s print edition on the aftermath of the collapse of Parcel Select consolidator APX, which the magazine calls “the largest shutdown of [a] cargo transportation provider since the close of USF Red Star in spring 2004 and before that the abrupt shuttering of national LTL giant Consolidated Freightways in 2001.”
Competitors like DHL scrambled to sign up APX customers, as did the Postal Service itself. Regardless of where those customers end up, the story says, they will “almost certainly see shipping costs rise in the long run as the dust of APX’s demise settles.”
APX started life as American Package Express. “In 2004, Heritage Partners acquired the well-regarded small-package division of RR Donnelley Logistics and combined it with American Package, naming the new entity APX Logistics… Last November it added Chester King, a former USPS marketing executive, to head its postal affairs.”
A Bear Stearns analyst, Edward M. Wolfe, cited in the story, suggests ”the big integrated parcel carriers are likely to benefit the most in the near term as APX customers divert packages to those higher priced ground networks. But in the long run, Wolfe wrote, those volumes would probably be converted to comparable bulk mail services at those same companies.”
More on the APX bankruptcy
As we heard late Thursday, APX Logistics, which claims to be the largest parcel consolidator in the country, has filed for bankruptcy. Details of exactly what happened are still fuzzy, but here are some additional items that have been posted today:
- The first public notice of APX’s bankruptcy seems to have been this SEC filing from Werner Enterprises, which provided truckload services for APX. The filing states that APX had filed for bankruptcy protection on March 15, and that APX owed Werner “$7.2 million in accounts receivable for freight shipments. Werner suspended freight shipments with APX Logistics effective March 15, 2006.”
- Transport Topics reports that APX ranks “number 37 on Transport Topics list of the 50 largest logistics companies”, and “owns more than 400 trucks and employs more than 1,800 workers”.
- Dow Jones reprises APX’s history: “The company, formerly American Package Express, is controlled by Boston-based private equity firm Heritage Partners. Heritage merged the package business of R.R. Donnelly Logistics with American Package to create APX in 2004.”, and reports that “Eight APX affiliates also filed for bankruptcy in Los Angeles Thursday.”
- WGAL TV in Lancaster PA has a story about APX employees in a Pennsylvania town who found out about the company’s demise when they showed up for work this morning.