Buying a trucking company

Are you buying with the intention to run it while driving the company owned unit? I would be very cautious to dive in this deep without a lot of experience in the business. Yes, you can always lease additional trucks on if you have the work for them.

Both percentage contracts I worked on before going on my own were:

80% to truck
8% to trailer
12% to office for dispatch, fuel cards, etc
Any "self sales" netted me a 4% bump (92% of gross) Any business I brought in that our office brokered out, I earned 4 points on as well

 

Are you buying an actual company? Meaning they have their own direct customers to haul for? Or are you buying aged authority and a truck with a couple other guys to make revenue from?

Yes you can expand with owner operators. Percentages will depend on what they’re bringing to the table and what you offer. If they have their own trailer and all they’re getting from you is back office stuff and loads then 85-90% should go to them. If you have trailers for them and it’s general freight stuff then 80% to them would be normal. If it’s specialty trailers hauling specialty product then 70-75% to them would be fine because your trailer maintenance and replacement costs will be higher.

I’ve hauled cattle using the company’s authority and trailer while hustling my own work and got 85%. I’ve pulled a food grade pneumatic using the company’s authority and got 73%. And I’ve pulled a van using the company’s authority and got 80%.

 

If you cannot drive the one existing truck yourself, do not do this.

Unless that's a trucking company that has a lot of sales people working for it and they have a lot of freight that's their own freight, run for your life.

The so-called business that you are buying, unless they have a lot of contracts with their own Freight, is worth exactly what that one truck is worth and that's it.

No offense to any of them, and no offense to you, but if you don't know what you're looking at you'll do just like any other guy that buys a truck and spends 20 grand on it and ends up spending another $20 or $30,000 on top of that because you don't know what you're looking at. And people tend to sell businesses that are overloaded with debt and trucks that are junk just to get rid of them and give it to somebody else.

There are 20,000 ways this can go wrong for you and almost no ways it can go right.

I'm sure this person is telling you oh it's 10 years the authority has been aged you're not going to have any problems..

That Authority is meaningless and worthless.

For $350 you can go file your own.

In case you don't know it, people that are in this industry that buy a truck have a 95% failure rate.

Those that are not in this business that attempt to go into it as owners and investors watching their money grow, 99.9% of the time they lose 100% of their money.

You'll do better taking your money and going to the casino and rolling a couple hands of craps and maybe you'll win.

But for sure you will have much much much much better odds.

 

If you wouldn't mind I'm sure all of us would really like to know what they're asking for that one truck and their Authority and the two people leased on to them.

If you're going to tell us please tell us the year make and model of the truck and the mileage and any recent repairs that we have an idea what that truck is worth.

And by the way the two people leased on have absolutely no value whatsoever. There's nothing keeping them there they can instantaneously leave, they add no value to the business, there's no assets, they are meaningless, and they can move on at any moment.

 

This is my core business ... I have purchased a bunch of little carriers in the past, so answer the questions if you are serious.

First thing is how much capital do you have?

Second is how is the company you want to buy, structured?

Is it transferable? - meaning is the assets under a corporation or is it under an LLC or sole proprietorship.

It really matters a lot.

You can't be an armchair owner without experience of any kind. You are asking questions - posted below - without experience. I will assume that you can learn from my answers.

NO, in general. The biggest issue will be having capital to cover the settlements and operation costs for a few months. You may have to reorganize the back office to also cover the regulatory needs and to have a solid onboarding process to fulfill your insurance underwriters.

You are way ahead of yourself, you need to determine your operating costs, which is having a lawyer write up an intent to purchase document and have it signed so you can see the books and legally use the info for decision-making and moving forward. This is a process that goes back to my question about transferable entity and how it is transferred.

I am not in the position to be your advisor, my purpose for posting here is to prevent you from becoming another marginal armchair owner, we do not need any of that crap, this industry needs to rid people of that.

Get a lawyer, get an accountant - both who can help you navigate the process.

This is an industry with very high liabilities, and it means that you need to make sure everything done right and have a solid plan/policies in place to prevent YOUR PERSONAL assets be on the line.