Matson stretches coast to coast with acquisition

With the adding of Pacific American Services and other companies, Matson Global hopes build a value-added network across the United States

By Allison Manning, Associate Editor -- Modern Materials Handling, 9/5/2008

Driven by a customer need to be a coast-to-coast operation, Matson Global Distribution Services announced this week it acquired Pacific American Services (PACAM), a Northern California-based warehousing, packaging and distribution company.

Nearly a million square feet will be added to Matson Global, a subsidiary of Matson Integrated Logistics, the 10^th largest logistics company in the United States. Matson Global was launched in April 2007. 

“We have continually been asked to increase our product and service offerings to our existing client base,” Brian Howver, vice president and managing director of Matson Global Distribution Services, told Modern. “What we wanted to do was find a company as excellent as PACAM that had a lot of value-added services in addition to the normal warehousing and distribution services.”

Howver said the acquisition gives Matson the capability to operate on both coasts, complementing the company’s recent expansion of a 700,000-square-foot facility in Savannah, Ga. Being able to offer additional services--going beyond space and warehousing distribution--will be a major differentiator and allow the company to act as a “one-stop shop” for distribution and transportation solutions.   

“We have the ability now to become better integrated in our customer supply chain and provide a higher level of service,” Howver said.

PACAM president Scott Hothem said as a regional third-party logistics provider (3PL) with a 21-year run in Northern California, being acquired by Matson Global allows for national expansion, taking the company to “another level.” 

“With our port presence in Oakland, we have an East and West Coast solution,” he told Modern.

Howver said Matson Global will continue to look at companies that “have the quality of services like PACAM does and like our company does.” 

Dick Armstrong, chairman of Armstrong and Associates, has been a consultant working with Matson Global, assisting in finding companies that have “high-quality services” and helping bring those services and intellectual capital into Matson.

Armstrong said that while this is the first of Matson’s acquisitions, he anticipates that there will be “a few more of these,” with the intention of building a value-added network across the United States and possibly into Canada. Within the next few years, there will be continued concentration within the industry, he said. 

“The acquisitions will be very strategic,” he said. “They will involve good companies with good skill sets and good personnel.”

“The idea is to build Matson Global distribution service so it’s truly a competitor against DHL and UPS Supply Chain Solutions,” Armstrong said. “It’s being built firstly as a pitcher-catcher relationship between China and North America, but the object is to build it to the point where it’s truly a global supply chain manager.”