Crowley makes inroads into Puerto Rico with acquisition

In an effort to provide more value-added services to Puerto Rico-based shippers, Crowley Maritime Corporation’s logistics group announced it has acquired Islandwide Air and Ocean.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Crowley officials said that this deal will enable the company to offer shippers multiple logistics services, including: ocean and air transportation, trucking, transportation management and warehouse services in Puerto Rico, as well as less-than-container-load (LCL) freight transportation from the U.S. to Puerto Rico from Crowley’s Florida-based warehouses in Miami and Jacksonville and a new Northeast-based consolidation center.

“Crowley is expanding its service offerings into different destinations and the fact that our sister company calls on Puerto Rico on a regular basis, we thought it would be a nice tie-in to offer our existing customer base with a wider breadth of service offerings that they have asked us to do,” said Carlos Rice, Crowley vice president of supply chain services, in an interview.

That mindset led to the decision for Crowley to enter the Puerto Rican market, explained Rice, in order to fulfill the needs of its customer base.

While he declined to provide a specific number, Rice said Islandwide’s customer base is comprised of dozens of shippers doing business in Puerto Rico. He said Crowley will retain the entire customer base Islandwide Air and Ocean was servicing, coupled with an additional customer base Crowley will be bringing to the table.

Crowley spokesman Mark Miller said the company’s Liner Services group, which transports container loads to Puerto Rico has thousands of customers.

In terms of benefits of this deal for Puerto Rico-based shippers, Rice said that as shippers continue to demand improved delivery times and lower costs, Crowley is offering value-added services to meet shippers’ needs like inventory management, distribution services, order processing, and express service from Puerto Rico.

“These are some of the wider service offerings we are able to offer our customer base, and in cooperation with them as a mutual understanding that we can meet their cost objectives by providing more today than they were accustomed to receiving from different suppliers,” said Rice. “We can now offer that in-house and bring them a one-stop shop.”

Regarding personnel, Rice said the entire Islandwide employee structure has been absorbed by Crowley.

“Clearly this partnership adds significant value for all our customers in terms of providing real solutions at all levels of the supply chain, from manufacturing to the final consumer and every step in between,” said Pedro J. Rosaly, CEO of Islandwide, in a statement.