Epoxy
April 18, 2022
Palmer Holland Adds Line
Palmer Holland Announces Distribution Partnership with Synasia
April 18, 2022 Cleveland, OH – April 18, 2022 – Palmer Holland, a North American specialty chemical and fine ingredient distributor, announces its exclusive distribution partnership with Synasia in the United States (except for the western region) and all of Canada.
Synasia manufactures high-performance, environmentally friendly specialty epoxy resins. Its offerings of Cycloaliphatic Epoxy Resins can be found in a variety of applications such as SLA 3D printing, LED encapsulation adhesives, optical adhesives and UV-curing products, epoxy resin active diluents, outdoor electrical products, and PVC or PC stabilizers.
About Synasia
Synasia has two production plants in NanTong and YanTai, China, and a sales office is in Shanghai, China. We have more than 30 researchers with PhDs, master’s degrees, and key universities bachelor’s degrees in our R&D center, and aim to develop new materials, high-quality products, and excellent service. Our products are specialty epoxy resin and are widely used in aviation, aerospace, nuclear industry, electronic technology, wind power, photoelectricity industry, and new composite materials.Back to In The News
https://www.palmerholland.com/in-the-news/left-featured-article/Palmer-Holland-Partners-With-Synasia
April 18, 2022
Trucking Overview
Truck drivers are facing another bloodbath
A key trucking rate has tumbled by 37%
Rachel PremackThursday, April 14, 2022 5 minutes read
Listen to this article 0:00 / 7:59 BeyondWords
For his entire life, Roy Walters managed bars and restaurants: upscale Italian eateries, dive bars and even strip clubs. Then, in March 2020, the pandemic shuttered his livelihood.
A truck driver buddy suggested that the newly unemployed Walters join him in the industry. So Walters drove an 18-wheeler around the country, seeing places like Seattle and the Grand Canyon, before he decided to own his own fleet. Today, the Clearwater, Florida, resident operates seven trucks.
Walters mostly stays at home, but sometimes he gets behind the wheel again. “For me, it’s almost like a vacation, except I get paid,” he said.
The trucking business has been burgeoning since he got into it. The pandemic sparked historic demand for durable goods, which is the kind of stuff Walters and his employees haul in their dry vans. But a maelstrom of inflation, rising diesel prices and overcapacity in the trucking market is sparking a sudden tumble of freight rates. “It’s been a struggle,” Walters said. “That’s for sure.”
The indicators are worrisome
Demand for freight has undeniably slowed. And, at FreightWaves, we believe a recession in trucking might be next.
Wednesday, the much-adored Cass Transportation Index Report declared that the freight market is in a slowdown, though the index’s experts said it’s too soon to declare a recession. Banks like Cowen and Bank of America have recently downgraded trucking stocks in their own notes to investors.
Dry van rates have tanked by 37% from Dec. 31, according to an April 8 transportation note by Bank of America analyst Ken Hoexter. Those rates are on the spot market – where loads are picked up on demand, rather than through a contract. The spot market is just a fraction of the trucking world, but spot numbers point to where contract rates will go.
Another indicator of a downturn is the drop in contracted loads rejected by carriers. Contrary to the, um, idea of a contract, truckers can reject loads they previously agreed to carry. Usually, they reject a contract load if they can get a better job on the spot market. Analysts follow the outbound tender reject index to see if the trucking market is hot or not.
Compared to last year, the market is decidedly not. Only 11% of loads are getting rejected right now, way down from 25% at this time last year.
Through the end of 2020 and throughout 2021, trucking was “white-hot,” said Amit Mehrotra, managing director of transportation and shipping research at Deutsche Bank. As Avery Vise of FTR Transportation Intelligence told The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, trucking companies could expect to simply “print money” amid this market.
Now, truck drivers who have entered this industry in recent months are scrambling to stay profitable – and some have already stopped driving.
What happened?
Demand for random crap softening amid influx of driving capacity
If your high school economics education was as prestigious as mine, you know that high supply or low demand leads to decreased prices. Right now, there’s both an increase of supply (truck drivers) and decrease of demand (loads for drivers to move).
The supply of truckers is way up. Thousands of new fleets are registered each month in the U.S., and it’s reached a fever pitch in recent months. In February alone, a record 20,166 trucking companies entered the market. (Keep in mind, the typical trucking company is very small; 89% have one to five trucks.)
The labor market for truckers was unusually tight through the end of 2020 and throughout 2021 , but an ACT Research survey of trucking companies shows that driver availability has been improving. Mehrotra told me workers have finally depleted the savings they built up during the pandemic and are returning to work.
Meanwhile, demand for truckers has softened. Consumers are slashing their spending – particularly when it comes to buying more and more stuff. Core retail sales fell by 1.2% in February, the most recent number available from the feds. Those sales will likely continue to soften. In response to historic inflation, 84% of Americans surveyed by Bloomberg News said they would cut back spending. Some have already been forced to cut back, according to a CNBC poll.
And those who are still spending are increasingly going to restaurants and concerts instead of, say, buying lots of stuff from Amazon. The latter requires far more truck drivers than the former. See this study from Bank of America economist Anna Zhou:
There are lots of truck drivers who entered the industry when our only hobby was online shopping. But, amid inflationary pressures and a society that’s mostly reopened, consumers are buying less of those durable goods. It’s an overlap of the Venn diagram that might result in a lot of new fleets being flushed right back out of the market.
I’ll let Walters explain:
“With rates being so high, everyone and their uncle bought a truck. I wish that it had a little more stability for the drivers and the small carriers. With more trucks on the market, the shippers and brokers can kind of dictate the price – because somebody is going to take the freight.”
Return of the bloodbath?
This normalization in trucking shouldn’t come as a surprise, Mehrotra said. “It’s totally reasonable to assume the white-hot demand environment we’ve been in the past two years is going to moderate,” he told me.
Still, the plummeting freight rates are stressing out the many, many new truck drivers who started their own fleets or entered this industry in the past two years. Their experience of running a trucking business has been in an unusually favorable market. Some might not have previous experience running a business. So the plummeting rates, coupled with the spike in diesel, are a slap in the face.
It’s all reminiscent of the 2019 trucking bloodbath (which I wrote about quite a bit at my old gig at Business Insider). In 2018, trucking was booming. Drivers were receiving record-high raises amid a capacity shortage that year. Many joined the industry. Unfortunately, demand for trucking services sank at the same time. That’s a very short explanation for why 1,100 trucking companies went out of business in one year.
Despite this history, some drivers aren’t worried. Travis Ludi, who is based outside of Oklahoma City, has been a truck driver for 10 years. He opened his own trucking authority just one and a half months ago. He said his realm of trucking – hauling grain for animal feed – is much steadier than the dry van world. (There is one downside to this recession-proof sector, however. Ludi also hauls the “left remnants” of kill plants to pet food factories, which he confirmed to me does not smell good!)
“A lot of companies or other owner-operators get in over their heads as the rates go up,” Ludi said. “They’re buying brand new trucks at higher prices due to inflation. Whenever rates go down to a normal level, they have to go out of business.”
Others are feeling more cautious. David Guzman in San Antonio has already parked some of his trucks.
Guzman bought three “dirt cheap” trucks from a liquidation company in early 2020. It turned out, those trucks were previously owned by Celadon, a company that pulled in $1 billion in revenue before filing for bankruptcy amid the 2019 trucking bloodbath.
When diesel started to spike this year, Guzman ran the numbers and realized he wouldn’t be able to run those trucks. He has a separate fleet that runs Amazon loads and has his equipment paid off, which is helping make ends meet. “I can’t imagine what folks that have payments on their equipment are going through right now,” he said. “The way the rates are, you have to run twice as hard to make ends meet. I can’t help but feel for my fellow truck drivers.”
In the meantime, it’s another bloodbath that these Celadon trucks might be sitting out.
Thanks for reading! You can reach out to the author at rpremack@freightwaves.com or rpremack@protonmail.net. Subscribe to the next edition of MODES here.
April 18, 2022
Trucking Overview
Truck drivers are facing another bloodbath
A key trucking rate has tumbled by 37%
Rachel PremackThursday, April 14, 2022 5 minutes read
Listen to this article 0:00 / 7:59 BeyondWords
For his entire life, Roy Walters managed bars and restaurants: upscale Italian eateries, dive bars and even strip clubs. Then, in March 2020, the pandemic shuttered his livelihood.
A truck driver buddy suggested that the newly unemployed Walters join him in the industry. So Walters drove an 18-wheeler around the country, seeing places like Seattle and the Grand Canyon, before he decided to own his own fleet. Today, the Clearwater, Florida, resident operates seven trucks.
Walters mostly stays at home, but sometimes he gets behind the wheel again. “For me, it’s almost like a vacation, except I get paid,” he said.
The trucking business has been burgeoning since he got into it. The pandemic sparked historic demand for durable goods, which is the kind of stuff Walters and his employees haul in their dry vans. But a maelstrom of inflation, rising diesel prices and overcapacity in the trucking market is sparking a sudden tumble of freight rates. “It’s been a struggle,” Walters said. “That’s for sure.”
The indicators are worrisome
Demand for freight has undeniably slowed. And, at FreightWaves, we believe a recession in trucking might be next.
Wednesday, the much-adored Cass Transportation Index Report declared that the freight market is in a slowdown, though the index’s experts said it’s too soon to declare a recession. Banks like Cowen and Bank of America have recently downgraded trucking stocks in their own notes to investors.
Dry van rates have tanked by 37% from Dec. 31, according to an April 8 transportation note by Bank of America analyst Ken Hoexter. Those rates are on the spot market – where loads are picked up on demand, rather than through a contract. The spot market is just a fraction of the trucking world, but spot numbers point to where contract rates will go.
Another indicator of a downturn is the drop in contracted loads rejected by carriers. Contrary to the, um, idea of a contract, truckers can reject loads they previously agreed to carry. Usually, they reject a contract load if they can get a better job on the spot market. Analysts follow the outbound tender reject index to see if the trucking market is hot or not.
Compared to last year, the market is decidedly not. Only 11% of loads are getting rejected right now, way down from 25% at this time last year.
Through the end of 2020 and throughout 2021, trucking was “white-hot,” said Amit Mehrotra, managing director of transportation and shipping research at Deutsche Bank. As Avery Vise of FTR Transportation Intelligence told The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, trucking companies could expect to simply “print money” amid this market.
Now, truck drivers who have entered this industry in recent months are scrambling to stay profitable – and some have already stopped driving.
What happened?
Demand for random crap softening amid influx of driving capacity
If your high school economics education was as prestigious as mine, you know that high supply or low demand leads to decreased prices. Right now, there’s both an increase of supply (truck drivers) and decrease of demand (loads for drivers to move).
The supply of truckers is way up. Thousands of new fleets are registered each month in the U.S., and it’s reached a fever pitch in recent months. In February alone, a record 20,166 trucking companies entered the market. (Keep in mind, the typical trucking company is very small; 89% have one to five trucks.)
The labor market for truckers was unusually tight through the end of 2020 and throughout 2021 , but an ACT Research survey of trucking companies shows that driver availability has been improving. Mehrotra told me workers have finally depleted the savings they built up during the pandemic and are returning to work.
Meanwhile, demand for truckers has softened. Consumers are slashing their spending – particularly when it comes to buying more and more stuff. Core retail sales fell by 1.2% in February, the most recent number available from the feds. Those sales will likely continue to soften. In response to historic inflation, 84% of Americans surveyed by Bloomberg News said they would cut back spending. Some have already been forced to cut back, according to a CNBC poll.
And those who are still spending are increasingly going to restaurants and concerts instead of, say, buying lots of stuff from Amazon. The latter requires far more truck drivers than the former. See this study from Bank of America economist Anna Zhou:
There are lots of truck drivers who entered the industry when our only hobby was online shopping. But, amid inflationary pressures and a society that’s mostly reopened, consumers are buying less of those durable goods. It’s an overlap of the Venn diagram that might result in a lot of new fleets being flushed right back out of the market.
I’ll let Walters explain:
“With rates being so high, everyone and their uncle bought a truck. I wish that it had a little more stability for the drivers and the small carriers. With more trucks on the market, the shippers and brokers can kind of dictate the price – because somebody is going to take the freight.”
Return of the bloodbath?
This normalization in trucking shouldn’t come as a surprise, Mehrotra said. “It’s totally reasonable to assume the white-hot demand environment we’ve been in the past two years is going to moderate,” he told me.
Still, the plummeting freight rates are stressing out the many, many new truck drivers who started their own fleets or entered this industry in the past two years. Their experience of running a trucking business has been in an unusually favorable market. Some might not have previous experience running a business. So the plummeting rates, coupled with the spike in diesel, are a slap in the face.
It’s all reminiscent of the 2019 trucking bloodbath (which I wrote about quite a bit at my old gig at Business Insider). In 2018, trucking was booming. Drivers were receiving record-high raises amid a capacity shortage that year. Many joined the industry. Unfortunately, demand for trucking services sank at the same time. That’s a very short explanation for why 1,100 trucking companies went out of business in one year.
Despite this history, some drivers aren’t worried. Travis Ludi, who is based outside of Oklahoma City, has been a truck driver for 10 years. He opened his own trucking authority just one and a half months ago. He said his realm of trucking – hauling grain for animal feed – is much steadier than the dry van world. (There is one downside to this recession-proof sector, however. Ludi also hauls the “left remnants” of kill plants to pet food factories, which he confirmed to me does not smell good!)
“A lot of companies or other owner-operators get in over their heads as the rates go up,” Ludi said. “They’re buying brand new trucks at higher prices due to inflation. Whenever rates go down to a normal level, they have to go out of business.”
Others are feeling more cautious. David Guzman in San Antonio has already parked some of his trucks.
Guzman bought three “dirt cheap” trucks from a liquidation company in early 2020. It turned out, those trucks were previously owned by Celadon, a company that pulled in $1 billion in revenue before filing for bankruptcy amid the 2019 trucking bloodbath.
When diesel started to spike this year, Guzman ran the numbers and realized he wouldn’t be able to run those trucks. He has a separate fleet that runs Amazon loads and has his equipment paid off, which is helping make ends meet. “I can’t imagine what folks that have payments on their equipment are going through right now,” he said. “The way the rates are, you have to run twice as hard to make ends meet. I can’t help but feel for my fellow truck drivers.”
In the meantime, it’s another bloodbath that these Celadon trucks might be sitting out.
Thanks for reading! You can reach out to the author at rpremack@freightwaves.com or rpremack@protonmail.net. Subscribe to the next edition of MODES here.
April 13, 2022
Another Bolt-on Acquisition for Applied Adhesives
Arsenal’s APPLIED Adhesives Acquires PRIME Industries MINNETONKA, Minn., April 12, 2022 – APPLIED Adhesives, a premier adhesive solutions provider in North America, today announced that it has completed its acquisition of PRIME Industries, a regional supplier of adhesives, sealants, and dispensing equipment solutions located in Denver, CO. This acquisition strengthens the Company’s commitment to providing industry leading products, technical expertise, and relentless service to its customers.
“We believe cultural fit is the most important factor when considering an acquisition, specifically the culture of how a company and its employees engage with their customers. The foundation of PRIME’s success is their ability to consistently exceed their customer’s expectations. PRIME’s customer focused cultural is a perfect match for how we partner with our customers at APPLIED,” said John Feriancek, President and CEO of APPLIED Adhesives. “I am thrilled that Dale and his team have chosen to join APPLIED and look forward to working together to continue delivering exceptional service and value to all PRIME customers.”
“We are proud of the business we have built and the value we have delivered to our customers for the past 27 years. We are grateful to our many loyal customers who have partnered with us to be a part of their success. We pride ourselves in partnering with customers to provide the best solutions for their adhesive and equipment needs,” said Dale Charles, Owner of PRIME Industries. “We now entrust this commitment to APPLIED. We are excited to join the APPLIED team and offer even more adhesive and equipment solutions while continuing to build strong relationships with new and existing customers.”
PRIME Industries is APPLIED Adhesives’ seventh acquisition in the past twelve months.
About APPLIED Adhesives
APPLIED Adhesives, founded in 1971, is a premier custom adhesive solutions provider in North America. The company is a value-added distributor of hot melt, water-based, and reactive adhesives as well as dispensing equipment. APPLIED Adhesives serves as a critical supply chain partner to leading adhesive manufacturers and formulators by offering reach and high service levels to an expansive customer base. For more information, please visit appliedadhesives.com.
About PRIME Industries Located in Denver, CO, PRIME Industries is a regional supplier with over 27 (1995) years of providing adhesives, dispensing equipment, and industrial sealants in the Rocky Mountain region. Their practical expertise in many industries, as well as all types of fabrication knowledge using most types of materials allows them to solving complex adhesive and dispensing equipment challenges. Please visit primei.com
About Arsenal Capital Partners Arsenal is a leading private equity firm that specializes in investments in middle-market industrial growth and healthcare companies. Since its inception in 2000, Arsenal has raised institutional equity investment funds of more than $10 billion, has completed more than 250 platform and add-on investments, and achieved more than 30 realizations. Arsenal invests in industry sectors in which the firm has significant prior knowledge and experience. The firm works with management teams to build strategically important companies with leading market positions, high growth, and high value-add. Visit www.arsenalcapital.com for more information.
April 13, 2022
Another Bolt-on Acquisition for Applied Adhesives
Arsenal’s APPLIED Adhesives Acquires PRIME Industries MINNETONKA, Minn., April 12, 2022 – APPLIED Adhesives, a premier adhesive solutions provider in North America, today announced that it has completed its acquisition of PRIME Industries, a regional supplier of adhesives, sealants, and dispensing equipment solutions located in Denver, CO. This acquisition strengthens the Company’s commitment to providing industry leading products, technical expertise, and relentless service to its customers.
“We believe cultural fit is the most important factor when considering an acquisition, specifically the culture of how a company and its employees engage with their customers. The foundation of PRIME’s success is their ability to consistently exceed their customer’s expectations. PRIME’s customer focused cultural is a perfect match for how we partner with our customers at APPLIED,” said John Feriancek, President and CEO of APPLIED Adhesives. “I am thrilled that Dale and his team have chosen to join APPLIED and look forward to working together to continue delivering exceptional service and value to all PRIME customers.”
“We are proud of the business we have built and the value we have delivered to our customers for the past 27 years. We are grateful to our many loyal customers who have partnered with us to be a part of their success. We pride ourselves in partnering with customers to provide the best solutions for their adhesive and equipment needs,” said Dale Charles, Owner of PRIME Industries. “We now entrust this commitment to APPLIED. We are excited to join the APPLIED team and offer even more adhesive and equipment solutions while continuing to build strong relationships with new and existing customers.”
PRIME Industries is APPLIED Adhesives’ seventh acquisition in the past twelve months.
About APPLIED Adhesives
APPLIED Adhesives, founded in 1971, is a premier custom adhesive solutions provider in North America. The company is a value-added distributor of hot melt, water-based, and reactive adhesives as well as dispensing equipment. APPLIED Adhesives serves as a critical supply chain partner to leading adhesive manufacturers and formulators by offering reach and high service levels to an expansive customer base. For more information, please visit appliedadhesives.com.
About PRIME Industries Located in Denver, CO, PRIME Industries is a regional supplier with over 27 (1995) years of providing adhesives, dispensing equipment, and industrial sealants in the Rocky Mountain region. Their practical expertise in many industries, as well as all types of fabrication knowledge using most types of materials allows them to solving complex adhesive and dispensing equipment challenges. Please visit primei.com
About Arsenal Capital Partners Arsenal is a leading private equity firm that specializes in investments in middle-market industrial growth and healthcare companies. Since its inception in 2000, Arsenal has raised institutional equity investment funds of more than $10 billion, has completed more than 250 platform and add-on investments, and achieved more than 30 realizations. Arsenal invests in industry sectors in which the firm has significant prior knowledge and experience. The firm works with management teams to build strategically important companies with leading market positions, high growth, and high value-add. Visit www.arsenalcapital.com for more information.
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