GlobalTranz Acquires 3PL Cerasis As Part Of Continued Expansion

GlobalTranz continues its rapid expansion, announcing the acquisition of Cerasis on Thursday. It is the 11th acquisition for the fast-growing third-party logistics (3PL) and technology solutions company since January 2017.

GlobalTranz CEO Renee Krug said that acquiring Cerasis will benefit the company as it builds out its managed transportation business. GlobalTranz is already among the 10 largest brokerages in the country.

"Cerasis has a strong history of providing its customers with solutions that help create competitive and operative advantages," Krug said in a statement. "Cerasis will help expand GlobalTranz's growing managed transportation, final mile and reverse logistics capabilities. The talented team at Cerasis combined with the talented team of agents and employees at GlobalTranz will drive increased differentiation and accelerate growth of our solutions in the marketplace."

Cerasis' management will remain in place and customers will receive the service they have been accustomed to from Cerasis, Adam Robinson, marketing manager for Cerasis, told FreightWaves.

"They can expect business as usual as a Cerasis customer. The same great vendor and inbound management team, the same freight claims and invoice auditing services teams, as well as the excellent technology with our TMS," Robinson said. "The carrier relations team will still be in place to help secure the best pricing for our shipper customers."

Cerasis takes a technology-focused approach to managed transportation and third-party multimodal logistics service offerings. It has its own technology suite, including the Cerasis Rater, its proprietary transportation management system (TMS). Cerasis, founded in 1997, has grown to offer 3PL and 4PL solutions for customers in the less-than-truckload, truckload, parcel, and carrier relations spaces.

"Since the founding of our business in 1997, Cerasis has helped customers understand fragmented shipping data to manage costs and make logistics a strategic weapon," said Steve Ludvigson, president of Cerasis.

"We have made transportation management less complicated by bringing together the right people, processes and technology," Steve Norall, vice president of business development at Cerasis, said. "Combining with GlobalTranz allows us to continue this history while providing our customers with increased service offerings and access to capacity. I am excited to write the next chapters of the Cerasis story with GlobalTranz."

The acquisition will strengthen the offerings available to Cerasis customers.

"This will improve our ability to provide stronger LTL and full truckload rates and more options on the full truckload side," Robinson noted. "It will also provide more opportunity for Cerasis employees. Cerasis is strong on the LTL side and with the GlobalTranz full truckload prowess, in addition to both companies' technology, it will be a huge win for each of our customer bases."

Cerasis maintains its corporate headquarters in Eagan, Minnesota, with additional office locations in Dallas, Houston and Tulsa, Oklahoma.

GlobalTranz's network now includes more than 34,000 carriers and 25,000 customers.

In November, GlobalTranz was again named to FreightWaves' FreighTech 100 of the nation's most innovative companies. In 2019, GlobalTranz introduced the GTZcommand transportation management system (TMS) and the next-generation digital freight matching solution, GTZamp.

In October, GlobalTranz announced the acquisition of Global Freight Solutions, a Chicago-based brokerage. That followed the spring announcement of Circle 8 Logistics being acquired. Also based in Chicago, Circle 8 is a third-party logistics provider brokering truckload, flatbed, intermodal, temperature-controlled and less-than-truckload (LTL) capacity.

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