#BenjaminGordon

[benjamingordon]

Liftit co-founder Ángel Celis says these resources will allow them to invest in artificial intelligence and machine learning to reduce operational costs of the process. Liftit continues to make its way, with its technological platform, as an advanced player in the multimillion dollar logistics business in Latin America , with operations in Colombia, Brazil, Mexico, Chile and Ecuador. The Bogotá-based company revealed this Wednesday that it obtained US $ 22.5 million in its most recent investment round, in series B, led by Cambridge Capital, with the participation of IFC, Monashees, Jaguar Ventures, NXTP Ventures, among other important investors. . "These resources will be used to guarantee our expansion process in the countries we operate, we want to have omnichannel in the main road corridors in the countries in which we operate ," Ángel Celis Botto, co-founder of Liftit, told Forbes. "They will allow us to strengthen our executive team and focus on process automation through our technology." Ben Gordon and Matt Smalley of Cambridge Capital and former Amazon vice-president of global logistics Ed Feitzinger will sit on the Liftit board of directors. With the closing of this round, in total they have raised US $ 39.2 million, having among their previous investors Mercado Libre and Grupo Bolívar. Liftit was founded in 2017 by three Colombians Brian York, the CEO; Ángel Celis Botto, the CPO and Felipe Betancourt, the vice president of business development. The first was a web page developed in Ángel's house that focused on moving people. Those three were multiplied by a hundred; now there are 300 on the team. Over time it evolved to fight for corporate clients of the big leagues, such as Walmart, Pepsi and Grupo Bimbo, with the platform of independent transporters on demand that is making 150,000 monthly deliveries and billing more than US $ 3 million each month. The arrival of fresh capital will allow them to continue automating the process and developing their own technology to digitize logistics in the region. Liftit CEO Brian York believes that working with Cambridge Capital, which has "deep global logistics experience", will contribute to high growth in 2021 "and beyond." By automating and optimizing delivery processes using artificial intelligence and machine learning, those who use the platform can reduce their operational costs. With it, they can contract and execute any type of delivery, facilitating the tracking of the process in real time and the traceability of key metrics. “Our experience as global business creators in the supply chain, and our unique perspective as operators, strategic advisors and investors focused exclusively on logistics, will allow us to help Liftit continue to build its moat in the logistics technology business. of last mile transportation in Latin America, ” says Ben Gordon, managing partner of Cambridge Capital. "We think that's a fast-growing market that moves billions of dollars a year." In turn, the director of Cambridge Capital Matt Smalley, comments that the continued exponential growth of this startup and the fact that they provide a unified service in several countries of the region to the largest load generators on the continent, “confirm the great market opportunity and its excellent product-market fit ”. "It is solving an important problem for load generators in Latin America, connecting transporters and transport capacity through localized technology to meet the unique needs of the region," adds Ed Feitzinger, who was recently Vice President of Global Logistics at Amazon, Prior to that, he served as CEO of a global freight forwarder operating in 59 countries. For Feitzinger, distribution costs in Latin America are among the highest in the world, and short-distance transportation, specifically the last mile, is a big problem for carriers in Latin America. "It offers a unique combination of technology and operational capability to solve that problem." The truth is that Liftit joins the club of the few technology companies that have been able to raise capital amid the global pandemic of COVID-19, which has led to uncertainty and economic recession, but with the integration of these heavyweights something is clear : they have millions of kilometers to go. Original Source: https://forbes.co/2020/07/08/emprendedores/liftit-levanta-us225-millones-en-serie-b-automatizando-la-logistica/

[benjamingordon]

On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization announced the COVID-19 (also known as novel coronavirus) was a global pandemic and health emergency. Subsequently, the United States of America and other countries around the world fell into an economic recession. As more businesses closed (some temporarily, some permanently), it became more and more difficult to predict how, when and if the global economy would bounce back. America has been one of the slower countries in terms of reopening, but this is due to the difficulties America has faced in controlling the spread of COVID-19 compared to other countries with similar economies.

Right now is the best time to look to consultants for answers. Consultants, like CEO of Cambridge Capital Benjamin Gordon, are experts in their field. In the case of Benjamin Gordon, he is an expert on supply chain management and logistics. His company, Cambridge Capital, is a West Palm Beach-based private equity investor in transportation, logistics, and supply chain technology businesses. The Cambridge team includes CEOs and leaders who have built companies like GENCO, FedEx Supply Chain, Kuehne & Nagel LeadLogistics, UPS, and others. Benjamin is also Editor-in-Chief of SUPPLY CHAINS, Cambridge’s publication that focuses on trends and opportunities resulting from both old-economy transportation and new-economy technology. In addition to his current work at Cambridge Capital, Gordon also founded BG Strategic Advisors (BGSA), a West Palm Beach-based investment banking firm for the supply chain sector. BGSA helps supply chain CEOs to maximize their value via mergers, acquisitions, investments, and other strategic initiatives. Benjamin has worked with firms such as UPS, DHL, Kuehne & Nagel, Agility Logistics, NFI Logistics, GENCO, Nations Express, Raytrans, Echo Global, Dixie, Wilpak, and others. At BGSA, Benjamin Gordon leads the annual BGSA Supply Chain conference, the largest annual conference for CEOs from all segments of the global supply chain.

As a recognized expert in the supply chain and technology sector, Ben Gordon is trusted for his insights on the market. Benjamin Gordon has been published in Fortune, CNBC, SupplyChainBrain, Data Driven Investor, Supply Chain 247, Freightwaves, and Supply Chain Management Review. He has been interviewed or featured by the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, BusinessWeek, Logistics Management, ABC, Lehrer News Hour, Journal of Commerce, Transport Topics, Supply Chain Management Quarterly, and Traffic World.

[benjamingordon]

How has COVID-19 changed the freight tech landscape?

We welcome Ben Gordon, Founder of Cambridge Capital and logistics investment expert, for a special FreightWaves LIVE @HOME episode to discuss the immediate future of freight tech investment. We cover how the investment landscape is changing in 2020 and what technology looks most promising.

[benjamingordon]

The majority of transportation and logistics executives expect their businesses to grow by more than 10% in 2020 and say they are “very likely” to consider a merger, acquisition, investment or other transaction in 2020, according to survey data gathered at BGSA’s annual conference.

Last week at The Breakers in West Palm Beach, Florida, BGSA mergers and acquisitions advisor and Cambridge Capital venture capitalist Benjamin Gordon hosted supply chain leaders at his advisory firm’s annual conference.

BGSA’s conference is closed to the press to foster a more frank atmosphere among the 250 guests, the vast majority of whom were CEOs and presidents, but Gordon spoke to FreightWaves by phone about what he learned.

One of the highlights of the event was undoubtedly XPO Logistics (NYSE: XPO) CEO Brad Jacobs’ town-hall discussion when he fielded unscreened questions from the audience about a wide variety of topics, including the potential sale of multiple XPO business units.

“Brad was very candid in an unscripted Q&A session with the audience,” Gordon said. “He offered very powerful personal stories about his leadership journey and what he’s learned and what he’s looked for and discussed his rationale for pursuing the divestitures. The insight was more about understanding his thought process on the carve-outs and his outlook for what he expects will happen.”

Jacobs had spoken previously in public about XPO’s “conglomerate discount” — the idea that shares of XPO are not correctly priced by the market in part because investors have a hard time judging the value of all of its complex moving parts, which include international freight forwarding, freight brokerage, intermodal, final mile, warehousing, and less-than-truckload operations.

“His job is to maximize value for shareholders, but the market is giving him a multiple around 9x, so sum-of-the-parts analysis implies just a 5x multiple for the non-LTL businesses where they should trade for more than double that,” Gordon explained. “Brad gave, fundamentally, unsentimental description of the business he had built and how to maximize the value.”

One of the most valuable parts of the conference for Gordon is the ability it gives him to test his base case assumptions about the macroeconomic backdrop and industry growth against quantifiable feedback from hundreds of top executives.

As noted above, the majority of executives said they were optimistic about growth and ready to execute deals. Fewer than 10% expected the supply chain industry to experience negative growth in 2020, after growth of under 5% in 2019.

Gordon said that despite worries about an industrial recession globally and in the United States, conversations with companies that had exposure to the industrial economy were positive.

“We saw companies like Maersk, FedEx, Werner, all with exposure and insight to the industrial side, and nothing I heard indicated fear of an industrial contraction,” Gordon said. He pointed out that in addition to widespread expectations for industry growth, there are favorable financial factors like low-interest rates for corporate debt that will encourage companies to expand.

Gordon was particularly bullish on what he called “e-commerce ripple effects,” including micro-warehouse facilities, fulfillment, last mile, reverse logistics and the maturation of technology.

The future of growth equity in supply chain businesses will look more like private equity than venture capital, Gordon predicted.

“It will be more about scaling up something that works rather than making a string of bets on unknowns,” he said. “I expect we will see more capital pouring into companies with favorable unit economics and real customer traction that are solving real problems.”

Amazon was also a major topic of discussion at the conference; the trillion-dollar e-commerce retailer’s aggressive expansion into supply chain logistics has made it a ubiquitous talking point. Because Amazon is one of the world’s most innovative companies, other supply chain participants are forced to monitor it, forecast its moves and reckon with the effects.

Gordon said Guy Bloch, CEO of delivery logistics platform Bringg, articulated a uniquely constructive view of Amazon, and how to respond to it, at the conference.

“Bloch said it was like Android versus iPhone,” Gordon recalled. “There’s no one company that can take on Amazon, but if you take an open ecosystem approach, collectively the market could form a competitive alternative. This time next year will be interesting to compare. If that alliance of open systems partners come together, then who knows? Maybe next year we’ll be looking at a very different supply chain market instead of a fear of Amazon disrupting everything — maybe a shifting competitive landscape that produces more opportunities for those companies who become part of the open ecosystem.”

[benjamingordon]

Hello and welcome back to another episode of “The Freight Project Podcast!”

On today’s episode we welcome Benjamin Gordon of Cambridge Capital, a capital investment firm with a focus on logistics & logistics technology. Ben is a long time veteran of the logistics industry, having first worked for a company that developed a TMS for 3PLs.

We hope you enjoy this “The Freight Project Podcast.” You can subscribe and find this podcast on Apple iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher for Podcasts, Spotify, Soundcloud, YouTube, and iHeartRadio!

The Rise of Logistics Technology Investments

On the episode, Ben will share his thoughts on the state of logistics technology investments and the market in general that he has gleaned in investments made by his firm and in his conversations with logistics technology leaders, especially at his recent conference held on January 22nd to January 24th of 2020. Now, at the time of this recording, this conference had not yet occurred, but has now completed. Look out for the BGSA supply chain conference in 2021!

On the episode, you’ll hear Ben discuss the following:

[benjamingordon]

his week, the 14th annual BG Strategic Advisors annual conference, BGSA Supply Chain Conference 2020, kicked off at The Breakers in Palm Beach, Fla. This event positions itself as the “only CEO-level event focused on all segments of the supply chain” and takes a deep dive into myriad facets of the industry, including technology innovation, global growth, the state of logistics, the state of trucking, and dealmaking spotlights, among others. Logistics Management Group News Editor Jeff Berman recently caught up with Ben Gordon, Managing Partner of Cambridge Capital, an investor in niche supply chain leaders and also Managing Partner of BGSA Holdings, a leading mergers, and acquisitions advisory firm focused on the transportation, logistics, and supply chain technology sector, about this week’s conference and the current state of supply chain and logistics M&A activity. A transcript of the conversation follows below.

Logistics Management (LM): What are the big focus areas of this week’s BGSA Supply Chain conference?

Ben Gordon: The big topics, of course, are capital markets and technology. There are lots of M&A and investment topics to discuss and on the technology side I think every logistics company is worried about how to make sure they use technology to stay competitive, and every technology company wants to make sure that they can win logistics companies as customers and allies. It is a very interesting story on both sides.

LM: A few years back, you talked about the concept of “service convergence,” in which one company acquires another to get something it needs as a service offering for its customers. Does it still serve as a good working theme or has the script shifted in different ways for various reasons?

Gordon: Convergence, which was a huge driver of so much of the M&A over the last decade, probably reached its crescendo with XPO Logistics.

LM: In what ways?

Gordon: The premise of XPO was to buy and combine great services in different areas of logistics so whether that is a truck brokerage, intermodal, warehousing, value-added services like brokerage as well as managed transportation. Those are all key elements, and I think XPO’s premise was to buy, integrate, cross-sell and achieve convergence. I think they did a good job of it. If you look at the actual data and look at how many customers they were able to achieve cross-selling benefits with after acquisition, I actually think they did pretty well. The fact that [XPO Chairman and CEO] Brad Jacobs is exploring breaking it up suggests it was not as integrated as we thought….but it is all speculative as at this point it is just an announcement. It may be that years from now we will look back on the history of U.S. logistics, and we find that 2020 was the peak of convergence…and that the XPO divestiture, if it indeed does occur, could mark the transition point.

LM: How would it mark the transition point?

Gordon: It is not just because of XPO. I think it is also that it has been harder than many people expected to achieve cross-selling. One classic example was when Wilpak was sold to Jacobson in May 2006, it marked a combination of contract packaging with contract warehousing. That seemed like a classic fit for a convergence play because you had two sets of services—in packaging and warehousing—and you could go to the same customer and in some cases, you could go to different locations and simply be eliminating shuttling costs by co-locating those services. That kind of convergence seemed like a natural fit.  Similarly, it felt like a natural fit to combine truck brokerage and intermodal, as was the case when XPO acquired Pacer, which was easy.

LM: What are some other examples?

Gordon: A combination of warehousing plus freight forwarding or Customs brokerage. When Ozburn-Hessey bought Barthco in July 2006, it was an example of a convergence effort that, in the end, was not as successful of some of the other examples we talked about. It was not because of the people, it was because those services are harder to bundle. The convergence that has driven so much of the M&A over the last ten-to-15 years was real, but I think some of it proved to be a bridge too far.

LM: Looking at the logistics and freight transportation markets now, there are a lot of new players that have made significant entrances and inroads that were not in existence even a decade ago or less. While these companies are quickly becoming established, they are not making M&A deals, it seems. Will that change over time and can a smaller emerging company do, for example, what XPO has done on the path to growth?

Gordon: Absolutely. In fact, some of the most successful companies that I know are taking pages from the XPO playbook. I look at GlobalTranz. GlobalTranz has bought 11 companies over the last 2.5 years. The success of that will be measured probably a year or two from now. Fundamentally, they have been doing acquisition-like growth. And, like XPO, it has been very aggressive and systematic. At our conference last year, I did an interview with Bob Farrell, GlobalTranz chairman, about how he did it with a very systematic approach. On the other hand, its approach is narrower than XPO, because it is really only buying brokerage and managed transportation and is not doing the broader plays XPO did with international- or tracking-based deals. I would say GlobalTranz borrowed from the XPO playbook, in terms of an aggressive, repeatable, systematic acquisition plan, but it was narrower in the scope of what it did. It is too soon to declare total victory on that, but historically it has been very successful with that strategy.

LM: Looking at the nature of different deals, many large companies made tuck-in acquisitions to fill a specific need or niche. What is the current state of these types of deals?

Gordon: I think there has been a steady diet of tuck-ins, but they have been quieter and have generally involved private companies as opposed to public companies. I have not seen larger companies like C.H. Robinson or Echo Global Logistics or some of the others pursue tuck-ins lately. But GlobalTranz is an example having just acquired Cerasis, and Transplace is another with its recent acquisition of LaneHub. Sale numbers were not disclosed for either deal, but I can tell you they were both well below ten percent the size of the acquirer. So, if you are Transplace buying Lanehub, you are adding a great collaboration network of about 150 shippers, 150 carriers, and $23 billion in truckload spend. They are getting network reach, but it is a relatively small and successful acquisition. It does not have to go raise financing or worry about the risk of making a gigantic acquisition. It is a classic tuck-in acquisition, as is the GlobalTranz-Cerasis deal. With the Global Tranz-Cerasis deal, most of that deal fit the [tuck-in] profile, in terms of being below ten percent the size of the acquirer, easy to integrate, and being consistent with the overall strategy of the business and therefore relatively simple and consistent with the rest of the service footprint.

LM: What is a good example of a larger company making a tuck-in acquisition?

Gordon: When Echo bought Command a while back, that was viewed as transformative and big. And you could argue in hindsight that Echo, which has bought close to 20 companies, has had great success with small tuck-ins. Command was a harder deal because of the magnitude, the purchase price, and the integration requirements. It can be successful either way, but I think we have seen more tuck-ins than transformative acquisitions over the last year and that is probably a good thing for the likelihood of success.

Hub Group acquired CaseStack in December 2018 for $252 million, MODE in August 2018 for $258 million, which were bigger than your average small tuck-in, but Hub Group’s total enterprise value today is $2 billion and has gone up a little bit since the time of those deals. These deals were in the 10%-to-20% of the enterprise value range….but not so big or different that they were totally transformational. Hub’s acquisition of Estenson Logistics was in 2017 and that was a $306 million deal in dedicated freight. That one surprised me a little bit because Hub is an intermodal marketing company and asset-light, and Estenson is dedicated freight. Hub has made three acquisitions in the last 2.5 years, totaling more roughly $800 million in M&A. That is actually a lot. I would not say Hub has been as acquisitive as XPO but quietly it has become pretty aggressive for a company that historically has bought very little.

LM: What is your take on Amazon getting into this space on the M&A front?

Gordon: I think Amazon will continue to invest very aggressively to build out its logistics position. But the best analogy I see for Amazon is what it did with Amazon Web Services (AWS), which really came into existence less than 15 years ago. In the beginning, AWS was a service for its existing customers, and it expanded to become a full-service, arm’s length standalone business unit. This was done through aggressive investment, but it was not done through acquisition. If AWS holds true as an analogy, then you could see Amazon continuing to pour tremendous resources in the form of hiring people and spending money on technology, building out services and building its own network like it is doing in last-mile right now. It is not as likely to be an acquirer, but Jeff Bezos is really the only one that knows that. The evidence I see seems to suggest it will follow the AWS path.

Benjamin Gordon is the Founder of Cambridge Capital and BGSA. He is a leading investor in logistics, technology, and supply chain. For more on the BGSA Supply Chain Conference, visit here.

[benjamingordon]

Executives pondered options this week during the BG Strategic Advisors Supply Chain Conference at the Breakers in Palm Beach.

Full Link Here

The rapid growth of Amazon’s delivery business model was a hot topic among concerned logistics and transportation executives at the BG Strategic Advisors Supply Chain Conference at the Breakers this week.

The issue is how to deal with Amazon’s spiraling growth in the logistics business – the term used to describe the online purchasing process, including “last mile” delivery to the consumer.

Amazon took another big step forward with the development of its own network of delivery vehicles in June 2018 through a program called Delivery Service Partners. By December 2019, the company was employing more than 90,000 “logistics associates” and was on track to deliver 3.5 billion packages worldwide by the end of the year, according to company reports.

Amazon’s dark gray “Prime” vans are now ubiquitous in South Florida, and other markets across the country.

Companies that had counted on Amazon accounts – including big names like UPS, FedEx, and the U.S. Postal Service – are worried about taking a hit.

“Amazon’s move into logistics has created massive ripple effects,” says Ben Gordon, founder and managing director of BGSA Holdings in Palm Beach and organizer of the BGSA Supply Chain Conference, which is in its 14th year. The annual event is billed as a gathering of the world’s leading CEOs in transportation and logistics.

Gene Tyndall, chief strategy officer for Tompkins, a fulfillment services company in Raleigh, North Carolina, and a conference attendee, says Amazon not only cuts into business volume for the smaller players but often lures away their employees.

[benjamingordon]

One logistics expert, Cambridge Capital Managing Partner Benjamin Gordon, sees logistical risks in Amazon's forward integration strategy. Most notably, Amazon is breaking relationships with suppliers. As Gordon said, "In addition to losing FedEx, [Amazon] also lost XPO, the $18 billion logistics powerhouse, in a move that took away close to $1 billion. If Amazon continues to lose partners, they will face shipping failures far worse than what they experienced in 2013."

[benjamingordon]

If you have any lingering doubt about the convergence of technology and logistics, ask FedEx CEO, Fred Smith. FedEx stock plunged 13% after its Q3 results call last week, which included an explanation of a decline believed to be fueled by ending an Amazon contract, where he included his former customer as a competitor, telling shareholders, “we basically compete in an ecosphere that’s got five entities in it. There’s UPS, there’s DHL, there’s the U.S. Postal Service, and now increasingly, there’s Amazon.”

In sum, we are entering a phase where logistics is more important than ever. You need to know about supply chains if you work in business, if you use technology, if you care about the economy, if you invest, or if you simply want to understand your world. Logistics has become intertwined with everything we do.

What can we expect going forward? How will logistics and transport evolve, and what should you care about most? These questions will be the focus of Supply Chains, covering the themes and trends critical to our future. Below, we illustrate eight issues, courtesy of Cambridge Capital, investors in transportation and logistics.

[benjamingordon]

Mr. Gordon has worked with Continental Ventures for over fifteen years. He is instrumental in the evaluation of each potential property presented to the company and provides careful research to identify those that will lead to asset growth. His ability to model and analyze new opportunities allows CV to quickly and efficiently select and negotiate new development properties. He plays an active role in the coordination of design, construction, and delivery to ensure timely completion and maximum benefit to the company’s portfolio. Mr. Benjamin Gordon also oversees the leasing and maintaining of the company’s retail portfolio and its expanding multifamily portfolio.  Mr. Gordon is a graduate of Brandies University.