A Texas-based trucking company will lay off more than 150 workers as the company shutters their Grand Prairie facility permanently.
Arnold Transportation Services Layoffs
Dallas County-based regional truckload carrier Arnold Transportation Services Inc. will lay off 157 employees as they shutter their Grand Prairie facility for good, according to a Texas Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) listing.
Workers were laid off as of April 30, 2024.
From an April 26 internal memo obtained by CDLLife:
“The Company has now made the difficult decision to shut down the Grand Prairie facility located at 3375 High Prairie Road, Grand Prairie, Texas 75050 (the “Facility”), as well as the operating business of Arnold, resulting in a plant closing. The Company made this decision in consultation with the court-appointed Monitor and Chief Restructuring Officer. The plant closing is expected to be effective April 30, 2024. This plant closing is expected to be permanent, and the entire plant is expected to be closed.“
The company says that the short notice provided to workers of the layoffs is because “liquidity constraints due to deteriorating market conditions and lack of sufficient available funding during the CCAA [Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act] proceeding have unexpectedly left the Company without sufficient working capital to pay its operating expenses, including wages.”
Company officials went on to say:
“The Company had hoped to restructure in the course of the CCAA proceeding and obtain new business and/or obtain funding, including funding for benefits and payroll, by pursuing a transaction or restructuring that would have enabled it to continue operations and to prevent the closing of the Facility but was unable to do so. Additionally, the Company recently determined that it could not maintain its group medical and prescription drug plan coverage and notified employees that it had to terminate its group medical and prescription drug plan effective April 19, 2024. The Company also pursued options for securing a purchaser of the Facility, which would have allowed the Facility to remain open and operating, but was unable to secure a purchaser on an urgent basis in light of liquidity constraints. The plant closing was not reasonably foreseeable at the time notice would have otherwise been required. In addition, notice is further excused because the business is being liquidated.“
Trucking Company Acquired By Pride Group
The company that would become Arnold Transportation was founded in 1932. The company employs 341 drivers, according to FMCSA records.
Arnold Transportation was acquired by Ontario-based Pride Group Logistics in February 2022.
On March 28, 2024, parent company Pride Group Holdings announced that they filed for and obtained Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA) protection in Canada. The company also announced plans to file for Chapter 15 bankruptcy protection in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware.
Following the filings, Pride Group said that they anticipated no disruption to any services or products.
Pride Group employs approximately 500 people in the U.S. and Canada, according to the company website.
“We have taken these steps to commence the CCAA Proceedings and to seek recognition under the Chapter 15 Cases so that we can maintain our current operations, stabilize our business, establish governance controls and monitoring, and develop a plan to restructure for the benefit of our stakeholders. We believe this is in the best interests of all of our employees, customers, business partners and other stakeholders,” the company said in a March 28 news release.
“After the pandemic, the North American trucking industry experienced a significant downturn that negatively impacted transportation asset values and increased delinquencies in the leasing business,” Pride Group said.
Canadian outlet Truck News reports that Pride Group Holdings is facing a $100 million lawsuit from Mitsubishi HC Capital America for defaulting on payments. The outlet says that truck makers including PACCAR, Daimler, and Volvo have also filed claims against Pride Group for hundreds of millions of dollars.
Family-owned Pride Group was founded in 2010 by Sam Johal and Jas Johal in Mississauga, Ontario, from one location as a used truck retailer. The company has grown to operate more than 50 locations in the U.S. and Canada offering a variety of services through a number of business lines, including trucking and logistics, truck repair, freight factoring, used truck sales, and real estate.
For more, check out this interview from the Sense Per Mile team on the Arnold Transportation closure.