Heartland Express sold three terminals and entered into lease agreements, repeating a sale-leaseback move the carrier made last year in California given the hot real estate market.
The Iowa-based carrier did not identify the locations, but it will shift to leases of two years or less at each, according to a securities filing Monday.
A property database with San Joaquin County in California reported Monday that Heartland sold terminal space in Lathrop for $30.9 million. A state business database listed the new owner’s address as that of global investment firm Carlyle.
The company expects a roughly $25 million pretax gain from selling the three terminals.
Last year, the carrier also picked up properties through a TFI International deal involving assets from Contract Freighters, adding facilities in West Memphis, Arkansas; Sanford, Florida; Taylor, Michigan; Joplin, Missouri; and the border cities of Laredo, Texas and Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, Mexico.
And in a deal related to but separate from its Smith Transport acquisition, Heartland acquired the former company’s Roaring Spring, Pennsylvania, trucking terminal and warehouse space for $14 million in cash, per a company announcement.
While Heartland did not provide reasoning for this round of leasebacks, the Rancho Cucamonga leaseback was prompted by a red-hot California real estate market, CFO Chris Strain told Trucking Dive in 2022.
