XPO Logistics considering "sale or spin off of one or more business units" but UK impact unclear

XPO Logistics has told motortransport.co.uk it is "too early to speculate" on news that it is considering selling or spinning off one or more of the company's business units.

XPO's board of directors authorized "a review of strategic alternatives" last week, with chairman and CEO Bradley Jacobs saying that although the company is the seventh best-performing stock of the last decade on the Fortune 500, and the share price has increased more than ten-fold since its investment in 2011, it "continues to trade at well below the sum of our parts and at a significant discount to our pure-play peers".

"That’s why we believe the best way to continue to maximize shareholder value is to explore our options, while remaining intensely committed to the satisfaction of our customers and employees," he said.

The company stressed that there can be no assurance of any specific outcome to the proposal. It has not set a timetable for completion of the review process and has not determined which, if any, business units would be sold or spun off.

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"The impact on the UK depends on the outcome," explained an XPO spokeswoman. "We will keep people informed of what comes next, if anything does. It’s a very early stage of the process. There is no timeline and no defined outcome because it might be that either one, two, three, four - or no - business units might be sold. We’re just at the exploration stage right now.

"We want to make the business grow from a business perspective; we've been one of the best performing stocks in the US but it felt like the growth wasn’t understood by investors. The company has always focused on creating shareholder value and this is one of the avenues we’re considering to increase this.

"The company is doing really well. All the business units are doing fine. That’s why we’re considering this. I can't give a percentage likelihood of anything happening. It depends on what’s put on the table. There are so many factors to consider."

XPO has retained Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC and J.P. Morgan Securities LLC as its financial advisors and Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz as its legal advisor to assist with the review process.