The completion of the sale of Wincanton to US supply chain management giant GXO has been announced today (29 April) and sees a swathe of Wincanton board directors resign as part of the deal.
Those leaving include chairman Sir Martin Read, senior director Gillian Barr, and non-executive directors Anthony Bickerstaff, Mihiri Jayaweera, Deborah Lentz and John Pattullo.
However, Wincanton’s executive directors James Wroath and chief financial officer Tom Hinton will remain on the Wincanton board.
It is expected the Wincanton brand will also disappear as part of the acquisition, if GXO follows the same strategy it did with Clipper Logistics, which it bought in 2022 and which now goes under the brand GXO Logistics.
In the meantime, the businesses will continue to be run independently until the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has completed its review.
Under the deal Wincanton shareholders will receive 605 pence for each Wincanton share held.
The acquisition follows a bidding war between Ceva Logistics and GXO earlier this year, which saw Wincanton’s board withdraw its support for Ceva Logistics’ improved £802.7m bid and announce its intention to “unanimously” recommend GXO’s £960m offer to the company’s shareholders.
The offer from GXO gave Wincanton an enterprise value of approximately £960m, compared to Ceva’s bid, which gave Wincanton an enterprise value of £802.7m
GXO is hoping that the acquisition of Wincanton will expand its services and customer base into the aerospace, utilities, industrial, and healthcare sectors, both in the UK and in Ireland, and provide GXO with a springboard into Europe.
Chief executive Malcolm Wilson, said: “We are very pleased to complete this valuable acquisition for our company, which advances our position as the global pure-play logistics leader, and we look forward to welcoming Wincanton’s high-quality team to GXO.
“By combining Wincanton’s footprint and proven expertise in the UK and Ireland with our global reach and transformative technology, we can provide a wider range of services to new and existing customers across geographies – and accelerate our long-term growth trajectory.”
