The (Consolidating) World Of Cargo: Freight’s Big Year

With the acquisition of North Carolina-based freight forwarder SOS Global by Rock-it Cargo, 2024 already started off as a big year for the freight industry. The acquisition, which closed on Jan. 31, created the largest specialty logistics provider in the sports and broadcast entertainment market, with significant growth over the last 10 years in those sectors. Rock-it Cargo, which has offices around the world, is part of Global Critical Logistics (GCL), which also includes Dietl, Cosdel, CargoLive, Dynamic International, GCL Jets and CARS.

Several months in, Chief Growth Officer for GCL Brent Nagy says the transition has so far been smooth. GCL looked at different acquisitions it felt made the most sense with the aim to create an end-to-end model for customers. Nagy says their decision to go with SOS Global — which was acquired in 2019 by NEP Group – came from their reputation among its customer base.

“SOS has been a phenomenal acquisition for us,” Nagy says. “This is really about us solidifying our emerging and core end markets with extended and accretive services and domain expertise that incrementally supplement the foundation we’ve laid over the last 45 years.”

With the acquisition still fresh, Nagy says he’s been impressed with how quickly the two teams have integrated and are already seeing wins. They’ve continued to expand their footprint, with business booming for them just as it is across the entire music industry. Last October, GCL also acquired Dell Will Customs Brokers to help with their international shipments.

Most sectors of cargo have had a rough few years due to coming out of the pandemic and less demand as a result of inventory levels and inflationary inputs. Last year, full calendars saw trucking and cargo companies working diligently to stay on top of all the tours and keep their heads above water with the onslaught of live performances. The return to live touring also proved difficult, with some companies having sold a few of their fleets during the height of the pandemic, leading to a smaller supply once artists were able to tour again. With major acts like Taylor Swift, Beyoncé and Coldplay all hitting the road with stadium tours, the pace never slowed down.

“We’ve seen a lot of demand coming out of COVID relative to live events, and we’ve also grown our position across other end markets,” Nagy says. “While the macro market from a logistics perspective has been suppressed coming out of COVID, we’ve seen heightened demand for our services within our end markets.”

During COVID, diversified logistics companies such as UK-based company Hunt & Palmer were better able to withstand the prolonged loss of live music. That diversification comes in handy in more “normal” times, too.

“We don’t specialize in one particular area, so we can kind of be nimble and be resilient when certain parts of the market aren’t so active,” says Julie Black, who manages executive aviation at Hunt & Palmer. “During COVID, obviously there were no bands on tour, but our cargo division was very busy moving PPE and vaccines all over the world whilst the backline sat in warehouses… The entertainment sector is one of those few areas where there is often a lot of crossover across a number of different business activities within the company,” Black adds. “We have a cargo division that will happily be moving the backline for a global-scale tour. We could be flying the principal party as a band charter on a business jet, and then we might also be flying the production crew on an airliner. Often it has been the case where we are doing all three of those things.”

Over the last year, new technologies being introduced have also helped make shipping cargo easier. With the movement of so many materials, the most important functionality for cargo is tracking and tracing. The technologies continue to improve, allowing for cargo companies to ensure everything is delivered on time.

“It’s interesting because a lot of the job that we do is bespoke in that it requires a significant amount of domain expertise.” Nagy says. “And, from our perspective, we use technology to augment our professionals who are physically traveling with bands or physically going to a location for a league or for a motorsport event. It’s a merger of their domain expertise and then layering in incremental technology tools to put more information at our teams’ fingertips, which further enhances their productivity while at the same time enhancing the things they’re doing physically on the ground for our customers.”