GUELPH, Ont. -- Two of Canada's most prominent family-owned for-hire carriers have merged.

Evan MacKinnon, president and CEO of MacKinnon Transport in Guelph, Ont. announced that his company has acquired St. Thomas, Ont.-based LE Walker Transport and its subsidiary MidAmerican Freight Systems. 

Both southern Ontario carriers are major players in the cross-border dry van and flatbed markets. Walker also has a growing number of tankers and container chassis and its inroads in the intermodal sector will likely complement MacKinnon's own intermodal transport business as well.

The new entity is estimated to have revenues in the $70 million per year range and will operate about 1,300 pieces of equipment with a team of approximately 420 people, making it one of the 50 largest fleets in the country. 

Although the two presidents, MacKinnon and Julie Tanguay of LE Walker have worked together for more than a decade -- through the Ontario Trucking Association (OTA) as well as their common insurance captive -- this corporate marriage has only had a gestation period of about eight to 10 weeks, Tanguay says.

"It's been an exciting period," Tanguay, who is also the OTA chair, told todaystrucking.com this morning.

MacKinnon will remain president and CEO of the larger company -- still named MacKinnon Transport -- and Tanguay is executive vice president sales. 

Will the former president have trouble not being the company buck stopper? "Not at all," she says. "I've been in a family business all of my life and I'm definitely a team player, not a dictator. I will love being part of the MacKinnon team."

In a follow-up interview, MacKinnon said having a business partner "is something new to me, but I'm looking forward to it."

Not surprisingly, MacKinnon said the acquisition has a lot more to do with dovetailing the companies' customer base than simply inflating capacity in this weakened market.

Although they're both in similar sectors, there's no duplication of customers, so the company will get all the benefits of adding equipment and streamlining operations while reducing costs, without any redundancy in revenue. "The end result is we're going to be a larger company than even in our '05-'06 heyday years," says MacKinnon. "It's an opportunity to grow and create a lot of financial strength."

Tanguay admits that in these uncertain times it's natural for some customers to "question these types of things," but if anything "the financial stability of the larger company will reassure (them) that they have a strong stable supplier."

Both partners point out that having similar, third-generation family company cultures, whose two leaders were born around trucks helps make the deal a good fit. "If people are going to want to work for us we have to have a consistent, admirable culture," says MacKinnon.

Of course, there's nothing wrong with having diverse business approaches to play off of either. "Evan is a visionary and I'm more practical," said Tanguay. "He's five years out and I'm more immediate."

As for the freight economy ahead, MacKinnon says things are still volatile -- "it appeared that the constant request for new rates was coming to and end. But sure, enough, in August, they're coming in on a regular basis again" -- although there's little question the company is positioning itself to be one of the lead carriers out of the gate when the market makes a real recovery. 

"As anyone's who's able to drive cost out and improve their financial position, we're going to be less susceptible to these crazy rate offers out there," he says. "Because we don't need to drive volume and sacrifice our linehaul margin."

These days, lenders are treating truckers like they have economic leprosy. That's why the acquisition couldn't be possible without securing a financial deal with a dependable financial institution -- in this case, BMO. 

And despite having a 60-year relationship with MacKinnon Transport, convincing the bank to hand over more cash in this market wasn't easy, admits Evan MacKinnon.

Thankfully, the company's significant improvement these last 18 months in poor economic conditions, plus solid balance sheets and optimistic projections, convinced the lender it was safe to fund the deal.

"(BMO) has been with us through some good times and some bad," says MacKinnon. "What we were able to do these last 18 months went a long way in showing the bank we can do what we say we're going to do."