SunTrust Shares Expertise With Logistics and Transportation Industry
Monday, December 7th, 2015
On Thursday, Nov. 19th, SunTrust held its first event for clients in logistics and transportation industry, bringing together industry experts, peer companies and others. Titled “Mergers and Acquisitions across the Logistics and Transportation Industry,” the event featured a discussion of trends driving consolidation in the industry as well as buyers’ and sellers’ strategies.
“We had a great turnout of about 25 to 30 clients, all Savannah-based and locally-owned logistics companies,” said David Camden, Savannah Region President of SunTrust Bank.
“There was a lot of interest expressed in what is going on in capital markets in terms of M&A activity and the multiples of recent transactions. Our panelists also provided their views on the future of port traffic in Savannah and the major drivers of growth, which our clients reaffirmed in the discussion.”
All facets of the industry were represented, according to Camden, including trucking, warehousing, freight-forwarding, small port operators and the Port Authority. SunTrust chose Savannah for the event because of the success of the Port of Savannah and its impact on the region. Given the turnout and the positive response of clients who attended, additional industry-specific events are planned.
“We will do the logistics and transportation event again in other parts of the region,” said Taylor Howerton, Senior Vice President, Ports & Logistics Industry Manager in SunTrust’s Commercial Specialty Team.
“We have other industry expertise in the bank and expect to hold events in sectors such as health care – particularly aging services, franchising, and food and agriculture.”
A Shift to Advice-Driven Banking
According to Camden, banking has fundamentally changed over the last 10 years from a fulfillment-type business focused on loans and deposits to an advice-driven business focused on helping clients navigate complex business environments.
“We’ve been building our expertise within SunTrust so that we can help clients with all types of decisions. For example, we can suggest ways to improve balance-sheet management and speed up the cash-flow cycle and that can drive increased business valuation,” Camden said.
In addition, SunTrust offers a portfolio of banking services to help clients implement suggested strategies. According to Howerton, SunTrust offers treasury services to manage working capital efficiency and creative investment-banking solutions to help owners monetize their businesses.
Headquartered in Atlanta, SunTrust Bank serves a broad range of consumer, commercial, corporate and institutional clients, providing through its subsidiaries mortgage banking, asset management, securities brokerage and capital market services. Revenues corporate-wide and in the Savannah region are spread fairly evenly across consumer, private wealth management, mortgage banking and wholesale banking, which includes commercial, corporate and investment banking.
Sharing Expertise on Logistics and Transportation
Among the trends discussed at the logistics and transportation event were the impact of the overall economy on freight movement as well as demographic trends in the Southeast that are driving freight movement such as increased industrialization. Trends impacting the industry’s capacity and structure include investment in infrastructure projects including the Panama Canal expansion and port projects on the East Coast and the shift by businesses to outsource logistics to a third-party logistics supplier, as supply chains grow increasingly long and complex.
“We’ve seen M&A activity increase as third-party logistics suppliers seek to close any gaps in their service offerings. And private equity buyers have been attracted to the sector by the long-term secular growth trends,” Howerton said.
Growth in logistics and transportation has a ripple effect across the local economy, according to Camden. From construction trades to professional services, multiple industries are positively affected by a healthy logistics and transportation sector.
“We see the Port as an ecosystem. It impacts transportation and logistics but extends far beyond that,” Camden said. “Transportation and logistics touches everything in the economy.”
More information on SunTrust Bank is available at www.suntrust.com.
