Mullen Group Income Fund announced that it was buying three small western Canadian trucking firms for $31 million. The Thursday, Feb. 23 announcement came less than two weeks after unveiling a $950-million friendly bid for Calgary-based Producers Oilfield Services Inc.
The three trucking companies that Mullen hopes to have finalized by the end of February were not named. But they include a Saskatchewan-based crude oil transporter, a Calgary-based heavy-haul business and a flat-deck carrier based in Edmonton.
Murray Mullen, chairman and co-chief executive officer of the Alberta-based company, told analysts Friday, Feb. 24 that revenue in the final quarter of 2005 was “somewhat constrained” on the company’s oilfield side of the business. “And I think that has a lot to do with just that we’re operating at our full capacity with the assets we had,” Murray says. “And as such, it lends itself to why we’ve been an acquisition-based company over the last number of years and why we continue to look at them.”
