Brentwood, Tennessee-based Paladin Capital (CCJ Top 250, No. 80), the private-equity owner of several trucking companies, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
Companies under the Paladin Capital umbrella include the Quickway family of companies, including Quickway Carriers, Quickway Transportation, Quickway Services, QDS, Freight Contracting Services and Quickway Express; Georgia-based Robert Bearden; Alabama-based SNL Distribution Services; North Carolina-based Central Logistics; and Indiana-based Magnum Solutions.
Paladin also owned Tennessee-based Capital City Leasing, which leases equipment, sells new and used trailers, provides maintenance services and more.
Combined, the Paladin portfolio employs 912 people. Quickway companies employ about 500 people, and Robert Bearden employs 154 people, according to a court filing.
The company in its filing reported $34.7 million in assets and $110.4 million in liabilities.
In its bankruptcy filing, Paladin largely credited the “great freight recession” as the driving factor for the company’s bankruptcy. “The Great Freight Recession consists of reduced demand, lower spot rates, and increased operational costs (e.g., fuel, insurance, and labor),” Paladin CEO Brian Hall said in a court filing. “Combined, these factors have squeezed numerous trucking companies, including” Paladin.
He added that his company has “done everything they can do to attempt to avoid bankruptcy. But now, there is no alternative.” Hall said the filing is intended “to preserve jobs and to continue to serve customers. This will provide the best return for creditors and allow [Paladin] to achieve an orderly sale of some or all of the businesses as going concerns as opposed to a forced liquidation which would destroy value.”
The company had four major creditors -- Truist, which controls Paladin’s cash and lends against accounts receivable and owned equipment; and equipment lessors First Horizon, Bank of America, and Bank of Montreal.
Truist is owed approximately $14.64 million, and the three equipment lessors are owed approximately $20 million each. The court filing notes that since approximately July 2025, Paladin has “been unable to make payments to the three major equipment lessors.”
The company is also behind in funding obligations to pay health care providers for its employees, owing approximately $739,000 to a third-party administrator.
Hall said since November, the company has been in contact with Truist and the equipment lessors almost daily to work out a deal outside of bankruptcy, but on Jan. 21, Bank of Montreal delivered a default notice and demanded return of its equipment by Jan. 26 -- “a bankruptcy-forcing event,” Hall added.
With the filing, Paladin said it plans to “quickly proceed to sales of the business units as growing concerns” to “maximize value, preserve jobs, ensure continued service of customers, and result in the highest return to creditors.”
Paladin’s filing specifically mentioned Robert Bearden as “a major drain on cash,” but noted that the company “just recently was awarded major business, which should make an acquisition of it more likely and stabilize overall cash flow.”
