SAN MATEO — Trucking giant Con-way Inc. revved up its future China growth engine Monday with its acquisition of a major trucking line in Shanghai.
San Mateo-based Con-way's subsidiary Menlo Worldwide agreed to pay $60 million for Chic Holding Inc., a Shanghai-based transportation-management and logistics company it hopes to ride to a successful China expansion.
"This gives us an immediate footprint in China," said Gary Frantz, a spokesman for Con-way and Menlo Worldwide, the parent's logistics arm. "It's a very big deal for us, and our most strategic acquisition in history."
The move puts the Con-way group in the driver's seat to emerge as a key player in the burgeoning intra-China freight-hauling market, which the company sees as the world's fastest-growing transportation arena.
The company it is buying has an established base of customers in China, where it hauls a wide array of industrial goods and consumer products.
Con-way will push to help its American customers expand in China now that it has a trucking network there, Frantz said. With a growing volume of U.S. goods now being manufactured in China, Con-way plans to carry some of those goods in its trucks.
The trucking powerhouse has been on an aggressive buying spree in the past three months. In June, it paid $34 million for Cougar Express Logistics, a Singapore-based trucking group that gives Con-way a strong presence in Southeast Asia.
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