Proficient Auto Logistics Buys Hansen & Adkins in $130 Million Deal

What happened

Proficient Auto Logistics (NASDAQ: PAL) agreed on August 10, 2026 to acquire Hansen & Adkins, an auto hauler based in Los Alamitos, California, and closed the deal on August 13. With Hansen & Adkins in the fold, Proficient says it is now the largest auto hauler in North America, carrying roughly one quarter of the addressable new-vehicle transportation market.

Purchase price and payment structure

The upfront purchase price was $130 million, including approximately $75 million of assumed debt. The balance of about $55 million was split between roughly $52 million in cash and about $3 million in Proficient common stock. The terms also provide for earnout payments of up to approximately $22.1 million based on near-term EBITDA targets, $2 million of it payable in stock and the rest in cash. Any shares issued carry a six-month lock-up.

Proficient paid the cash portion from available cash and borrowings under its credit facilities. The same day, it launched a $75 million private offering of convertible senior notes due 2033, with the proceeds going to refinance outstanding debt and pay for capped call transactions. More than half of the $130 million headline figure is debt Proficient took on, not cash or stock paid at closing.

The seller

Two auto transport veterans, Steve Hansen and Louie Adkins, founded Hansen & Adkins in 1994. The company hauls new vehicles for automakers, moves remarketed vehicles for dealerships, auctions, rental agencies, corporate fleets and lenders, and runs vehicle storage and yard management. Its customers include Toyota, Honda, General Motors, Tesla and Rivian, and it runs a large company-owned fleet across the United States and Canada, where it operates as MCL McGill. The deal brings more than 900 drivers and operational and support management staff into Proficient.

"After more than 30 successful years as a founder-owned business, we are thrilled to partner with Proficient to bring about our next chapter of continued success," Hansen said in the announcement.

The Hansen & Adkins name stays in place. It becomes the largest operating company under Proficient, trading as Hansen & Adkins in the U.S. and MCL McGill in Canada. Hansen and Adkins remain as advisors through year-end, and Proficient expects integration to be complete in early 2027. Koley Jessen represented Hansen & Adkins as legal counsel.

The buyer

Proficient is headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida, and was formed from the merger of five auto haulers when it went public in May 2024. It now describes itself as nine operating companies, four of them added since the IPO, moving finished vehicles from plants, ports and rail yards to dealerships across North America. Hansen & Adkins is Proficient's first business in Canada.

Proficient expects to move more than four million vehicles a year on a combined basis, and expects deliveries by its own fleet to rise to close to half of its volume, with subhaulers carrying the rest. "The addition of Hansen & Adkins, a company highly aligned with our values, culture, and commitment to operational excellence, will establish Proficient as a stronger, more capable market leader that can invest at a scale few others can match," said Chief Executive Richard O'Dell. Raymond James advised Proficient, and Willkie Farr & Gallagher was its legal counsel.

Set against Proficient's Brothers Auto Transport deal

In April 2025, Proficient bought Brothers Auto Transport, a Wind Gap, Pennsylvania, hauler founded in 1996 with about 110 transporters. FleetOwner reported that deal would lift Proficient's capacity by 13%, in a market still in flux after the demise of Jack Cooper Transport. Proficient's later annual report shows it paid the Brothers sellers approximately $12.4 million in cash and issued them about 395,322 shares of common stock. Hansen & Adkins is on another scale: Proficient says it more than doubles its owned fleet capacity. For more on who buys carriers and how those sales run, see our page on selling a transportation business.

What this means for vehicle transport owners

The deal hands Proficient owned trucks and company drivers and shifts its delivery mix away from subhaulers, at a moment when, in Proficient's words at closing, auto haul capacity "has compressed due to regulatory and economic factors." That is what a founder-run carrier with automaker customers on both sides of the border brought to a public consolidator, and Hansen & Adkins now sits as Proficient's largest operating company under its own name. The payment structure shows the other side of a fleet-heavy sale: when the fleet carries debt, the headline price and the cash and stock consideration can sit far apart, and a buyer at this scale tied part of the upside to near-term earnings.

OffDeal is an advisory firm that helps lower-middle-market business owners sell with confidence. Reach out to learn more about our expertise with vehicle transport businesses in California.

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Source: Proficient Auto Logistics - https://ir.proficientautologistics.com/news-releases/news-release-details/proficient-auto-logistics-agrees-acquire-hansen-adkins