H.Essers Enters the US Market by Acquiring Houston's Palmer Logistics

What happened

H.Essers, a family-owned logistics group based in Genk, Belgium, has acquired Palmer Logistics, a Houston company that provides chemical warehousing and value-added logistics services. The deal was announced on July 3, 2026, and gives H.Essers its first operations in the United States. All 350 Palmer employees join H.Essers and the full management team stays on, with Brett Mears continuing to run day-to-day operations. H.Essers now sets strategy for the US business, and the announcement says Palmer will be integrated under the H.Essers brand in phases. Financial terms were not disclosed.

The seller

Palmer was founded in Houston in 1965 as Palmer Distribution Services, a public warehouse and trucking company serving the grocery and chemical industries. It took its name from the street where its first warehouses stood. After the founder died, the founder's trust brought in Hermann Services, a New Jersey warehouse and transportation company, to manage the operation in 1982. Hermann bought Palmer in 1988 and for a time ran it as Hermann Warehouse Southwest. Hermann divested the division in 2000, and the business returned to the Palmer name as Palmer Logistics.

Mears, the son of the late Hermann Services leader William Hermann, has led the company since 2002. He served in the U.S. Navy from 1994 to 1999.

Palmer's warehouses are in the Houston, Dallas, and Savannah areas, and the announcement places the business primarily in the Gulf area, serving customers in the heart of the US chemical cluster. Its core work is specialized chemical warehousing, with value-added services and process work for chemical manufacturers, plus food-grade and general storage. In 2022 it joined the Distribution Centers of America network as the network's provider for Houston and Dallas. At the time, Mears said Palmer had nearly tripled in size over the previous decade.

"We chose H.Essers because they share our values and respect what Palmer has built over the past sixty years," Mears said in the announcement. "Same team, same locations, same service, backed by a stronger trans-Atlantic platform."

The buyer

Henri Essers started the company in 1928, hauling cattle with a single truck. Hilde Essers took the helm in 2017, and Gert Bervoets is chief executive. H.Essers employs more than 7,000 people at 80 branches in 15 countries across Western and Eastern Europe. It works mainly for the chemical, healthcare, parts, and infrastructure industries, and it owns its fleet, warehouses, and IT systems rather than outsourcing them. Bulk Transporter reports that its European fleet includes about 2,000 ISO tanks.

H.Essers already works for many American chemical companies in Europe. "A significant part of the chemical sector is shifting its center of gravity to the United States," Bervoets said. "With Palmer, we ensure we're there for them in the US as well." The announcement says H.Essers "plans to systematically expand its US presence over the coming years, first by strengthening Palmer's existing operations, then through expansion toward the East and West coasts," with growth from "both organic expansion with existing customers and further strategic steps in the US market."

What this means for chemical logistics owners

A European group with no US operations entered the country by buying a 60-year-old Houston warehouser instead of opening its own sites. That puts European strategics that follow their chemical customers across the Atlantic among the buyers for chemical-grade warehousing near the Gulf. H.Essers bought a specialist: its announcement says Palmer's activities "closely mirror what H.Essers does for chemical customers in Europe today."

The announcement also separates two things owners often treat as one. Palmer's people, sites, and account teams stay the same. Its name, already retired once under an earlier owner, is to be folded into the H.Essers brand. Owners who value continuity should ask a buyer separately about the team and about the brand, because a strategic can commit to one without the other. For more on preparing for a sale, see our guide to selling a logistics company.

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

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Source: H.Essers - https://www.essers.com/news/article/5283/