February 5, 2024
Ingram Barge Co. LLC announced recently the creation of Ingram Infrastructure Group LLC as a new material handling and supply chain solutions subsidiary within its corporate structure.
The move was fueled by Ingram finalizing its acquisitions of Inland River Transport Holdings (SCF) and NexStar Solutions LLC, marking a sizable expansion in Ingram’s services and assets.
Ingram acquired SCF, a provider of integrated river transportation and logistics services, from Seacor Holdings Inc. following the signing of a purchase agreement last October.
Ingram Marine Group includes four primary operating units: Ingram Barge Co., Ingram Logistics Services, Ingram Infrastructure and Custom Fuel Services.
Ingram currently operates across more than 4,500 miles of the U.S. inland waterways system transporting a variety of essential agriculture and industrial commodities via 4,100 covered and open top dry cargo and liquid tank barges and 140 towboats.
With these acquisitions, they will now be able to leverage their expertise in marine transportation to become a fully integrated, end-to-end supply chain solutions provider. It also includes bringing eight new terminal locations into Ingram’s portfolio enabling bulk, break-bulk, and containerized storage, and handling services with connectivity to marine, rail, and road transportation. With the expansion into the terminals business, Ingram can now provide multi-modal and multi-product distribution solutions for North American shippers and consignees.
“Today’s announcements are the latest moves that show our continued commitment to add value for our customers, bring on new customers, and expand the services we can offer,” Ingram President and CEO John Roberts said in a prepared statement announcing the creation of Ingram Infrastructure Group. “We are proud of our history as one of the nation’s leading inland marine companies. Expanding our footprint to offer a full suite of transportation and logistics services will be a game changer for the marketplace and a huge value-add for our customers.”
In addition to acquiring SCF, Ingram has also acquired NexStar Solutions LLC, a logistics infrastructure consulting firm, specializing in comprehensive advisory services to investors, governments, and organizations. As part of that acquisition, Bill Kinzeler, Daniel Lester, and Frank Prentiss have joined Ingram Infrastructure LLC as the senior leadership team. The NexStar team has experience managing more than 100 terminal assets, 30 railroads, and more than 900 trucking assets over the last 20 years. Within that set of assets, the NexStar team has handled more than 200 different commodities.
Kinzeler will serve as senior vice president and general manager of the business unit, Lester as senior vice president of business development, and Prentiss as commercial vice president. They collectively bring more than 60 years of industry experience to Ingram Infrastructure, enabling Ingram to expand its knowledge and expertise in the logistics infrastructure space by leveraging industry best practices and multi-modal solutions.
“We are going to set the standard of excellence in marine, road and rail transportation and distribution,” said Ingram Chief Operating Officer Aaron Barrett. “We are excited to marry our deep marine transportation knowledge and track record with additional capacity in material handling and supply chain solutions. Coming on the heels of the creation of Ingram Logistics Services, which we recently launched, we offer customers a suite of services unmatched by anyone else in the space.”
The creation of this new business unit is part of a larger effort by Ingram to expand the suite of services it can offer customers. For example, Ingram Logistics Services was created in 2021 to offer a single point of contact for a full range of customized logistics services. With the addition of Ingram Infrastructure, this vision of end-to-end supply chain solutions is greatly enhanced. The new suite of services will be the most comprehensive storage and distribution solution in North America, Ingram officials said.