Mullen Group Ltd. (MTL) Earnings Call Transcript

Welcome back to The Watchlist. I'm Ryan Dhillon, and joining us today is Joanna Scott, Senior Corporate Officer of Mullen Group. Joanna, thank you for being here.

Thanks. Nice to see you, Ryan.

And earlier this month, on May 3, Mullen Group announced the acquisition of ContainerWorld Forwarding Services. Can you tell us about the latest acquisition by the company?

Yes, happy to. We are very excited to announce the acquisition of ContainerWorld and even more excited to welcome their employees in to our Group of Companies. Now ContainerWorld is a leading Canadian logistics provider. It offers an integrated supply chain solution to the alcoholic beverage and hospitality industries. In particular, they provide services to international and domestic beer, spirits and wine customers, and customers that are looking for safe and reliable customs bonded company in Canada. ContainerWorld, specifically provide services such as inventory management, freight forwarding, warehousing and distribution services to these international and domestic customers in the provinces of British Columbia and Ontario. And they do this through a network of customs bonded and sufferance bonded warehouses totaling 1.25 million square feet.

And what does Mullen Group look for in an acquisition? And how does the acquisition of ContainerWorld fit within this strategy?

I know we see this a lot, and you will hear us repeat this time and again, but we do not grow for the sake of growing. We have what we call a precision-based acquisition strategy where any company that we acquire has to be the rate -- sit the right price and have the right synergies. And the addition of ContainerWorld demonstrates this and our continued strategic focus of diversifying offerings into verticals and markets that we consider great long-term opportunities. Globally, the alcoholic beverage market is a $1 trillion industry. And here in Canada, it's a multibillion-dollar industry that is expected to grow as the Canadian population grows. And as we've demonstrated in the past, with our acquisitions, we like companies that are tied to the consumer. I would say that this acquisition is also an example how we like to marry our warehousing component with the transportation component, so we can provide our customers with a full service offering or what we like to call One-Stop Shop, and we think ContainerWorld does just that. I would say that ContainerWorld also further expands our operations into the provinces of British Columbia and Ontario, and these provinces are home to 50% of the Canadian population. So very strategic from a geographical perspective. And so this acquisition is really an example of how we do not go for the sake of growing, but we engage in a well-thought-out acquisition strategy so that we can ensure that we provide the best value to our employees, our shareholders and our other stakeholders. We are delighted to have ContainerWorld join our expanding logistics network. It's an excellent company with a long history, and those are things that we consider important in our investment strategy. So we look forward to working with everyone at ContainerWorld and are thrilled to welcome them to Mullen as our newest business unit.

Thank you for your time, Joanna. Again, that was Joanna Scott, Senior Corporate Officer of Mullen Group.