Texas trucking firm shutters operations

A Texas trucking company is closing the doors to its Grand Prairie headquarters – laying off 157 employees in the process.

In a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification letter submitted to the Texas Workforce Commission on Tuesday, April 30, Arnold Transportation Services announced it would be shuttering operations at the company’s headquarters located at 3375 High Prairie Road in Grand Prairie.

According to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s SAFER website, the Texas-based trucking firm had 341 drivers and 402 power units.

Arnold Transportation was acquired by Canada-based Pride Group Logistics in February 2022, a move the company said would help to “expand our U.S. domestic transportation offering.”

Despite the optimism, this past March the company announced it had obtained protection under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act and would be filing for bankruptcy – reportedly owing around $630 million to over 20 different lenders.

“We have taken these steps to commence the CCAA Proceedings and to seek recognition under the Chapter 15 Cases so that we can maintain our current operations, stabilize our business, establish governance controls and monitoring and develop a plan to restructure for the benefit of our stakeholders,” the company said in a statement. “We believe this is in the best interests of all of our employees, customers, business partners and other stakeholders.”

The trucking company said things were “expected to be business as usual for the Pride Group” during the course of the bankruptcy proceedings, adding that officials didn’t “anticipate any disruption to the products and services we provide.”

One month later, the company announced the closure of the Grand Prairie facility. In addition to the layoffs, it said it had been unable to provide any workers with a medical and drug plan since April 19.

The round of layoffs adds to a growing list of concerns for Pride Group, with the company facing lawsuits in excess of $100 million from Mitsubishi HC Capital, PACCAR, Daimler and Volvo for defaulting on payments. LL