Northeast Freight & Trucking Company, Essex County NJ, 17-Truck Reefer Fleet

$7.3M

Revenue

$500K

SDE

5.0x

Multiple

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Full Editorial Writeup

This Essex County, New Jersey trucking and freight shipping company hauls dry goods, refrigerated food, produce, and general freight across the northern corridor from New York to Oregon. Founded in 2013, the business was transformed in 2022 when the owner stepped out of the cab and into a management seat, building out a fleet, a dispatch operation, and a mix of local day trips and long hauls. By 2023 the owner had reduced reliance on owner-operators and brought trucks and drivers in-house, pushing gross revenue to $7.25 million and net profit north of $500,000.

The sale includes 17 well-maintained trucks and 20 trailers (Volvo, Freightliner, Great Dane, and Utility reefers) plus a lean team of five operating staff: an operations manager, two dispatchers, a bookkeeper, and a warehouseman. The company runs loaded in both directions, hauling dry goods outbound and refrigerated goods on the return, working with five major freight brokers. That backhaul discipline is the difference between a trucking company that bleeds on empty miles and one that actually clears cash.

Optionally, the deal can include a parking facility that rents space for 44 trucks and trailers. Parking is notoriously scarce along North Jersey highways, and the listing notes a tenant backlog, which means that adjacent asset throws off genuinely recurring, high-margin rental income on top of the freight operation. At a $2.5 million ask against roughly $500,000 in cash flow, this prices at about 5x, with $1.4 million of that supported by FF&E.

Why we like it

At $2.5M for $500K of cash flow, you are paying roughly 5x, but $1.4M of hard rolling stock (17 trucks, 20 trailers, free of any disclosed debt) backs the price. That means a meaningful slice of the purchase is collateralized equipment, which protects your downside if freight rates soften and you need to sell assets.
The reefer and dry-van mix hauling food, produce, and general freight is about as non-discretionary as trucking gets. Grocery and food freight keeps moving in a recession, and the loaded-both-ways model (dry goods out, refrigerated back) is the single biggest lever for margin durability in this business.
The optional parking facility is the real sleeper. Truck parking along North Jersey corridors is chronically scarce with a stated tenant backlog, so that asset is recurring, high-margin rental income with pricing power, a rare counterweight to the inherently lumpy freight side.
The owner already did the hard work of transitioning from driver to manager and in-sourcing drivers off owner-operators. You are buying a structured operation with an ops manager, two dispatchers, and a bookkeeper in place, not a one-man rig where the seller IS the business.

How to improve it

Attack customer concentration immediately. Five brokers control the entire book, which is fragile. In the first 90 days, map revenue by broker, start direct-shipper outreach to lock in higher-margin dedicated lanes, and reduce dependence on spot brokered freight.
Buy or expand the parking facility and formalize it as a profit center. With a stated tenant backlog, raise rates to market, add a simple lease and billing system, and treat the recurring rental income as the stable base that funds the volatile freight operation.
Install real freight telematics and lane-level P&L. Track revenue per mile, deadhead percentage, and cost per truck. Most owner-run fleets this size fly blind on unit economics, and tightening backhaul utilization even a few points flows almost entirely to the bottom line.
Audit maintenance and replacement capex on the fleet. 17 trucks and 20 trailers will cycle through major repairs and eventual replacement, so build a reserve schedule now and negotiate preventive-maintenance contracts to avoid the lumpy downtime that kills trucking margins.
Professionalize driver recruiting and retention. Driver turnover is the number one operational risk in trucking. Build a referral program, benchmark pay against regional carriers, and reduce reliance on any single driver so the business can scale past 17 trucks without a hiring bottleneck.
Pursue dedicated contract freight to convert one-off hauls into committed volume. Winning even one or two dedicated routes with a food distributor or grocer would add predictability, improve financing terms, and materially raise the exit multiple by shifting the revenue mix toward contracted work.

Diligence notes

Verify the fleet's true condition and lien status. Confirm all 17 trucks and 20 trailers are owned free and clear as implied, get inspection reports and odometer readings, and model near-term replacement capex. The $1.4M FF&E figure needs an independent appraisal, not the seller's number.
Scrutinize the five-broker concentration. Pull revenue and margin by broker for the last 24 months, understand contract terms and payment timing, and assess how quickly volume would evaporate if the top one or two brokers walked post-close.
Separate the trucking P&L from the parking facility. The listing bundles them loosely, so get standalone financials for each. Confirm whether the $500K cash flow includes parking income, and clarify the price and terms if you take the facility, since its value and recurring rents change the deal entirely.
Validate the 2022-to-2023 revenue ramp. Gross jumped to $7.25M as the owner in-sourced drivers, so confirm the growth is sustainable and not front-loaded with one-time broker relationships or unusually strong spot rates. Check whether 2024 held or declined as freight rates normalized.
Examine driver and DOT compliance. Review the safety rating, CSA scores, insurance loss history, and any pending claims or violations. A poor safety record or lapsed authority can spike insurance costs and ground trucks, directly hitting the cash flow you are underwriting.
Test the seller financing terms and reason for sale. The seller offers $750K at 7% over 3 years with $1.75M down, which signals some confidence, but confirm the 'other interest' reason for selling is not masking a looming loss of a key broker, driver, or the parking lease.

Source

Originally listed on BizBuySell. View original listing →