In 2021, mergers and acquisitions in the global logistics industry peaked at over $120 billion. However, activity slowed in 2022 and 2023 due to economic challenges, with companies focusing on strategic areas like e-commerce fulfillment and technology. At the same time, it is widely recognized that most transactions fail to fully deliver the anticipated benefits, often due to integration challenges, underestimated risks, or discrepancies between expectations and actual outcomes.

When performing due diligence, either on a logistics asset or to understand the impact of a merger on the target’s logistics costs, far too often the buyer relies on strategy consultancies with little or no operational experience, who rely on template lists of questions and data, providing investors with the data gathered but with relatively little insight to support a business decision.

At Graphene Partners, we do it differently.

We know where the skeletons are buried. We know the tough questions which need to be asked, and most importantly – we know how to interpret the answers. Our Clients receive our insight and actionable recommendations. With decades of experience in the logistics industry, our senior team is comfortable advising Boards on investment decisions, because we have taken these decisions ourselves, for our own P&L.

We bring our significant operational experience to support either the buyer or their advisors.  Having participated in a logistics-related deals worth almost half a billion EUR, on both buy and sell sides, we are well versed in M&A and frequently work with some of the world’s largest private equity investors.