Lineage Logistics is set to acquire Grupo Fuentes, a provider of transportation and cold storage headquartered in Murcia, Spain.
Grupo Fuentes operates a fleet of more than 500 vehicles and trailers, six logistics centers, a cold storage warehouse, and services supporting those facilities. It also is a founding member of Reefer Terminal, a strategic partnership to create an intermodal transportation platform that combines road and rail cold-storage transport services.
“My father started the company with just one truck more than 30 years ago and the business has grown into one of Spain’s leading providers of transportation and logistics services,” said Rafael Fuentes, CEO of Grupo Fuentes. “I am proud to look forward to having the company form part of Lineage, as part of a global group at the forefront of innovation in the sector.
“The Fuentes family is expected to continue to lead Lineage’s business in Spain, and will play a leading role in Lineage in Spain and in the expansion of Lineage’s road transportation network across Europe, and oversee the integration of Grupo Fuentes into the Lineage family.”
Grupo Fuentes maintains offices in Galicia, Madrid, Navarra, Valencia, and the Netherlands. The company counts some of Spain’s major food and retail companies as customers, with a significant share of the business providing cold storage, transport, and international transport services covering Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal. and the U.K., the companies said.
Grupo Fuentes’ cold-storage warehouse in Murcia boasts 60,000 pallet positions, and the company plans to expand the site with an additional 40,000 positions.
Lineage, which has headquarters in Novi, Michigan, and Amsterdam, first entered Spain in May 2021 with the acquisition of Frigoríficos de Navarra warehouses in Navarra and Asturias. The acquisition of Grupo Fuentes and its transport fleet is a complement to Lineage’s recent expansion of its European warehouse facilities, Lineage added.
“Spain is a major food producer in Europe, and our expanded presence there through the acquisition of Grupo Fuentes will allow us to manage a strategic connection between Southern Europe and Northern Europe, where Lineage has a strong existing footprint,” said Harld Peters, president of Lineage’s European business. “Grupo Fuentes will accelerate our ongoing expansion into transport services, which will enable us to deliver end-to-end solutions for our customers throughout the Lineage network and Europe broadly.”
