(The Washington Post published the following article on its website on November 3.)
RICHMOND, Va. — Railroad holding company Union Pacific on Friday spun off its Richmond trucking subsidiary in a $475 million stock offering of Overnite Corp.
Shares of Overnite closed Friday at $22.16 a share on the Nasdaq Stock Market, above the $19 offering price set on the company’s sale of 25 million shares.
Entering the week, Overnite was planning to sell its shares at $15 to $17 apiece. But demand prompted underwriters to raise that range to $17 to $19 Thursday, and the offering priced at the high end of those estimates.
Overnite is a mostly nonunion, “less-than-truckload” company — a hauler that fills each of its trucks with smaller shipments from various clients rather than a single shipment from a single client. Providing both national and regional services, Overnite is one of the biggest less-than-truckload carriers in the United States, with 208 service centers, about 6,000 tractors and more than 22,000 trailers. Over the first six months of this year, Overnite reported a rise in revenue to $713.2 million, from $645.9 million in the same period a year ago. Net income grew to $24 million, from $23.3 million.
Overnite had been a stock that traded publicly for three decades. The company was founded in 1935, and went public in 1957. Union Pacific bought Overnite in 1986.