Deals dominate this morning’s run. C.H. Robinson breaks a five-year acquisition drought, FM Logistic and CLdN both close European buys, and a fresh wave of customs rules lands on e-commerce shippers from 1 July. Here is what moved across global supply chains in the past 24 hours.
Operations & 3PL
C.H. Robinson ended a long wait under chief executive Dave Bozeman, agreeing to buy DeSpir Logistics, an Illinois specialist in secure transport and cargo escort for high-value freight. The price is modest: $75 million for a business that booked $62 million in revenue last year, a ratio of just 1.2 times. It is the first deal of the Bozeman era at North America’s largest 3PL. Source: American Shipper
FM Logistic signed to take a majority stake in German group Schäflein, with the founding Schäflein brothers keeping equity to preserve the family roots. Completion hinges on clearance from the Bundeskartellamt. The buyer framed the move as a play for know-how rather than raw capacity, part of a wider push into industrial logistics across Europe. Source: Post & Parcel
CLdN completed its acquisition of Samskip’s quay-to-quay and door-to-door freight business linking mainland Europe with the UK and Ireland. Services transfer on 29 June. The network ties Rotterdam to British ports including Belfast, Hull and Tilbury, plus Cork, Dublin and Waterford, and makes more than 1,000 port calls a year. Source: Container News
Saia opened two more terminals, in Duluth, Minnesota and Columbia, Missouri. That makes three straight months of network expansion for the LTL carrier after a quiet 2025 with no openings at all. Management calls it continued investment in a nationwide footprint. Source: American Shipper
Technology & Automation
The hard part of AI in supply chains is not the software. A widening gap between executive enthusiasm and frontline confidence is now one of the biggest brakes on adoption, with change management, not technology, holding projects back. Teams that skip the people side stall. Source: The Loadstar
C.H. Robinson widened access to BidboardX, its freight bidding tool, to more than 83,000 contract carriers. They can now search, bid and book directly through Navisphere Carrier, a sign of how far digital brokerage workflows have spread across the truckload market. Source: Supply Chain 24/7
Semiconductor visibility is climbing the resilience agenda. As operations lean harder on AI, automation and connected systems, knowing where chips sit in the pipeline has become a planning concern rather than a procurement footnote. Source: Supply Chain 24/7
Japan put robotics at the centre of a vast industrial bet, a public-private strategy worth more than JPY370 trillion (about $2.3 trillion) by fiscal 2040. It spans 17 sectors, from AI and semiconductors to aerospace and energy, with automation positioned as the engine of a chip-led revival. Source: DIGITIMES
Sustainability & Energy
DP World launched EcoRoute, a suite that bundles network design, lower-carbon logistics options, emissions measurement and strategic advice. The pitch is familiar but the source matters: a major port and terminal operator selling supply chain decarbonization as a managed service. Source: Logistics Business
Sri Lanka is putting battery energy storage to work in freight operations, using BESS to power logistics activity. It is a small step, but it points to where energy resilience and freight increasingly overlap in emerging markets. Source: Logistics Manager
Taiwan moved to ease its sustainability reporting load, delaying parts of Scope 3 disclosure while aligning carbon accounting rules. Regulators also drafted anti-greenwashing measures and tighter oversight of ESG awards and environmental claims. A rare loosening paired with sharper enforcement. Source: Eco-Business
International Markets
The Port of Virginia finished a $450 million dredging programme, deepening its harbour to court the largest container ships and pull ahead in the East Coast gateway race. Depth is the new currency among US ports chasing ultra-large vessels. Source: American Shipper
From 1 July the EU scraps the duty relief on parcels worth EUR 150 or less, the threshold that let most e-commerce shipments enter duty-free. Volumes hit nearly 6 billion parcels in 2025 and overwhelmed customs. Importers and platforms now face new duties and charges, and tighter product-safety checks. Source: Logistics Business
Ocado Group is reportedly preparing to name a successor to co-founder and chief executive Tim Steiner. A leadership change at the grocery automation pioneer would ripple through the warehouse robotics world it helped build. Source: Retail Week
Chile cleared its largest-ever port project, a $4.45 billion outer port development at San Antonio. The new deep-water terminals are designed for the box ships that inner-city harbours can no longer handle, a familiar story of containerisation reshaping the coastline. Source: The Loadstar
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