Pacer International and Gilbert West Announce Joint Venture

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 21, 2001--Gilbert West, Inc. and Pacer International, providers of North American logistics and transportation services, announced that Pacer's LTL (less-than-trailerload) transportation division is transferring its Los Angeles-origin business to Gilbert as part of a strategic alliance between the two companies.

At the same time, Gilbert West will utilize the services of Pacer's cartage division to pick-up a portion of the Los Angeles-origin shipments and deliver them to a Gilbert facility in the City of Commerce for consolidation and eastward movement. Additionally, Pacer will jointly participate with Gilbert in local Los Angeles Basin harbor drayage operations through Pacer's Harbor Rail Transfer division.

This is one of several such strategic alliances enjoyed by both companies with various other logistic service providers.

"These collaborations will help maximize the assets and service strengths of both organizations," said Don Orris, Pacer's president and chief executive officer. He noted that Pacer's LTL operations--which were inherited by Pacer as part of an earlier acquisition, have historically been limited to Los Angeles-origin cargo, and that Gilbert's LTL operation is inbound as well as outbound and will better serve shippers of LTL cargo. "At the same time, this enables Pacer to focus on the logistics capabilities it has been building for its customers, such as intermodal marketing services, consolidation, truck brokerage (full truckload), and supply-chain management."

Richard Gilbert, chief executive officer of Gilbert Group of Companies, said, "the shift of Pacer's LTL business to Gilbert West will benefit both shippers and consignees by a significant reduction in transit times." This is made possible by direct daily services to Gilbert distribution centers throughout the U.S.

In conjunction with the transferred LTL business, the companies said that most of the Pacer employees currently dedicated to LTL operations are being offered jobs at Gilbert. The two organizations are situated in close proximity: Gilbert in City of Commerce, Pacer's LTL unit in Compton.

Pacer International, a leading non-asset based international third-party logistics company, offers a broad array of logistics and other services to facilitate the movement of freight from origin to destination. Its offerings include wholesale stacktrain services throughout North America (cost-efficient, two-tiered rail transportation for containerized shipments), and retail trucking, intermodal marketing, freight consolidation and handling, international freight forwarding, and supply-chain management services. Pacer International is headquartered in Concord, California. Its business units Pacer Stacktrain and Pacer Global Logistics are headquartered in Concord, California and in Dublin, Ohio, respectively.

Web site: www.pacer-international.com

Note: Issued by Potash & Company, Oakland CA

Steve Potash, tel. 510/865-0800