Ex-Celadon CEO Paul Svindland Lands New Job At STG Logistics

Third-party logistics firm STG Logistics has tapped Paul Svindland, former chief executive of bankrupt Celadon Group Inc., to lead its company.

STG is owned by private-equity firm Wind Point Partners, headquartered in Chicago.

Svindland said he will assume his new position on March 2, just months after Celadon filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

"I am concluding my role as CEO of Celadon at the end of this month [January], but the plan is to continue to serve on the board," Svindland told FreightWaves.

Prior to his role at Celadon, Svindland, who has spent 25 years in the transportation and logistics industry, served as chairman and chief executive of Farren International and EZE Trucking and was the chief operating officer of Pacer International. 

He also co-founded and co-led the transportation and logistics consulting practice at AlixPartners, which is known for its turnaround efforts in the industry, according to the STG news release.

"Paul has a strong track record of building vibrant corporate cultures, positioning companies for growth and driving continued performance improvement," Konrad Salaber, managing director of Wind Point, said in a statement. "These experiences will prove invaluable as he leads STG into its next phase of organic and inorganic expansion."

STG, an asset-light provider, specializes in "complex and highly customized logistics and transportation services focused on the global supply chain," the company said in a statement.

Geoff Anderman, chief financial officer of STG, did not respond to FreightWaves' request for comment regarding the appointment of Svindland.

"I believe a combination of my multimodal experience, performance improvement background and my accountability-based leadership style will serve me well at STG," Svindland told FreightWaves.

Cash-strapped Celadon filed for bankruptcy protection under Svindland's watch

Celadon filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Dec. 8, just days after truck drivers were stranded with deactivated fuel cards thousands of miles from home. 

Truck drivers told FreightWaves recently that they are still finding abandoned Celadon equipment scattered across the U.S.

In a recently unsealed court filing, Celadon allegedly depleted $21.5 million in cash reserves and was unable to meet debt obligations months prior to filing for bankruptcy protection.

Svindland took the helm at Celadon at a critical time in July 2017, just two months after an alleged accounting and securities fraud scheme rocked the Indianapolis-based company. 

Since then, Celadon and its subsidiaries had been trying to dig out from the financial scandal and had to restate financial results going back to 2014. Celadon's stock was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange in April 2018. 

However, Celadon was never able to financially recover despite selling some of its assets and receiving an injection of $165 million to help the struggling company refinance its debt as part of a restructuring plan just four months before it filed for bankruptcy.

So far, two former Celadon executives have been indicted in an alleged scam that cost the truckload and logistics company's shareholders more than $60 million. 

A third executive, Danny Williams, former president of Quality Companies, a subsidiary of Celadon, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit securities fraud, make false statements to a public company's accountants and falsify books, records and accounts of a public company in April.

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