ArcBest

The company was formed in 1966 as Arkansas Best Corporation by Robert A. Young, owner of LTL carrier Arkansas-Best Freight System , to be that carrier's holding company as a way to facilitate diversification. Young remained the company's chairman until his death in 1973. In the 1960s, the company acquired Healzer Cartage Company, Delta Motor Line and others.Arkansas Best Corp. went public on the NYSE as "ABZ" in 1972. At the time, in addition to Arkansas-Best Freight System, it also owned Riverside Furniture Corporation, the National Bank of Commerce of Dallas, Texas, Data-Tronic Corporation, and Arkansas Bandag Corporation. In 1978, the company acquired Navajo Freight Lines. In 1988, the company was the subject of a hostile takeover which resulted in a leveraged buyout to take the company private. It went public again, this time on the Nasdaq, in 1992.ABF acquired financially troubled Worldway Corp. and its subsidiaries Carolina Freight Carriers Corp., G.I. Trucking Co., Red Arrow Freight Lines Inc., Cardinal Freight Carriers Inc., Innovative Logistics Inc., and CaroTrans International Inc. in 1995 for US$72.2 million. G.I. Trucking was subsequently sold in 2001 into joint ownership of a group of G.I. senior management and LTL carrier Estes Express Lines and was fully acquired by Estes in 2005. Further acquisitions by ABF in the 2010s included Albert Moving in 2011 and Panther Expedited for US$180 million in 2012. In 2013, it created ABF Logistics.In 2014, Arkansas Best was renamed ArcBest Corporation. This was followed in 2015 by the acquisition of Smart Lines Transportation Group and Bear Transportation Services and in 2016 by the acquisition of Logistics & Distribution Services. Also in 2016, the company reorganized rebanding many of its services under the name ArcBest.In 2021, ArcBest acquired MoLo Solutions, a truckload brokerage company based in Chicago. The deal was priced at US$235 million upfront and up to an additional US$215 million if MoLo hits certain revenue benchmarks by 2025. ArcBest intended to merge MoLo's operations and its existing brokerage operations onto a single platform.