Q&A: Don Daseke on Going Public
Don Daseke
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Don Daseke
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HDT: Congratulations on converting Daseke Inc. into a public company. Since you have not offered a typical initial public offering of stock, can you tell us about the process you followed to secure a Nasdaq listing?
Daseke: Thank you. What we did is somewhat unique; most people are not familiar with how we did it. Effectively, we merged with what used to be a special-purpose acquisition company [Hennessy Capital Acquisition Corp. II], which is a firm that just has cash to invest. Once we merged, the new company took the Daseke name and, as a public company, we received our stock symbols [on Feb 28]. It’s a very fast transition to going public compared to issuing an IPO and the company remains controlled by the board [which includes two directors who were the top executives of HCAC]. HCAC has gone away and now Daseke Inc. has the capital to go out and add more open-deck specialized carriers to our family of companies, which now numbers nine.
HDT: Daseke is the first trucking company to go public since 2010. I understand that taking the company public had been a goal of yours, perhaps even since launching Daseke in 2009. Why was that?
Daseke: [Along with raising capital] going public will allow for employee ownership of the company. We have always intended to offer that to all our employees, especially our drivers. We’ve found that people think differently and feel differently if they are the owner. [Employee ownership] is a way to show respect, especially to our drivers. Driving is a tough job and it’s even more so for our drivers, who must tarp all sorts of heavy, unusual things. It’s a highly skilled job and we want to show drivers respect for the difficult job they do and show we …Read the rest of this story
