The Situation
Worldwide Express had recently completed a major merger with GlobalTranz, creating one of the largest privately held freight brokerages in the country. The combined entity had a real estate portfolio reflecting two separate companies: overlapping locations, inconsistent lease structures, misaligned expiration dates, and no unified strategy. The engagement had two simultaneous objectives: rationalize the combined portfolio, and use real estate as a strategic lever to accelerate cultural integration.
The Challenge
M&A real estate integration is a discipline most brokers are not equipped to handle. The challenge was understanding how two organizations's real estate obligations interact, which ones to exit, which to restructure, and how to sequence the work so operations are not disrupted — all structured with EBITDA as the primary financial constraint.
The Approach
We began with a full portfolio audit across both legacy organizations — cataloguing every lease obligation, evaluating market conditions in each location, and modeling the financial impact of every combination of retain, exit, consolidate, and restructure decisions. The global headquarters relocation was the strategic centerpiece — an amenity-rich new development serving as a cultural catalyst, negotiated at favorable economics with tenant improvement allowances that materially reduced upfront capital commitment. Across the broader portfolio, we executed a combination of lease buyouts, subleases, and natural expiration strategies to right-size 40+ locations.
Every real estate decision was evaluated first through an EBITDA lens. That distinction produced $5M per year in measurable improvement to the income statement.