ADDISON, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Daseke, Inc. (NASDAQ: DSKE) (NASDAQ: DSKEW), North America’s largest owner and a leading consolidator of the open deck transportation and logistics market, has announced a ground-breaking new stock plan designed around professional company truck drivers. Daseke became a public company earlier this year and is traded on Nasdaq under the ticker symbols DSKE and DSKEW. An estimated 1 million shares of common stock with a current valuation of an estimated $9.9 million have been earmarked for the 2017 employee stock awards program. Restricted stock units (which are the right to receive common stock, subject to various vesting, transfer and other restrictions and which are referred to as “stock grants”) will be awarded to the approximate 2,100 company drivers and 800 support team employees who are employed by Daseke operating companies, and who were with a Daseke company in 2016. Stock grants will also be made to company drivers and support team employees who joined, or will join, a Daseke company in 2017.
“I’ve said from day one that people make the difference – we invest in people. In our industry, professional truck drivers truly are the heart and soul of everything we do,” said Don Daseke, president and CEO of Daseke.
“We want professional truck drivers and all our support team employees to have ownership in Daseke. To our knowledge, we are the first public for-hire trucking company to have a program that makes professional truck drivers company shareholders,” said Daseke. “It’s very exciting for me personally. A driver stock program was something I have been passionate about from the very beginning. This is about being an owner. We want people to come together, be empowered and build our company with the mindset of ownership.”
Stock grants will be awarded after one full quarter of service. Professional company drivers and support team employees who were hired in the first quarter of 2017, for example, will be granted stock grants in July 2017. Initial stock grant awards for those employed on December 31, 2016, will begin in June 2017.
“This is a program that is above and beyond what our operating companies already have in place with new hires, and it rewards those drivers who help us build the future,” said Daseke. “What’s more, we offer industry leading benefits, such as a 401(k) match of up to 4 percent, and a top-tier health care plan.”
Many of the Daseke companies have been named as a Best Fleet to Drive For® by the Truckload Carriers Association in partnership with CarriersEdge, as well as have won numerous safety awards.
“We’re focused on quality,” said Daseke. “We continue to grow, recently adding two new premier companies to our family – The Schilli Companies, headquartered in Indiana, and Big Freight Systems, headquartered in Manitoba, Canada. We want our people to experience ownership as we work every day to build value for our customers and our owners.”
About Daseke
Daseke, Inc. is the largest owner and a leading consolidator of open deck transportation and logistics solutions in North America. With over 3,500 trucks and 7,300 open deck and specialized trailers. Daseke offers comprehensive, best-in-class services to the world’s most respected industrial shippers.
The Daseke family of open deck and specialized transportation and logistics companies includes Smokey Point Distributing (www.spdtrucking.com), E.W. Wylie (www.wylietrucking.com), J. Grady Randolph (www.jgr-inc.com), Central Oregon Truck Company (www.centraloregontuck.com), The Boyd Companies including Boyd Bros. Transportation (www.boydbros.com) and WTI Transport (www.wtitransport.com), Lone Star Transportation (www.lonestar-llc.com), Bulldog Hiway Express (www.bulldoghiway.com), Hornady Transportation (www.hornadytransportation.com), The Schilli Companies (www.schilli.com), and Big Freight Systems (www.bigfreight.com).
