30
Lodestar Freight Solutions - Mississauga
- Thread starter Upforit
- Start date
5
1
I heard they closed their doors from a reliable source as well but their phones are still active so maybe not.
Last edited:
in an email at 5:02pm...
June 11, 2026
To Our Valued Creditors, Customers, Vendors, Partners, and Friends,
It is with profound regret and deep sadness that we announce that Lodestar Freight Solutions became insolvent on June 11, 2026.
Over the past 20 years, we have dedicated ourselves to building and operating a company founded on integrity, service, and commitment to our customers, employees, and business partners. Throughout recent economic challenges and the restructuring efforts undertaken to preserve the business, we exhausted every available option and pursued every reasonable avenue to keep Lodestar Freight Solutions operating.
Despite our best efforts, the economic conditions, financial pressures, and restructuring challenges facing the company have left us unable to continue operations. We have reached a point where Lodestar Freight Solutions is incapable of meeting its financial obligations and is unable to pay outstanding accounts payable and other debts owed.
This outcome is heartbreaking. Letting go of a company that has represented two decades of hard work, sacrifice, and dedication is one of the most difficult decisions we have ever faced. The knowledge that obligations remain unpaid to those who supported us along the way only deepens our sorrow.
Please know that this result was not reached lightly. We did everything within our power—and more—to save the company and preserve the relationships we have built over the years. Unfortunately, despite those efforts, we were unable to maintain the financial stability necessary to continue operating and uphold the standards to which we have always held ourselves.
To everyone who placed their trust in Lodestar Freight Solutions, we extend our sincere gratitude. Your support, partnership, and loyalty over the past 20 years have meant more than words can adequately express.
For those who are affected by our inability to satisfy outstanding obligations, we offer our deepest and most heartfelt apologies. We understand the impact this may have on your business and livelihood, and we are truly sorry.
Thank you for allowing us the privilege of serving you over the last two decades. We will always be grateful for the relationships, opportunities, and memories that were created along the way.
With sincere appreciation and deepest regret,
Lodestar Freight Solutions
On behalf of the Ownership and Management Team
June 11, 2026
To Our Valued Creditors, Customers, Vendors, Partners, and Friends,
It is with profound regret and deep sadness that we announce that Lodestar Freight Solutions became insolvent on June 11, 2026.
Over the past 20 years, we have dedicated ourselves to building and operating a company founded on integrity, service, and commitment to our customers, employees, and business partners. Throughout recent economic challenges and the restructuring efforts undertaken to preserve the business, we exhausted every available option and pursued every reasonable avenue to keep Lodestar Freight Solutions operating.
Despite our best efforts, the economic conditions, financial pressures, and restructuring challenges facing the company have left us unable to continue operations. We have reached a point where Lodestar Freight Solutions is incapable of meeting its financial obligations and is unable to pay outstanding accounts payable and other debts owed.
This outcome is heartbreaking. Letting go of a company that has represented two decades of hard work, sacrifice, and dedication is one of the most difficult decisions we have ever faced. The knowledge that obligations remain unpaid to those who supported us along the way only deepens our sorrow.
Please know that this result was not reached lightly. We did everything within our power—and more—to save the company and preserve the relationships we have built over the years. Unfortunately, despite those efforts, we were unable to maintain the financial stability necessary to continue operating and uphold the standards to which we have always held ourselves.
To everyone who placed their trust in Lodestar Freight Solutions, we extend our sincere gratitude. Your support, partnership, and loyalty over the past 20 years have meant more than words can adequately express.
For those who are affected by our inability to satisfy outstanding obligations, we offer our deepest and most heartfelt apologies. We understand the impact this may have on your business and livelihood, and we are truly sorry.
Thank you for allowing us the privilege of serving you over the last two decades. We will always be grateful for the relationships, opportunities, and memories that were created along the way.
With sincere appreciation and deepest regret,
Lodestar Freight Solutions
On behalf of the Ownership and Management Team
20
30
Companies rarely fail overnight, or in a week, and even not in a couple of months. No, it takes time for these things to happen. Weeks or months of money losing P&L statements, higher and higher balances on the line of credit, less and less available cash, more frequent calls from the bank. I am sure that once they realized they were bleeding cash, they tried refinancing and a host of other steps to stay afloat. The point is, by then it is usually too late. Businesses usually don't fail from one catastrophic event, but from a series of missteps and failures to act. Instead of stitching up the small cuts as they occur, some firms wait until the floor is covered with blood before they take action. In many cases, by then its too late. The moral of my story, and it applies to any company of any size, be religious about studying your monthly P&Ls. This is the ECG of your firm. It, along with Cash Flow Reports and an up to date Balance Sheet, provide you with a printout of your company's health. Current, accurate, regular information will help to prevent failure and provide you with the tools, and most importantly, the time to take the necessary actions.
Last edited:
30
It floors me when a non-asset based brokerage ends up this way. They should have been investing enough of their retained earnings back to get through tougher times. I suspect this is similar to what happened with Freightworld, and also ILCO. They likely got caught up with too much bad debt and couldn't overcome it - or the owners thought it was more important to gallavant in a Lamborghini or something rather than pay their bills. Though I think in this case it's probably the first one.
The loss of a customer timed with buying of a Lambo I am sure has crushed a few brokerages.
I do agree though, with these brokerages who are 10-20 years old and falling. It's bad debt tied with losing a customer.
These legacy brokers often get caught up with 1 contact a company who feeds them load, regardless of price. That 1 contact leaves and their core customer is also gone or significantly diminished level. Hard to recover from that.
The brokerages of 10-20 years old have had a very distinct landscape change over the decades. There used to be honesty and integrity which translated into loyalty. Thousands of cold calls would filter to a couple of opportunities. A broker would prove their salt and eventually had a business relationship that was loyal from the freight payor down to the carrier. Currently that has changed and now we deal with:
For a broker to survive now, you need to educate the freight payor. Tell them what you bring to the table that the boardroom decision does not contemplate. Insert yourself all the way through the shipment, make sure it's the right carrier, phone the shipper to confirm the right truck has arrived, and call the receiver to ensure the same truck delivered, and be available 24/7 for the carrier to contact should something go wrong. Most brokers do not do this and expect everything to flow properly like it used to 20 years ago. They'd trust the carrier to manage it and eat any additional costs - anything else they'd take out of their own end. They have made it purely a transaction. The days of 'here's your confirmation sheet - send me the POD when its delivered' is way over.
There are still opportunities for brokers but they need to up their game and fight for that loyalty.
- Boardrooms deciding the spend, not the guy in the shipping office.
- Excel sorting from Z-A by price to award freight regardless of whose name is in column A or the qualifications.
- Email distribution lists 20-50 long to see who can move the freight and new emails added weekly.
- Ignorance in the complete process causing costs to increase
For a broker to survive now, you need to educate the freight payor. Tell them what you bring to the table that the boardroom decision does not contemplate. Insert yourself all the way through the shipment, make sure it's the right carrier, phone the shipper to confirm the right truck has arrived, and call the receiver to ensure the same truck delivered, and be available 24/7 for the carrier to contact should something go wrong. Most brokers do not do this and expect everything to flow properly like it used to 20 years ago. They'd trust the carrier to manage it and eat any additional costs - anything else they'd take out of their own end. They have made it purely a transaction. The days of 'here's your confirmation sheet - send me the POD when its delivered' is way over.
There are still opportunities for brokers but they need to up their game and fight for that loyalty.
30
Unfortunately, Jim L is correct in his appraisal that the boardroom has taken a much too active role in the transportation department. They fail to see that making a good decision based on price and service can save them money, and instead fall victim to the siren song of lowest possible price. In the end, it is usually more expensive. This has been driven in large part, by the “transportation consultants”, such as Nulogx and others. They approach upper management and proclaim to have a “proprietary process” or some other secret sauce to improve efficiency and lower costs. In reality, that process is as Jim L described, nothing more than an Excel spreadsheet with the lowest quotes on top. Oh, they pay lip service to such things as KPIs and service parameters but never in my 35+ years have I seen them award a lane to anyone other than the lowest bidder. I like to think that we have been able to secure and maintain customer loyalty by being more than just the “mover of freight”. Solving problems, making suggestions, relieving them of the tedious, mundane aspects of transportation and most importantly only using a stable of properly vetted, respected suppliers. Everyone likes to pay a low price, it’s human nature, but for a broker, that low price/high profit load that you sourced to a questionable carrier, could end up costing you money and worse, the customer. It is not worth it.
30
The way I see it, there are two ways for a broker to be successful nowadays ... well 3 if you count getting business and not making enough on it.
1) Engaging with customers who we know will go to so many sources and pick the lowest rate - usually margins suck and it's not commensurate with volume either
2) Look for customers where you can find a specific niche where it's win-win
3) Be more than a freight broker - have mixed asset/non-asset, software solutions, warehousing and distribution
#2 and #3 really need someone who is more strategic rather than dialing for dollars, sort of speak. The salesperson has to be in it for the long haul, and so does the broker/carrier who the person works for. The whole 'hit the ground running, 90 day trial' thing doesn't work for this. Largely why I got out of it.