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March 30, 2000 9:45 AM, EST

Four months after the collapse of AmeriTruck Distribution Corp., Ronald Damico is still picking up the pieces.

In selling KTL Inc. of Largo, Fla., to AmeriTruck in 1996, he expected to reduce overhead expenses and expand sales by affiliating with a fast-growing, cash-rich industry consolidator. Those hopes soon faded as the free-spending AmeriTruck fell behind on a mountain of high-interest subordinated debt and filed for bankruptcy in November 1998.

A year later, AmeriTruck was forced to liquidate its money-losing refrigerated trucking business. Damico was able to broker a deal in which he bought back KTL and acquired three other profitable subsidiaries — CMS Transportation, Scales Transport and W&L Services — without picking up any of AmeriTruck’s liabilities.

Damico is now doing for himself what AmeriTruck had failed to do. He has combined the dedicated contract carriage divisions of Scales of °®¶¹´«Ã½r, Ga., and CMS of Atlanta, and merged the remaining truckload business into KTL. W&L Motor Lines remains a separate entity and specializes in furniture hauling.

For the full story, see the Mar. 27 print edition of Transport Topics. .