Beyond synergies: How the combined FleetPride/TruckPro will be ‘Stronger Together’

Greco’s strategy for the merger centers on a crucial distinction between low-hanging cost cuts and long-term value creation.

While consultants often warn that 80% of mergers fail, Greco noted, he is focused on the 20% that flourish by prioritizing people and culture over simple financial maneuvers.

“We're trying to retain all the good things that came from TruckPro, all of the good things that came from Fleet pride, and obviously evolve the culture,” he said. “Culture is not a light switch; you can’t just change it overnight. It evolves over time, and you have to pay a lot of attention to it.”

He explicitly warned against focusing solely on "capturing synergies"—such as eliminating redundant corporate roles—at the expense of the frontline. Many mergers "go sideways" when they achieve their synergy targets but suffer a growth slowdown that wipes out those gains,

To ensure the merger results in true scale, the "Stronger Together" strategy focuses on unit growth and operational efficiency.

“We'll finish that up by the end of February and be able to share more with our suppliers, in terms of what we're doing ,” he added.

The company plans to leverage its combined logistics network to service locations from the most geographically logical distribution centers, such as using a California hub to service local branches rather than shipping from Memphis. 

By identifying five key value drivers—availability, category management, customer experience, frontline capabilities, and technology—the leadership team aims to shift the focus from administrative tasks to customer-serving time, turning the merger’s raw scale into a frontline competitive advantage.

“There's a lot of things that we ask our people to do in our branches that are task oriented, that take time away from serving our customers,” Greco said. “How do we do that and get our team members super excited about it?”

Navigating the freight recession

The FleetPride push for growth comes during a persistent "freight recession,”  the dominant theme during the HDAD presentations throughout the day.

Greco pointed to vehicle miles traveled (VMT) as the metric most closely correlated with aftermarket demand. While 2021 and 2022 saw stimulus-driven growth, the last three years have trended negatively.

“We polled all of our suppliers on a call we had recently, asking ‘What do you think about the year? What are your growth expectations for the year?’” he explained.  “And many of them said what you heard this morning: a little bit better than 2025, but probably back-half [fr 2026] weighted.”

To win in this environment, the new, even bigger FleetPride is investing in a frictionless customer experience, particularly through digital assets and e-commerce. Greco noted that the "Amazon effect" has permanently raised expectations for parts availability and delivery speed—again, a recurring theme at HDAD.

“We're going to build a formidable digital asset as we build up the new FleetPride,” he said.

Strategic supplier partnerships

Greco’s outlook for the distributor market involves moving beyond transactional supplier relationships, another theme at HDAD.

“We're looking for ideas to really get out of the gates quickly in 2026, and many of you have already stepped up and helped us with that,” he said. “But, over time, we are looking for a longer-term strategic relationship with each of you.”

A four-step "joint business planning" process—discovery, big bet planning, joint execution, and measurement— is the model to ensure mutual success. Vendors need to be "thought partners" in innovation and training, and the best solutions are "win-win" propositions, he explained.

“We want to be thoughtful as we make decisions on assortment, on brands, on what gets emphasized,” he said. “All of those things will be considerations for us but, having spent 30 years on the supplier side, I know that we're not going to win long term if you're not winning, too.” 

Indeed, Greco’s goal is that in three years suppliers, customers, and team members will all agree they "won big" because of this merger.

“Again, we're going to put the customer at the center of everything we do,” he said. “However, as you think about what we need to do going forward to operationalize our plan, we're going to put the people first in our organization. So our customers would say that we were serving them better than we ever did as individual companies, and our team members would find new opportunities that potentially they weren't able to realize in an individual company.

“If they all say those things, I'm very confident that financials [of the merged companies] will be something we can all be proud of.”

See the March Distributor Issue of Trailer|Body Builders magazine for more Heavy Duty Aftermarket Week coverage.