Pressures from a slumping shipping economy and new competitive threats have cost the head of the largest U.S. freight broker his job. The Wall Street Journal reports that C.H. Robinson Worldwide abruptly dismissed Bob Biesterfeld as CEO over the New Year’s weekend.

The ouster shows that even C.H. Robinson’s enormous scale in the U.S. trucking market isn’t insulating the company from the freight sector’s broader strains.

Earnings fell sharply in the second half of 2022, as the company struggled to adjust to a changing market. C.H. Robinson also faces incursions from digital upstarts. But its more immediate concern may be its international freight-forwarding arm, which is exposed to slumping trade volumes and competition from big global operators. 

One of those, Denmark’s DSV, is showing interest in acquiring C.H. Robinson’s forwarding business, a prospect that may look attractive for the freight broker’s increasingly aggressive board.