Over the weekend, two Minnesota-based carriers under the True North Equity Partners umbrella ceased operations overnight, putting approximately 200 drivers out of work.

MinStar Transport and Transport Design Inc., each operating fleets of around 100 trucks, announced their immediate closures in communications to employees and partners, according to multiple reports circulating in trucking communities on social media. The sudden shutdowns are the latest in a string of carrier failures amid the ongoing Great Freight Recession, now approaching its fourth year since starting in March 2022.

“2 Minnesota Companies overnight are Shutting Down. 200 more Truckers out of work,” read a widely shared post from the TalkCDL Facebook group that has drawn significant attention among drivers and industry insiders. Similar alerts appeared across other trucking forums, underscoring the abrupt loss of jobs in an already challenging market.

Both companies were part of True North Equity Partners’ portfolio of transportation assets. True North, a Minneapolis-based private equity firm focused on lower-middle-market investments, acquired Transport Design in March 2020. The Burnsville, Minnesota-headquartered firm specialized in refrigerated and dry van services, serving food and consumer goods shippers across the Midwest. True North expanded its holdings in October 2022 by purchasing MinStar Transport of Eagan, along with affiliated entities MinStar Logistics, Transport21, and North Star Transport. MinStar focused on temperature-controlled logistics, with a network supporting regional and national distribution.

At the time of the MinStar acquisition—eight months into the freight downturn—the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal reported that True North Equity Partners’ trucking portfolio was expected to generate $220 million in annual revenue.

True North Transportation Holding Company, a key entity in the group’s structure, was named in a September 2025 lawsuit filed by American National Bank in Scott County District Court. The suit, involving defendants including Norsemen Holdings, Norsemen Trucking, and principals Brian Slipka and Eric Valder, alleges breach of loan agreements and seeks repayment of outstanding debts. While details remain limited due to the case’s early stage, such financial pressures often precede operational wind-downs in the sector.

This is not an isolated incident. The trucking industry has seen a wave of closures and bankruptcies throughout 2025. FreightWaves has covered several high-profile failures in recent months, including:

-10 Roads Express, the largest trucking bankruptcy since Yellow Corp., with 2,500 trucks and 5,000 employees;

– Montgomery Transport, which shuttered after its owner, One Equity Partners, exited the industry, idling over 1,000 employees.

According to a 2022 Sioux Falls Business article, True North Equity Partners owns several other trucking assets, including Contact Cartage (Minneapolis), D&A Truckline Inc. and Viking Land Transportation (both New Ulm, Minnesota), J-Mar Enterprises (West Fargo, North Dakota), Norsemen (Lake Mills, Iowa), and Transport Designs (Burnsville, Minnesota). The current status of these operations remains uncertain.

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While trucking bankruptcies carry significant personal impacts for affected families, they also serve a structural role in an industry plagued by excess capacity for the past several years. Bankruptcies are a natural mechanism for eliminating surplus trucks and drivers from the market.

MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) – Southern Minnesota will be under a winter weather advisory as a clipper system moves across the region. 

The Twin Cities will be on the northern edge of that system, with less than an inch of snow expected. 

Saturday forecast 

Local perspective:

A cold front is splitting Minnesota in half at the I-90 corridor, bringing snow to the southern part of the state and heavier accumulation at the Iowa border. 

High temperatures in the Twin Cities are starting at 22 degrees on Saturday morning. 

A winter weather advisory will be in effect for all of southern Minnesota starting at noon on Saturday.

A few snowflakes are expected to fall in the Twin Cities in the early evening. 

Extended forecast

What’s next:

Sunday will be slightly sunnier with windchills bringing temperatures below zero degrees. 

Snow chances return to the area on Tuesday. 

How much snow could MN get? 

FOX 9 weather forecast. (FOX 9)

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By the numbers:

The highest snow totals will be found along the border with Minnesota and Iowa. 

Some north Iowa counties will exceed 6 inches of snow.

Meanwhile, the Twin Cities will see a trace of snow to about an inch of accumulation.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, criticized President Donald Trump on Thursday for describing the state’s Somali community as “garbage.”

Walz said Trump’s statements of contempt for the state’s Somali community were “unprecedented for a United States president.”

“We’ve got little children going to school today who their president called them garbage,” the blue state governor said.

Minnesota has the largest Somali population in the country, with about 84,000 people in the Minneapolis and St. Paul area of Somali descent. Nearly 60% of Somalis in the state were born in the U.S., while 87% of the foreign-born Somalis are naturalized U.S. citizens.

TREASURY SECRETARY LAUNCHES PROBE INTO MINNESOTA TAX DOLLARS ALLEGEDLY FUNDING AL-SHABAAB TERRORISTS

Trump’s comments about Somalis in the state have intensified after the City Journal, a conservative news outlet, claimed last month that taxpayer dollars from defrauded government programs have been sent to the Somali militant group al-Shabab, an affiliate of al-Qaida.

The alleged ringleader of the fraud scheme is white, but dozens of people in the Somali community have reportedly been involved.

On Thanksgiving, Trump said Minnesota was “a hub of fraudulent money laundering activity” and that he was terminating Temporary Protected Status for Somalis in the state.

On Tuesday, the president said at a Cabinet meeting that he did not want Somali immigrants to remain in the U.S.

“We can go one way or the other, and we’re going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country,” he said.

During the meeting, he also called Somalia-born Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., “garbage” and said Somalia “stinks.”

On Wednesday, Trump said Minnesota had become a “hellhole” because of the Somali community.

“Somalians should be out of here,” he told reporters. “They’ve destroyed our country.”

The Trump administration launched immigration enforcement operations targeting migrants living among Minnesota’s Somali community.

“Demonizing an entire group of people by their race and their ethnicity, a very group of people who contribute to the vitality — economic, cultural — of this state is something I was hoping we’d never have to see,” Walz told reporters during a briefing on the state’s budget. “This is on top of all the other vile comments.”

Republican legislative leaders have been reluctant to condemn Trump’s remarks, although some did suggest he went too far. They also contended that the dispute would not have happened if Walz had acted more effectively to stop fraud in social service programs.

ILHAN OMAR PRESSED TO EXPLAIN HOW FRAUD IN MINNESOTA GOT ‘SO OUT OF CONTROL’

“In no way do I believe any community is all bad. Just like I don’t believe any community is all good. What we need to do is call the fraudsters in any community accountable for their actions and stop it here in the state of Minnesota,” Republican Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth, who is running for governor and hopes to secure Trump’s endorsement, told reporters.

Republican state Sen. Eric Pratt, who is running for the congressional seat being vacated by Democrat U.S. Rep. Angie Craig, also would not defend the president’s comments.

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“It wasn’t said the way that I would have said it,” Pratt said. “But what I will say is, I share the president’s frustration in the amount of fraud and corruption that’s effectively gone on in the state. I mean, it’s really put a black eye on the state, and we are in the national news for all the wrong reasons.”

Trump and Walz have repeatedly hurled insults at each other in the past, including the president hitting the Minnesota Democrat as “grossly incompetent,” a “mess” and “re—-ed” and the governor calling Trump a “wannabe dictator,” a “cruel man” and a “bad human being,” and ICE under the administration a “modern-day Gestapo.”