FedEx is preparing to buy Watkins Motor Lines, the largest privately held LTL carrier in the country, according to a published report.

The Memphis Commercial Appeal, citing unnamed sources, said the companies were planning to announce as soon as June 1 a purchase that could be worth some $1 billion and add 139 terminals and a network that stretches across the country to its FedEx Freight trucking business. FedEx officials did not immediately return calls for comment.

Watkins had an estimated $1.01 billion in revenue last year and was the No. 15 trucking company in the United States based on revenue, according to the consulting firm SJ Consulting.

The Watkins business would join a FedEx Freight LTL business that is on track to clear more than $3 billion in revenue in its 2006 fiscal year, making it one of the top three LTL carriers in the country.

The purchase would follow UPS's acquisition this year of Overnite Transportation, the Richmond, Va.-based operator that UPS is making into the anchor of its new UPS Freight division aimed at the industrial less-than-truckload market.