This month’s Macro examines March and April data. As shown on Slide 8, freight vols on avg. declined 2% y/y in March and are tracking up less than 1% y/y based on preliminary April data after growing close to 3% the 1st two months of the year. Moreover, our proprietary Seasonal Freight Index (Slide 7) has dipped back below 50 the past 2 months after accelerating sharply late last year and early this year.
the Teamsters announced that local union leaders unanimously endorsed a new 5-yr contract with ABFS. Details of the tentative deal are now available after surprisingly little information leaked since the initial agreement was first announced.
Our 6th Annual Global Transport Conference will take place on Wednesday, May 22 and Thursday, May 23. This report is a guide for investors attending the conference, including a list of suggested questions to ask each company and a snapshot of our earnings models.
ABFS announced that it reached a tentative deal on a new 5-yr contract with the Teamsters. ABFS provided very few details, other than noting the contract will put them on a “path of profitability.” The Teamsters stated they will not provide any details until they speak with leaders at local unions over the next few days, and no details have been leaked yet to the TDU website or various trucking boards we track.
ABFS reported a 1Q adjusted EPS loss of ($0.56) vs. our ($0.50) estimate and Cons. of ($0.41). Total rev. growth of 18% (+6% ex. Panther) accelerated modestly from 4Q on better tonnage but still missed our expectations on weaker LTL yields. Freight’s LTL OR was 50bp worse than our expectations and unchanged y/y at 105.5%, by far the worst among the LTL’s in 1Q. Panther also reported a modest loss and badly missed our expectation, while ABFS’s other non-asset businesses reported strong rev. and EBIT improvement off a low base.
This weekly report presents the most recent views we are hearing from industry insiders and summarizes the research of Wolfe Trahan. Included are (1) key takeaways, selected shipper comments; (2) notices of upcoming industry events; (3) key takeaways from some of our notes from the past week; (4) recent stock performance for our transport universe; (5) updated comparison tables for the airfreight & logistics group, railroads, and trucking; and (6) fuel trends for West Texas Crude Oil, On-highway diesel, Rail diesel, and Jet fuel.
This weekly report presents the most recent views we are hearing from industry insiders and summarizes the research of Wolfe Trahan. Included are (1) key takeaways, selected shipper comments; (2) notices of upcoming industry events; (3) key takeaways from some of our notes from the past week; (4) recent stock performance for our transport universe; (5) updated comparison tables for the airfreight & logistics group, railroads, and trucking; and (6) fuel trends for West Texas Crude Oil, On-highway diesel, Rail diesel, and Jet fuel.
This weekly report presents the most recent views we are hearing from industry insiders and summarizes the research of Wolfe Trahan. Included are (1) key takeaways, selected shipper comments; (2) notices of upcoming industry events; (3) key takeaways from some of our notes from the past week; (4) recent stock performance for our transport universe; (5) updated comparison tables for the airfreight & logistics group, railroads, and trucking; and (6) fuel trends for West Texas Crude Oil, On-highway diesel, Rail diesel, and Jet fuel.
This weekly report presents the most recent views we are hearing from industry insiders and summarizes the research of Wolfe Trahan. Included are (1) key takeaways, selected shipper comments; (2) notices of upcoming industry events; (3) key takeaways from some of our notes from the past week; (4) recent stock performance for our transport universe; (5) updated comparison tables for the airfreight & logistics group, railroads, and trucking; and (6) fuel trends for West Texas Crude Oil, On-highway diesel, Rail diesel, and Jet fuel.
FWRD Acquires TQI. O FWRD announced the acquisition of Total Quality for $71M. TQI is a fast-growing, asset-light TL provider serving pharmaceutical customers, and FWRD paid 8.7x trailing EBITDA and 1.3x trailing rev. We estimate $0.10 (6%) annual EPS accretion and we’re raising our EPS estimates accordingly.