XPO Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
October 30, 2023

There are 15 speakers on the call.

Operator

Welcome to the XPO Third Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call and Webcast. My name is Rob, and I will be your operator for today's call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. Later, we will conduct a question and answer session. Please limit yourself to one question when you come up in the queue.

Operator

If you have additional questions, you're welcome to get back in the queue, and we'll take as many as we can. Please note that this conference is being recorded. Before the call begins, let me read a brief statement on behalf of the company regarding forward looking statements and the use of non GAAP financial measures. During this call, the company will be making certain forward looking statements Within the meaning of applicable securities laws, which by their nature involve a number of risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected in the forward looking statements. A discussion of factors that could CAUSE actual results to differ materially is contained in the company's SEC filings as well as in its earnings release.

Operator

The forward looking statements in the company's earnings release or made on this call are made only as of today, and the company has no obligation to update any of these forward looking statements, except to the extent required by law. During this call, the company also may refer to certain non GAAP financial measures as defined under Reconciliations of such non GAAP financial measures to the most comparable GAAP measures are contained in the company's earnings release and the related financial tables or on its website. You can find a copy of the company's earnings release, which contains Additional important information regarding forward looking statements and non GAAP financial measures in the Investors section of the company's website. I will now turn the call over to XPO's Chief Executive Officer, Mario Harrick. Mr.

Operator

Harrick, you may begin.

Speaker 1

Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining our call. I'm here in Greenwich with Kyle Wissmann, our Chief Financial Officer And Ali Faghri, our Chief Strategy Officer. This morning, we reported financial results that were well above expectations for growth And profitability despite a soft market for freight transportation. It was a strong Q3 for us company wide.

Speaker 1

We grew revenue year over year to $2,000,000,000 and improved our adjusted EBITDA to 2 $78,000,000 an increase of 6% year over year. Both segments of the business Grew adjusted EBITDA in the quarter. Adjusted diluted EPS for the company was $0.88 which was also higher than expected. I want to use my comments this morning to give you a progress report on the 4 pillars Our plan for LTL 2.0, starting with customer service, where we've made great progress this quarter. Our claims ratio for damages was 0.4%, an improvement from 0.7% in the prior quarter.

Speaker 1

To put that in context, when we launched LTL 2.0 nearly 2 years ago, our claims ratio was 1.2%. So So we've been steadily making good on our promise to elevate service. Our 3rd quarter claims ratio is our best result ever. And in the month of September, we exited the court with the best damage frequency level in our history. Another key service metric is on time performance.

Speaker 1

This was 8 percentage points better in the quarter compared with last year. We're very focused on ensuring that our service standards remain high as we grow. In the Q3, our shipment count was significantly higher As we took more volume into our network, while at the same time we delivered meaningful service improvements. And we're already taking the next steps forward with our investments in service. This includes enhancing our training programs and loading procedures And equipping our field operations with new service tools.

Speaker 1

The high caliber straps and airbag systems we're rolling out are generating positive returns in a short period of time. For example, in the service centers with the new airbag systems, We're already seeing a 20% improvement in damage frequency. Our strong commitment to service is critical for our customers. And while we've made significant progress, we can clearly see the runway we have for further improvement. Our top priority is to be the best in class LTL The second pillar of LTL 2.0 is to invest in our network.

Speaker 1

Our business has historically generated a high return on invested capital. Since the launch of LTL 2.0, We've added 10,000 trailers, 2,000 tractors and over 500 net new doors. This has allowed us to take on more freight for our customers while maintaining strong network fluidity. More than 2 thirds of our 2023 CapEx is being deployed to increase the capacity of our fleet. Year to date, we've added more than 1,000 tractors, which brought down the average tractor age to 5.2 years From 5.9 years at the end of 2022.

Speaker 1

And we're on track to exceed our production target of 6,000 new trailers this year. Year to date, we've manufactured over 4,900 trailers at our in house facility in Arkansas. In addition, we expanded our service center doors in the Atlanta and Dallas metro areas in July And we broke ground on a new facility in Central Florida, which is a key growth market for us. This is consistent with the plan we outlined That's why we're adding new doors in markets where our investments in capacity can sustain more growth over time. To date, we've added 531 net new doors against a target of 900 and we expect to open the remainder by early 2024, Primarily at existing terminals, these targeted expansions are performing well and exceeding our return hurdles.

Speaker 1

I want to touch on one of the long term targets we introduced with LTL 2.0, which was for CapEx allocation of 8% to 12% of revenue On average through 2027. Given the recent market dynamics and the opportunity at hand, we're accelerating the pace of that spend. As a result, our CapEx this year will be 12% to 13% of revenue and will likely continue to exceed our target range in the near term. The 3rd pillar of our plan is to accelerate yield growth. In the Q3, we focused on strengthening our underlying pricing trends Such as contract renewal pricing and executed a number of other initiatives to align the price we receive with the value we deliver.

Speaker 1

Yield is our single biggest opportunity for margin improvement and you saw this impact in our earnings release this morning. We grew yields excluding fuel by 6.4% year over year, representing a significant acceleration from the first half of the year. We see a double digit pricing opportunity that we expect to capture over the coming years through 3 primary levers. 1st, as we continue to improve our service, customers are willing to pay a premium price for the value we deliver. We're seeing this with both contract renewals and new business.

Speaker 1

We also see a significant opportunity to grow our accessorial revenue, Including a range of value added services such as retail store rollouts and grocery consolidations, These are services that our customers are asking for. And lastly, we're focused on growing our local customer base, Which is a higher margin business for us. In the Q3, we achieved double digit shipment growth in our local sales channel And we're expanding our look sales force to reflect the scale of this opportunity. So while we had strong yield growth in the quarter, The key point is the momentum it indicates going forward. We're confident that we'll continue to improve our yield in the coming years.

Speaker 1

The final pillar of LTL 2.0 is cost efficiency, specifically with purchased transportation, variable costs and overhead. In the Q3, we reduced our purchase transportation costs by 21% year over year by covering more line haul miles in house, while also paying lower contract rates for the miles we outsourced. We ended the quarter with 21.5% of line haul miles outsourced To 3rd parties, which was a 200 basis points reduction year over year. Even though we purchased more transportation on a short term basis to cover the recent inflection in volume. Our plan is to accelerate bringing more miles in house with initiatives tailored to our line haul network.

Speaker 1

For example, we're in the process of adding more driver teams and sleeper trucks for long distance hauls. We're targeting a few 100 of these teams to be in operation by the end of 2024, which will increase the efficiency and flexibility of our service. We're targeting at least a 50% reduction in 3rd party line haul miles as a percent of total by 2027 compared with 2021. Another margin opportunity we have with variable costs is labor. We managed this effectively in the 3rd quarter.

Speaker 1

Our headcount and labor hours per day were roughly flat year over year, while our shipment count was up by high single digits. Our ability to realize these productivity gains, while also improving our service metrics, reflects the strong execution of our operational teams And the strength of our proprietary technology. That touches on the key points of our plan and the progress we made in the Q3 with more to follow. We're generating record service levels, gaining profitable market share and driving yield higher. These are the critical levers of margin expansion in our LTL business.

Speaker 1

We're continuing to make strategic investments in our network And we have the agility to capitalize on changes in market conditions. At the same time, we're becoming more cost efficient with our operations, so we can translate revenue growth into earnings at a higher rate. We remain solidly on track to deliver on our outlook of at least 600 basis points of adjusted operating ratio improvement through 20 20.20%. Before I close, I want to mention that this week marks our 1 year anniversary as a standalone LTL provider in North America. I couldn't be more proud of the progress we've made and will continue to make As we work to realize the full potential of XPO, we're well underway in executing on the strategy we initiated at the end of 2021.

Speaker 1

We're a focused, high energy, customer loving organization and we'll continue to build on our momentum. I want to take this opportunity to thank our thousands of dedicated employees for their world class support of XPO. We have a phenomenal team driving our strategy to be the best in the industry. Now I'm going to hand the call over to Kyle To discuss the Q3 results, Kyle over to you.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Mario and good morning everyone. I'll take you through our key financial results, balance sheet and liquidity. Revenue for the total company was $2,000,000,000 Up 2% year over year and up 3% sequentially from the Q2. In our LTL segment, revenue was up 2% year over year and up 8% sequentially. Excluding fuel, LTL revenue was up 8% year over year and up 7% sequentially.

Speaker 2

Salary, wages and benefits for LTL were 10% higher in the quarter than a year ago. The increase was primarily related to higher incentive compensation to account for the team's strong Q3 performance as well as the impact of wage inflation. Our improvements in productivity partially offset these costs. We handled more shipments with lower headcount And fewer labor hours than in the Q3 a year ago. Importantly, it was the 3rd consecutive quarter that shipment count grew At a faster pace than labor hours and the spread is widened sequentially with each period.

Speaker 2

In the Q3, our shipment count per day grew by 8% year over year, while labor hours increased by less than 1%. We were also more cost efficient with purchase transportation through a combination of in sourcing and rate negotiation. Our expense for 3rd party carriers was $97,000,000 in the quarter, which was down year over year by 21%. Depreciation expense in the quarter increased by 29% or $15,000,000 reflecting our commitment to reinvesting in the business. This remains our top priority for capital allocation.

Speaker 2

In the Q3, our CapEx was primarily allocated to purchasing new tractors from the OEMs And manufacturing more trailers in house. Next, I'll add some detail to adjusted EBITDA, starting with the company as a whole. We generated adjusted EBITDA of $278,000,000

Speaker 3

in the quarter,

Speaker 2

which was up 6% from a year ago, reflecting a year over year increase in both North American LTL and the European business. Our adjusted EBITDA margin was 14%, representing a year over year improvement of 50 basis points company wide. And we reduced 3rd quarter corporate expense to $7,000,000 as we continue to rationalize our corporate cost structure This was a year over year savings of 67% or $14,000,000 Looking at just the LTL segment, we grew adjusted EBITDA year over year to $241,000,000 Our revenue growth and cost efficiencies more than offset non operational headwinds from lower fuel surcharge revenue And pension income. In our European Transportation segment, adjusted EBITDA increased to $44,000,000 for the quarter. Companywide, we reported operating income of $154,000,000 for the quarter, up 11% year over year.

Speaker 2

Our net income from continuing operations was $86,000,000 in the quarter, Representing diluted earnings per share of $0.72 This compares to income of $92,000,000 And diluted EPS of $0.79 a year ago. The year over year decline in 3rd quarter net income Was primarily due to an $11,000,000 decrease in pension income and a $6,000,000 increase in interest expense this year. We also had $8,000,000 of transaction and integration costs related to the RXO spin off And another $1,000,000 of restructuring charges across our segments. These costs step down materially from the first half of the year. On an adjusted basis, our EPS for the quarter was $0.88 which is down 7% from a year ago, also reflecting the impact of lower pension income and higher interest expense.

Speaker 2

And lastly, we generated $236,000,000 cash flow from continuing operations in the quarter And deployed $133,000,000 of net CapEx. Moving to the balance sheet, We ended the quarter with $355,000,000 of cash on hand. Combined with available capacity under committed borrowing facilities. This gave us $944,000,000

Speaker 1

of liquidity.

Speaker 2

We had no borrowings outstanding under our ABL facility at quarter end. And our net debt leverage was 2.2 times Trailing 12 months adjusted EBITDA. Our capital structure gives us the financial flexibility to execute on the significant growth opportunities we have to XPO. Before I wrap up, I want to highlight some updates To our full year 2023 planning assumptions, we now expect that gross CapEx will be in the range of $675,000,000 To $725,000,000 this year, given the opportunities we have to invest in network capacity to drive long term growth. We're also projecting interest expense of $170,000,000 to $175,000,000 pension income of $15,000,000 to $20,000,000 And an effective tax rate of 23% to 24%.

Speaker 2

Our assumption for diluted share count remains unchanged at 118,000,000 shares for the full year. Now, I'll turn it over to Ali, who will cover our operating results.

Speaker 4

Thank you, Kyle. I'll start with the operating results for our LTL segment. In the 3rd quarter, We had a year over year increase in shipment count of 7.8%, led by 13% growth in our local sales channel. As a result, our tonnage per day increased by 3.1%. This more than offset The impact of macro conditions, which continue to put pressure on our industry.

Speaker 4

Our weight per shipment declined 4.3% in the quarter compared with a year ago, which was slightly better than in the Q2. There are 2 key drivers behind the solid growth we reported. First, we're continuing to gain market share because of the significant service improvements we're making in the network. And second, when Yellow exited the LTL market, we were well positioned to onboard incremental freight Given that we've been investing and expanding our network since 2021, we also demonstrated that we have the operational discipline To take on more volume, while at the same time continuing to improve our service levels. On a monthly basis, Our July tonnage per day was up 4.2% year over year, August was up 3.3% And September was up 2.2%.

Speaker 4

Looking just at shipments per day, July Was up 8.8% year over year. August was up 8.3% and September was up 6.6%. Our shipment count increased sequentially by more than 1,000 shipments per day Every month of the quarter from July to September. On a 2 year stack basis, monthly tonnage And shipment count also improved each month throughout the Q3. With October almost complete, Our preliminary tonnage per day is up approximately 2.5% year over year and shipment count is up 6%.

Speaker 4

On a sequential basis from September, October tonnage and shipment counts are down 2.5% With both outperforming seasonality, looking at yields in the 3rd quarter, we grew yield excluding fuel By 6.4% year over year, which is an acceleration from the Q2. On a sequential basis, We increased yield ex fuel quarter over quarter, outperforming typical seasonality by 290 basis points. And importantly, we accelerated yield growth as the quarter progressed, supported by our strong customer relationships and pricing initiatives. Our underlying pricing trends also strengthened with contract renewal pricing up 9% in the quarter compared with a year ago. We expect year over year yield growth ex fuel to further accelerate in the Q4 and we're excited about the long term impact That our yield initiatives will have on profitability.

Speaker 4

Turning to margin performance, Our Q3 adjusted operating ratio was 86.2%, which was 60 basis points higher than a year ago. On a sequential basis, we improved adjusted OR by 140 basis points compared with the 2nd quarter. This outperformed seasonality by 370 basis points. Moving to our European business, We delivered another solid financial quarter with adjusted EBITDA growth of 2% compared with a year ago. This was supported by strong pricing, which outpaced inflation as well as cost discipline.

Speaker 4

While macro conditions in Europe remain soft overall, our sales pipeline is robust and the team continues to execute well, especially in the U. K. Where we drove positive organic growth in the quarter. I'll close with the drivers behind our momentum, including the strong outperformance of our 3rd quarter operating ratio. First, we continue to make significant improvements in service across the board and delivered record results.

Speaker 4

We also accelerated yield growth in the quarter and will accelerate it again in the current quarter. We expect our robust yield performance To continue into 2024. And we operated far more productively by leveraging our technology And effectively managing our labor costs. In summary, our strategy is working. XPO in North America It's stronger as a standalone LTL company with focused execution and our results will continue to reflect that.

Speaker 4

Now we'll take your questions. Operator, please open the line for Q and A.

Speaker 5

Thank you. At this time, we'll be conducting a question and answer session. Thank you. And our first question today is from the line of Chris Wetherbee with Citigroup. Please proceed with your questions.

Speaker 6

Hey, thanks. Good morning, guys. Maybe first if you could start on operating ratio and how you might think about the opportunity as you move through the Q4 and then maybe bigger picture for next So I guess, could you help us a little bit with what you view as normal seasonality and sort of what you think maybe you could do relative to normal seasonality in 4Q?

Speaker 1

Hey, Chris. This is Mario. Sure things. Starting with the first with the Q4, we can give you some colors like we usually do on tonnage, Yield and ultimately what O'Rourke would do and then give an outlook for 2024. On the tonnage side, following our market share gains in the 3rd quarter, We expect to be in line with seasonality in the Q4, which implies Q4 tonnage being up low single digit on a year on year basis.

Speaker 1

For us on the tonnage side, normal seasonality Q3 to Q4 is a 4% sequential decline. October was better than seasonality, This was also driven by a small increase in volume earlier in the month given a cyber attack at another LTL carrier. And we'll give another update on November tonnage in early December. On the yield front, as we gain traction in our initiatives, yield growth improved through the 3rd quarter And we do expect Q4 yield ex fuel to accelerate versus Q3 and on a year on year basis to be in the high single digit range improvement. And ultimately for OR in the Q4, we typically see seasonally we see a deterioration of OR of 3 10 basis points from Q3 to Q4 And we expect to outperform that seasonality by somewhere in the 100 basis point range.

Speaker 1

So on a year on year basis, this implies an improvement of roughly around 200 basis And the magnitude of the outperformance will depend on what the tonnage environment does in the back half of the quarter. As you know Q4 is usually a tough quarter Predict with the holidays. Now for 2024, we do expect a strong year. The biggest swing factor will be the macro and what the macro does Through the course of 2024. But as I said, we have a lot of company specific initiatives.

Speaker 1

As we had mentioned in our opening remarks, Our service product continues to improve, hitting company records. Our yield is accelerating here in the Q4, and we expect a strong year for yield in 2024. We expect to continue to make great progress driving cost efficiencies, including blind haul in sourcing and accelerating that and productivity improvements in labor as well. So from our perspective for 2024, we do expect a strong year, but we'll see where the macro take us here over the quarters to come.

Speaker 6

That's very helpful. I appreciate all that color. And just one follow-up on 2024. As you think about sort of the longer term operating ratio targets that you guys laid out through 2027, Given what you've seen with the post Yellow World, the pricing opportunity and some of the significant improvements you're making around the service side, is it reasonable to assume or can you give us a sense of what Cadence of that overall OR improvement might look like? Is it front end loaded?

Speaker 6

Is it back end loaded? Any kind of thoughts about how that cadence should present itself, particularly given what we're seeing in the market currently?

Speaker 1

Yes. So first on the number itself, we've always said it's at least 600 basis points by 2027, But we're not stopping at 600 and we're not stopping at 2027. And I think the cadence of improvement based on what we're seeing short term, it's fair to assume We can get there faster, but obviously as we execute, we're going to keep on posting these numbers and going from there. And it will depend a bit obviously short term what the macro does in 20 But we expect, obviously, strong outlook going from here.

Speaker 5

Our next question comes from the line of Scott Group with Wolfe Research. Please proceed with your questions.

Speaker 7

Hey, thanks. Good morning, guys. I want to dig into the pricing opportunity a little bit. So I think you said contract renewals up 9%. Is that A number that you view as sustainable over the next few quarters, help us think about, I don't know if you guys announced GRI or what you're planning on the GRI and then maybe touch on the accessorial value added opportunity.

Speaker 7

Are we seeing any of that benefit yet or is that still All incremental.

Speaker 2

Hey, Scott, it's Kyle. So getting about the contract renewal rates, you said 9% is what we're seeing In Q3 and relative to GRI just one clarification too is that the contract renewals will impact most of the business. So we'll go through an annual cycle increase. So So we expect those to be in the high single digit range. And then when you think about the GRI for us, we're going to go through our annual process and we'll follow our normal timeline.

Speaker 2

So we communicate to customers Here in the Q4 and then go live with increases in Q1. And then I think your second question was on assetorial, Scott. Assetorials are one of many yield initiatives we're excited about. Currently that asset order is about 10% of our revenue. We're targeting to get closer to 15%.

Speaker 2

That's a combination of offerings we have today as well as some new service offerings. And then in Q2, we did begin rolling out new tools. That helped us really capture more location based and time based accessorials. We started seeing the impact from that in Q3. We also have a team that's working on growing our premium service offerings.

Speaker 2

So those should help us really drive that high single digit impact in Q4 as well as positive yield in 2024.

Speaker 7

Okay, thanks. And then you guys are talking a lot about the claims, seeing some nice improvement. Is there any way to help us think about what does lower claims actually mean for the model? Does it mean Lower costs, I mean, better price and how quickly do we see any sort of benefit of lower claims showing up in the model?

Speaker 1

Thanks, Karl. This is Mario. When you look at claims, it's one of our core areas of focus as a company is improving service for the customers. And in our industry, whenever we provide better service and we keep on that trajectory, and eventually, our goal is to be the best in class and to get to a 0.1% claims ratio. Customers are willing to pay a higher premium for the value that we would offer there.

Speaker 1

So what you would see is an impact on pricing and we already are seeing that here in the Q3. As Kyle just mentioned, our contract renewals are up to 9% and most of that was driven by these improvements in service. To keep in mind, Scott, also when we started LTL 2.0, our damage claims were at 1.2%. And we've been able to take this here in the Q3 to a company best through A multitude of initiatives all the way from incentive comp to local incentive comp programs for we call the Gladiator to incentivize our supervisors to load with Quality to rolling out new technology and how we rate our traders and moving forward the combination of airbags that we are launching in all service centers, higher quality straps And improvements across the board, all of these would lead to an even higher premium on price over time. So that's how what we see the impact on the medium to long term Of that continued improvement in service, there is a benefit on the P and L.

Speaker 1

Obviously, I would claim spotters amount would go down, but that's small in comparison When you look at it versus the improvements in pricing we can pick up over the quarters and years to come.

Speaker 5

Our next question is from the line of Ken Hoexter with Bank of America. Please proceed with your question.

Speaker 8

Great. Good morning, Marion and team. Just Talk about the accelerating yields, yet you only target about 100 basis points to outperform seasonality when you just did 370 basis points. Maybe you can kind of delve into the why we should not or what the opportunity is to see better versus why you think it maybe takes a step back from Outperforming seasonality versus what you just posted?

Speaker 4

Sure, Ken. This is Ali. So we do expect to outperform seasonality by 100 basis That's going to be primarily driven by our stronger yield growth. Just keep in mind, we are coming off nearly 400 basis that we delivered in the Q3. I'd also point out that on a year over year basis that 100 basis points of outperformance versus seasonality would imply 200 basis points of year over year OR improvement and about 20% EBITDA growth in our LTL segment ex Real Estate.

Speaker 4

There are also a few short term impacts to consider from the investments we're making. As we continue to invest in incremental capacity that comes with higher depreciation, That was about 120 basis points year over year headwind to OR in the Q3. We would expect a similar impact in Q4. We're also investing in growing our local sales force and overall we do expect these investments to generate strong returns for us over the medium to long term, But they will have a modest cost impact over the next few quarters. So we feel comfortable with the roughly 100 basis points of outperformance versus seasonality for OR.

Speaker 4

It is still very early in a dynamic environment and ultimately that magnitude of outperformance is going to depend on how tonnage progresses through the rest of this quarter.

Speaker 8

Great. Thanks for the clarification there, Ali. That's great stuff and great detail on the progress so far. So congratulations on a great quarter. Can you talk a bit about your thoughts on, I guess, 2 things.

Speaker 8

1 on the yellow, I guess, you have 294 service centers. So how are you thinking about Positioning into this, are there different locations you may want to expand on? How do you think that process goes? Do you think it brings more than needed capacity into And does that impact the ability to get pricing? And then on that pricing, can you talk about how much of Have you already renewed versus what is still to come?

Speaker 1

Yes, sure Ken. This is Mario. On the Yellow Service Centers, It is an opportunity for us to potentially accelerate our capacity growth. We are participating in the process and we'll see how things play out over the next few months. Now our focus from a physical network capacity perspective has been to grow the network in markets where we see higher demand from our customers over time.

Speaker 1

And we don't look at these things for the next couple of years, but we look at it over the next 10 plus years in terms of where the freight markets We'll be we'll have more demand in them over time as well. So as I mentioned earlier, we've opened up so far more than 500 net new doors. Here in the quarter, we expanded 2 service centers in the Atlanta and Dallas metro areas and we just broke it out in a service center in Central Florida and we're going to continue executing on that plan. But again, these yellow service centers, we'll see where the process rolls out and it will help us accelerate that plan over the

Speaker 2

years to come. Now in

Speaker 1

terms of capacity coming back into the network, it's tough to estimate what percent of these service centers will be back in the hands of LTL carriers. We estimate it to be roughly around 50%, but it will depend on other uses for the land or these locations for other industrial type applications. Now for the service centers that will come back into LTL, it will take time. Keep in mind that a lot of these service centers to go back, first the process has to That play out and then a lot of these service centers to get back into operations, they take time to get up to the standards of the different carriers. That could be we estimated to be in the year plus range for them to get back into the industry.

Speaker 1

And they will get back into the hands More premium priced operators, so you would have rising tide for pricing across the entire industry. And the last thing I'll say also again, That capacity went out at a time where shipment count in our industry is down the underlying demand is down 10% across all the different carriers. So whenever the macro tightens again, you won't have enough capacity in LTL to handle all of that freight. I'll turn it over to Kyle to discuss yield.

Speaker 2

Yes. From the renewal standpoint, Ken, The cadence for contract renewals is pretty level across the year. We have a disproportionately slightly higher amount in Q4 that will cycle through here in the quarter, but it's fairly even across

Speaker 5

Our next question is from the line of Fadi Chamoun with BMO Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question.

Speaker 9

Okay. Thank you. Good morning, Mario and team. Just a question on yield. You mentioned double digit pricing opportunity in coming years from service, accessorial and local customer base.

Speaker 9

When you look at this kind of past quarter, Q3, where are you having more success? It sounds like You are getting some decent penetration in the local customer base side. And what's the kind of areas where you're seeing A greater contribution to the year, is it a sectorial local customer base or is fairly spread across the 3 kind of levers of pricing?

Speaker 1

So Fady, when you look at the 3 of them, the biggest impact in the Q3 was the improvement of service, Because when you look at our claims ratio hitting a 0.4%, customers seeing the trend of improvement and those relationships with our customers are keeping on improving This is where we're seeing the most amount of success that these contract renewals are coming in and customers understand We are investing in the network, but on investing in people and to be able to support and service them the right way, and that's leading to higher yield and price gains. On the accessorial side, we're still early innings, and we believe these over the quarters to come as we launch the premium services we mentioned and as we Tell them to existing customers and new customers, we see that's going to happen again over the quarters years to come to bridge that accessorial gap. On the local side, we're making a lot of progress. I mean, here in the Q3, we increased our shipment count in the local channel by 13% on a year on year basis. However, this channel is more impacted by the softer macro.

Speaker 1

So the weight per shipment is still significantly down in the local channel. So although we're making progress on it, we're We're still not seeing the impact on yield, but as we start seeing tonnage in that channel improve because we're gaining market share, you would see that becoming a tailwind for yield over the quarters and years to come as well.

Speaker 9

Thank you.

Speaker 5

The next question is from the line of Tom Wadewitz with UBS. Please proceed with your questions.

Speaker 10

Yes. Good morning and congratulations on the strong progress on the OR and service and pricing, All those things that I think are really positive. I wanted to see, Mario, if you could comment a little bit on The kind of underlying trend in freight and how you kind of weave that in, it seems like the I guess the monthly tonnage numbers are I don't know if it's kind of stabilizing or how you want to view it, but they're a little bit lighter maybe at the end of the quarter. So I don't know if you think underlying freight market is stable or if you could offer some trends, some thoughts on that. And also how do you think about that change in weight per shipment looking forward?

Speaker 10

Does that become more neutral? Or should we think about that even into 2024 that that's maybe a bit of a continuing reduction in weight per shipment?

Speaker 1

Thanks, Tom. I'll start by first covering the demand side and Ali can walk through the cadence in the quarter as well because our comps Not similar to the other carriers in the back half of this year compared to last year. So there are a few things we can drill into it with more details. If you take a step back on the customer demand side, it is a fluid environment and it's hard to call what the macro will do when we look at the demand environment. More recently, the underlying environment has been bouncing along the bottom since the month of April of this year.

Speaker 1

So it's been softer demand overall for LTLs. Now in terms of outlook, we do survey our customers on a quarterly basis, our top customers. And given the last survey last week, for the Q4, Our customers were more balanced. So some customers were seeing some strength in demand, while others were seeing softer in demand, but generally it was balanced in terms of where we were earlier Heading into 2024, we are hearing more optimism from customers about demand picking up. But again, it's not a big number, but Still, there is more customers that expect a demand pickup versus customers that expect more softness or flat.

Speaker 1

Now when you look at some of the indices we look at, Well, 2 thirds of our customers are industrial companies and the ISM Manufacturing Index is a good proxy. It did pick up a bit to 49 last month. Still under 50%, but it did pick up a bit. And same thing on the retail side, we saw retail sales accelerate to 0.7% month over month in September. That was also slightly better than expected.

Speaker 1

So we're seeing things remain soft, slightly improving with a bit more optimism going to the first half of next year, It's still very tough to call to macro at this point. There's a lot of cross signals here.

Speaker 4

Good morning, Tom. This is Ali. In terms of the cadence through the As Mario mentioned, we did have tougher compares in the second half of the year last year as our market share gains were accelerating. So if you look at it on a 2 year stack basis, our shipment counts and tonnage both accelerated throughout the 3rd quarter And that 2 year acceleration continued into the month of October. Also if you look at it just on a shipment count basis, We saw our shipment counts improve by more than 1,000 shipments each month of the 3rd quarter from July to And then as we moved into October, as we noted October outperformed seasonality relative to the month of September.

Speaker 10

One quick follow-up. Do you have any thoughts you can offer on line haul miles and kind of where you're going in terms of making further gains? You Improve that quite a bit with the in sourcing. Just wondering how you think about the opportunity as going forward. Do you improve a lot from that?

Speaker 10

I think you said like 21.5% outsourced. Thanks.

Speaker 1

Yes. So on for the Q3, we were outsourced 21.5% where we in sourced roughly 200 basis points on a year on year basis. Now keep in mind, Tom, it's something we did invest in on a sequential basis Q2 to Q3. We did get a bit more 3rd party line haul miles given the infection in volume. But moving forward, we expect to move quickly on in sourcing.

Speaker 1

As I mentioned earlier, we are excited about a program we're launching called the Road Flex operation. It's a program where we have Teams of drivers and sleeper cab trucks that move freight across longer hauls and this will enable us to move faster on the in sourcing process. We do expect to be to in source at least 50% of the NIOS by 2027. But given this new program we're launching, we expect to accelerate that Over the quarters years to come here.

Speaker 5

Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Ravi Shanker with Morgan Stanley. Please

Speaker 11

Thanks for everyone. So good traction with the service improvements. I'm just trying to get an understanding of What percentage of the fruit on this tree are low hanging versus higher up? I'm just trying to get a sense of Whether we can expect this traction of improvement to continue in the coming quarters? Or does it get incrementally a little bit harder from here?

Speaker 1

Yes. So Ravi, from our perspective, our top priority, 1 of the top priorities is to improve service and continue to improve service for our customers. And our goal is to be best in class and get to a 0.1% claims ratio over time. Now we've made tremendous progress. You look from end of 2021 Q3 of this year, we went from 1.2% damage claims ratio down to 0.4%.

Speaker 1

However, the improvement from here won't be linear and it will take time. It's not something where every quarter we're going to post a 0.3% improvement From a 0.7 to a 0.4. Now we have rolled out multiple new initiatives heading into 2024 with Dave coming on board and the operating Our team are implementing a number of initiatives including higher quality straps, new airbag systems that we are launching across all of our service centers. And Ravi, I'll tell you here from the first couple of service centers we've launched, we've seen an incremental reduction of more than 20% of damages Just with these new tools and programs that we launched, we're very excited about. And we're also enhancing our training programs and how we load trailers taking it to the next level as well.

Speaker 1

And I mentioned earlier line haul in sourcing. That's another measure of service improvement because today when we use a 3rd party carrier, They typically have 53 feet trailers that don't have the bars and then we call it the SafeStax system to separate freight from effectively having 2 decks of freight, Well, we have that in our equipment. So as we make progress on in sourcing third party line haul, we will continue to see these improvements in service as well As we roll these things out. Again, the progress is fantastic. September was a company record in damage frequency.

Speaker 1

So how many damage do we cause versus the shipments that we move. And October got even better than the month of September. So great trajectory ahead, but again it won't be linear over the quarters and years to come.

Speaker 11

Got it. Very helpful, Mario. Maybe as a follow-up on the same topic, I know you had said earlier that better service begets better pricing and better share. What does that conversion process look like? How does that take?

Speaker 11

Is that kind of immediate? Is that one contract cycle? Does that take A couple of years, again, just trying to figure out kind of what the longer term trajectory of this improvement looks like?

Speaker 2

Hey, Robbie, Kyle, so when you think about it, we're going to go through all of our again, about 20% of our customers are using a standard tariff or really that will get impacted by the GRI. The other 80 We'll go through contract renegotiations. That cycle is fairly consistent, meaning we cover the same number of contracts almost every quarter. The 4th quarter is slightly higher, But we'll see that improvement basically progress through the next several quarters to capture a lot of service improvements that we're seeing right now in the network.

Speaker 5

Our next question is from the line of Jason Seidl with TD Cowen. Please proceed with your question.

Speaker 12

Thank you, operator. Mario and team, good morning guys. Congrats on the progress in the LTL 2.0. I wanted to focus a little bit on your cost per shipment. How should we think about the increases in the cost per shipment or the decreases as we roll into 2024 especially around you rolling out that

Speaker 2

This is Kyle. So when you think about cost per shipment, let me start a little bit with Q3 and then some of the Costs we saw were slightly higher in the quarter. So from a cost per shipment standpoint, overall, we're down about 2%. There's progress made in a lot of areas. Mario has talked about the insurance and claims.

Speaker 2

That was down almost 35% in the quarter. We also saw a drop in fuel. There's a couple of areas where we saw kind of higher transitory costs in the That's going to include some of the purchase transportation expense. So we were about $10,000,000 sequentially and that's reflecting the effort needed really to make sure we can service the Additional shipments in the network, we'd expect as we continue to ramp up the line haul in sourcing for that to come down both in Q4 and into 2024.

Speaker 12

So overall you would expect cost per shipment to trend down into 2024? Just wanted to clarify that.

Speaker 2

No, I think we're expecting more cost productivity into Q4 and into 2024.

Speaker 12

Okay, fair enough. And then as a follow-up, I know we haven't really brought it up because it hasn't been a focus, but maybe a little bit of an update on Europe. And As we roll into the New Year, do you think the M and A market might be favorable enough to bring that back up again?

Speaker 1

Well, Jason, our long term plan remains to be a pure play North American LTL carrier. But in the meantime, our European business continues to perform really well. When you look at the European economy, it's been softer here over the last couple of quarters, but the team was able to deliver great results, growing EBITDA on a year on year basis. I'm just fighting on all cylinders. We're onboarding more customers.

Speaker 1

We're getting more cost efficient in our European business and the team is performing well. But long term, our goal continues to be if you're playing North American NPL Company.

Speaker 5

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Brian Ossenbeck with JPMorgan. Please proceed with your questions.

Speaker 3

Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking the question. Just wanted to see if you could comment Mario on capacity available in the network and What's actually the limitation of the bottleneck now? I know last quarter you talked about needing to add some more. You talked about the doors you're adding, the new service center you broke ground on.

Speaker 3

Where does that stand and how do you see the limitations at this point you running up into any Conditions that need a little bit more capital expenditure, especially when you're boosting that up here in the Q4, it looks like a pretty big increase To get to that mid year target midpoint of the target rather you just raised?

Speaker 1

In the Q3, we had high teens excess capacity in our network from a physical perspective. So in terms Our network from a physical perspective, so in terms of how many doors we have. But as you know, this is not evenly distributed across our network. In some markets, we are bumping against capacity limits, but in many, many markets, we have available capacity from a door's perspective. And our service center expansion plan does contemplate those markets where we see that higher demand from customers, where we got And we will run rating in the high teens.

Speaker 1

Our goal is to be in the 20% to 25% range is where we would like to be on a longer term basis. Now in terms of rolling stock capacity, we have had tremendous progress since the beginning of LTL 2.0. We've added more than 10,000 new trailers over the last year and a half, 2 years. We've added 2,000 tractors to our fleet and this is enabling us to be able to take on more customer, but also run more efficiently. You see it here in the Q3, we were able to handle 8% more shipments While gaining productivity, I mean, our headcount was down on a year on year basis and our labor hours were up slightly versus an 8% increase in shipments And equipment help

Speaker 4

us manage that. And on

Speaker 1

the people side, we're staffed for current volumes, but we do have headroom as well. And if the demand continues to increase, we can step up for that. The current paper markets are much easier to hire into. We have our driver schools as well. So it feels good from a people perspective.

Speaker 1

But generally, if you take a step back, we feel great from a capacity perspective and we continue to invest in the network and we're well positioned to capitalize on any upswings in freight.

Speaker 3

Okay, great. So as a quick follow-up, maybe you can looking longer term, you've been able to sort of bridge The different buckets, performance of productivity of pricing yield, SSO, all the things we're talking about here in terms of Starting to narrow the gap with some of your peers, just wanted to see if you could lay out some of the thoughts in terms of where those pieces are going to come from and if you're able to quantify them In some of those buckets like asset orioles, yields, productivity, etcetera. Thanks.

Speaker 1

Thank you. Well, the biggest component is going to come from Yield, as I mentioned in my prepared remarks, we see a double digit incremental yield opportunity over the coming years through the 3 main levers I mentioned, which is one is announced service And continuing to get this higher price from customers who understand we're investing in the network and investing in the business, that's roughly half the yield opportunity to bridge the gap. And the other half is we expect for accessorials to go from roughly 10% of revenue to the 15% -plus of revenue range Based on the premium services we are implementing, what I like about this program, these are services that our customers are asking for. So we're taking care of the customer And we're making a higher yield and a higher margin. And then finally, on the local channel side, by growing our local sales force and here so far this Here we've increased our sales team account by 10% to 15% so far and our goal is to get to more than 30% increase in overall sales headcount by end of next year, and that's enabling us to gain market share in that local channel that would also help bridge the gap.

Speaker 1

But the lion's share of the opportunity must come from price. The second category is around in sourcing 3rd party line haul and we are accelerating that with our RoadFlex team and our new program for team drivers and we would get Higher service and lower cost, which is also really good and we're going to continue to improve efficiency as well. So when you combine all of these things, again yield is number 1 by a long shot, but All the other areas will help making sure that we are running more efficiently as well.

Speaker 5

Our next question is from the line of Stephanie Moore with Jefferies. Please proceed with your question.

Speaker 13

Hi, good morning. Thank you.

Speaker 1

Thank you.

Speaker 13

I guess you touched on a little bit of this, just in this previous question, but maybe just to Double click on it a little bit more. Can you talk a little bit about kind of the labor additions that you've had to make just given the disruption from the post Yellow bankruptcy? Now where you think you kind of are positioned today, adequately staffed, what areas where you have added, maybe noted a little bit on the sales force and then kind of your view as we go through 2024 kind of incremental hiring needs. Thanks.

Speaker 4

Sure, Stephanie. This is Ali. So if you look at the Q3, our headcount was down slightly on a year over year basis and that's relative to shipment counts Up high single digits. So we did a great job managing headcount relative to the volumes in the network. Also if you look at it at a labor hours perspective, Labor hours were up less than 1% year over year, again versus shipment counts up 8% year over year.

Speaker 4

And more importantly, that spread Labor hours and shipment counts accelerated through the year from low single digits in the Q1 to high single digits in the 3rd quarter. Now as we think about the Q4, we would expect total headcount and labor hours for 4Q to be roughly the same as the Q3 on both a quarter over quarter And year over year basis, we've done a really good job again of managing productivity in the Q3. We expect that to continue into 4Q and then into 2024 as well. So we are staffed for current volumes and we have some headroom. If demand does increase, we want to make sure we're staffed for that as well.

Speaker 4

Think the positive side is the labor market is looser than it has been in recent years. So we're confident in our ability to flex up labor as needed and we're going to continue to manage Headcount effectively relative to the volumes we're moving through the network.

Speaker 13

Got it. Thank you. And then just a follow-up. Can you talk a little bit about as you think about kind of going into 2024, your thoughts in terms Compensation, if maybe you're looking to align metrics both at the top and then all the way down to the terminal level With kind of new targets, any changes in philosophy there as you kind of prepare for 2024?

Speaker 1

Thanks, Stephanie. This is Mario. So this last year and the one prior in 2022 as well, we did change our incentive comp structure. It used to be only based on EBITDA growth on a year on year basis, but we had a good portion of the incentive comp plan switch to also focus on quality And on time service, and that was part of the reason why we were able to drive meaningful improvement in both of these categories here through the course of the year since we started LTL 2.0. Now if you look moving forward, we are contemplating a change to switch from having EBITDA as being the Compensation driver and this is for field operations at the service center level and at the regional level to using OR expansion As being the key metric for profits improvement for the compensation program.

Speaker 1

We're still early in anxiety. There's still a few months here before We start 2024, but that's one change we are contemplating for next year.

Speaker 5

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Scott Schneeberger with Oppenheimer. Please proceed with your question.

Speaker 14

Thanks. Good morning. Meyer, I was hoping you could touch on CapEx. You mentioned it's going to be above your long term guidance range Here into the end of the year for this year. And it sounds of I inferred that it was going to be elevated again next year in the way you positioned it.

Speaker 14

Just kind of curious if that's your anticipation, and is it predominantly tractor trailers, new doors? Just if you could kind I'll hone in a little bit on where the excess spending will be and curious if you're spending anything in Europe because that is picking up. I know that that's And I said that may not be with you forever, but it's just curious if that's an area where you're having to increase CapEx as well. Thanks.

Speaker 2

Hey, Scott, it's Kyle. So as we mentioned earlier, this year we think we're going to be in that 12% to 13% range. And if you think about the investments we made in the last 18 months, That includes over 2,000 tractors and 10,000 trailers. That's really helped enable the share gains in recent disruption. So if you think about more specifically, What we're investing in right now to put us above that 12% range, really two things I can point to.

Speaker 2

1, we're going to produce more trailers at our Searcy facility. Initially in the year, we're thinking 6 We're not going to produce more, about 7,000 trailers. And the second thing is something we mentioned earlier on the call, our sleeper cab initiative. So we're going to bring about 100 tractors in the network to do that. For us, it's going to do a couple of things.

Speaker 2

It will help us accelerate line haul in sourcing. There's obviously a service benefit and a cost benefit But both of these efforts are really pull forwards of capacity investments for us. And if you think about the investments we make in total, In general, we expect very high returns from our LTL investments upwards of 30%. So we think this is the right place for us to be investing in the company.

Speaker 14

Great. Thanks. Appreciate that. Go ahead, guys.

Speaker 1

Yes. I was going to say,

Speaker 2

the only thing to touch on from your question was Europe. So Europe is about 10% of our gross In general, that's been about pretty consistent for the business and will remain there.

Speaker 14

All right. Thanks, Kyle. Appreciate that. For my follow-up real quick, just you mentioned at the top of Call the 8 percentage points of on time improvement year over year, that sounds impressive. I'm sure that goes into Helping you interact for your sales folks on new business wins.

Speaker 14

Just curious if you could put that a little bit more into perspective, How is that? Is that trending? Is that something that now that you've seen the 1st month of the Q4, is that something that you're going to continue to see trending very well here through the end of the year.

Speaker 1

Yes, absolutely. When you look at all of our service metrics here in the month of October, We've seen a step up from where we were in the Q3 as well. I mentioned earlier, for example, I mean, on time continues to do really well and our network fluidity, the best it's been in a long, long while, which is great to see and our customers appreciate that. And similarly on the damages side, in terms of damage We've seen a further improvement from September was a company record dating back to 1996 and October was even better than September.

Speaker 5

Thank you. We've reached the end of the question and answer session. I'll now turn the call over to Mario Harrick for closing remarks.

Speaker 1

Thank you, operator, and thank you all for joining us today. As you saw from what we reported this morning, we're in a strong position as we begin our 2nd year as a standalone LTL business in North America, our solid momentum is driven by continued execution of our Health Care 2.0 plan and expands our entire business from revenue, earnings and yield growth to significant service improvements, operating efficiencies And market share gains. We're still in the early innings here and there's a lot more we'll achieve. We look forward to speaking with you all on our next call. Thank you.

Speaker 5

Thank you. This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.

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Earnings Conference Call
XPO Q3 2023
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