ArcBest Corporation (NASDAQ:ARCB) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Judy McReynolds: Well, as we always are, we’re prepared for what’s coming in terms of the contract negotiations, I feel like our team has prepared and planned, and we’re in a good place, and our leaders are regularly in the field with our employees and hear directly from them, about what’s on their minds. And so, we’re in a good place, I feel like that we’re very experienced, I’ve been through a number of these, and they’re all different, but as long as you’re prepared, and you have the good approach, and intentions and information, typically, we can work our way through this. And so, obviously between now and the expiration of the contract, there’s a lot of work to do, and so we’re going to stay focused on that.

Jack Atkins: Okay, would you expect it to be a win-win-win? I think is what UPS framed it up? Is that your expectation as well?

Judy McReynolds: Well, I mean, I really rather not comment on that because it’s still has yet to be worked through. But certainly you always want winning situation and winning outcome.

Jack Atkins: Okay, thank you.

Operator: Our next question comes from Scott Group with Wolfe Research. Please proceed.

Unidentified Analyst: Hey, guys, this is actually Erin on for Scott. I just wanted to follow-up a little bit on the January tonnage comments, the deceleration throughout fourth quarter. And then it’s like year-over-year pickup. I’m just curious like how that is versus normal seasonality. I know that you said that the December versus January trends are pretty similar. But I’m just curious, like how that is, versus seasonality and what you’re kind of expecting seasonally, we’re trying to throughout the quarter?

David Cobb: Yes, there’s I’ll just back up a little bit. And just talking about fourth quarter, certainly some month-to-month changes. But when you think about sequentially fourth quarter compared to third quarter, it was one of the worst sort of periods in terms of tonnage in kind of our past 10 years, but sequentially versus December, January tonnage and shipments are up about 1%, when typically, that’s a sequential trend. That’s lower from December to January. So, this is — it’s hard to comment really about one particular month. But I would say it’s trending above normal seasonality. I mean certainly the customer demand environment is similar, though.

Unidentified Analyst: Got it, okay. And then just quickly on fuel and how should we think about the net impact of fuel this year? I know that there’s some tougher comps later in the year, I guess how do you guys think about that in the second half, could that be potential headwind by mid-year?

David Cobb: Yes, certainly fuel is a big part of the overall revenue, that we’ll have and it’ll impact the dollars per shipment. We’re not sure where the price will go. But as you mentioned, I think the fuel prices in 2022 kind of peaked in the spring, and so yes there’s from this level, there’s it’s lower now versus when it was in spring of last year of 2022. So, that’ll be a little tougher comp, our fuel surcharge mechanism works really well in terms of for the customer, as well as for us. And so, just really, there’s a lot of impacts of fuel in our business, in our cost. And so, that fuel surcharge mechanism serves to cover those costs.

Unidentified Analyst: Okay, got it. Again, thank you for the time.

David Cobb: Thank you.

Operator: Our next question comes from Todd Fowler with KeyBanc Capital Markets. Please proceed.

Todd Fowler: Hey, great. Thanks and good morning. So, I guess I wanted to ask on the growth plans, I know in the CapEx, you’ve got I think it’s like $55 million to $65 million earmarked for real estate, in this environment, I know you’ve talked about expansion going back over the past year or so, but as the environment changes, how much flexibility do you have on expanding out the network at this point, and maybe could you just talk about the cadence and your thoughts around expansion in the environments? Thanks.

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