Scott Anderson: Sure. Stephanie, as I’ve mentioned in my prepared comments, the process is moving as expected and we expect to name the new CEO here in this quarter. The pool of candidates is diverse and strong. Board is looking for a proven leader, seasoned executive, really with an operational expertise and someone who can drive positive change inside Robinson. I would say the search committee and the Board is also committed to finding the right leader and we believe we’re coming to the conclusion of that process. And part of what I’m doing with the senior leadership team is really making decisions and not pausing on anything. So we set this up for success for the new leader and that leader can move quickly once announced.
Stephanie Moore: Great. Thank you. And then lastly, I appreciate the additional color that you gave in response to Jack’s question about what’s going on in the NAST business. But maybe you could give us some color about what’s going on in the Global Forwarding cycle. I think it started to deteriorate a bit earlier. Is there an opportunity for that to also rebound a bit faster, too? Any color there would be helpful? Thank you.
Mike Zechmeister: Yes, I think there has been softness certainly in both ocean and air that we’ve seen. Most recently, over the past few weeks, there are some green shoots of more positive news and demand volume and shipments and whatnot. But I think it’s too early to call that a trend. I think the market has really been soft, and you’ve seen the pricing come down as a result of that softness pretty much across the board.
Scott Anderson: I would add, Stephanie, we’ve been very active in the RFQ process with customers back to sort of that strategy of leaning in. And obviously, peak season coming, we’ll be prepared for that. And if it is soft, we’ll also be in a position to adjust cost in that business as we see fit.
Stephanie Moore: Great. Thank you so much.
Operator: Thank you. The next question is coming from Jason Seidl of TD Cowen. Please go ahead.
Jason Seidl: Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, gentlemen. I wanted to talk a little bit about the cycle. I know you mentioned that you think we’re sort of getting close with in terms of the North American truckload bottom, if we will. What do you guys need to do to prepare for that in terms of your mix of business? And then if you can comment on where you think we’re at with the cycle there in ocean?
Mike Zechmeister: Yes, I mean one of the things that we do is we forecast pricing in the marketplace. If you go to our website, and we give you a look at what we think the market is going to be, and right now, from a pricing standpoint, we kind of feel like we’re probably at the bottom or very near the bottom of the spot market. When you think about the contract market, the contract pricing will follow the spot market. So there’s still some downward pressure on pricing within the contract market as those — the contracts that were a year old come to reprice. And so there’s still a little bit of that going on. I think on the ocean air side, we’re just getting to the end or nearing the end of the annual rebidding cycle on pricing in that market.
I think our team has been pretty encouraged. In that business, we’ve been able to grow share here over the past few years. And that market is one that we participated pretty effectively in both ocean and air. We brought on some talent. We’ve had some technology advances, and we’ve had some geographic expansions and some in some verticals that we’ve gone into, too. So, I think we feel pretty good about the customer engagement there. We feel pretty good about the bid process. And coming out of this last round, I think we feel optimistic that we’ll be able to continue to grow share in the market on both ocean and air.
Jason Seidl: That’s good color. Just a quick follow-up. And so you mentioned if I were a customer that go online, if I’m looking at sort of base pricing for truckload in the back half of the year, you guys would be forecasting that up from current levels then.
Mike Zechmeister: Yes. Down — we’re kind of feeling like we’re at the low now. We feel like that will come up as we go through the year and probably end the year higher than where we’re at.
Jason Seidl: Fair enough.
Mike Zechmeister: Obviously, on that, I’m talking — what we’ve got on the website is our spot market. And like I said, price and contract follows the spot market. So, as those contracts reprice, those will come along with it.
Jason Seidl: Got you. Appreciate it, guys.
Operator: Thank you. The next question is coming from David Zazula of Barclays. Please go ahead.
David Zazula: Thanks for taking my question. Could you comment on the LTL market a little bit? I noticed you had outperformed at least some of the indices we’ve tracked on volumes. What you’re doing to drive share in that space and where you think the LTL market will go heading forward.
Mike Zechmeister: Yes. On the LTL side, we’ve reported Q1 volumes down 5%. That was lower than our expectations going in, but that market also faces a similar softness that we’re seeing across the board. What we’ve talked about on our LTL business has been the impact of a couple of large customers that we lost during the pandemic that we’ve had to lap. But we feel good about the automation that we’ve been able to bring to that business and our effectiveness at getting out there and competing from a margin standpoint, that business kind of runs a little bit with fuel prices. So, that’s the one part of our business where margins are improved when fuel is up and come down a little when fuel comes down. And so as we comp last year, from a fuel perspective, I think in Q1, we were down about $3 on impact on fuel, and so there’s a little bit of that margin going on there.
But overall, we feel like we’ve been able to compete there despite the results coming in softer than we originally expected.
David Zazula: Is that — Arun, quick, you mentioned some automation initiatives. I guess can you talk to the extent you have on any feedback you’ve gotten from customers that are resistant in what you do and to maybe help customers along with the initiatives you’re implementing.
Arun Rajan: Yes. Good question. So most of the automation that we’re doing actually should have extreme customer benefit. Much of what we’re doing is automation on the carrier side or internally as it relates to appointment-related tasks. And where customers have — so on the customer side, will customers have systems or scheduling systems that we can integrate with to do appointments, that’s great, and/or they allow us to reach into their systems via automation and book and scheduled appointments. Ultimately, it’s a cost savings for them as well, so they don’t really push back at all. And as it relates to in-transit tracking and track and trace, most of that — the heavy lifting is about — it’s not really heavy lifting. It’s about like self-server carriers, ultimately, right?
Carriers now have the ability with better and hardened technology to self-serve as it relates to giving us visibility to their locations, which then gives us greater confidence that we can relay back to our customers around service performance. So, ultimately, on both sides of the marketplace, we haven’t really found significant pushback on the activities that we’re currently working on.
David Zazula: Thanks very much. I appreciate it.
Operator: Thank you. The next question is coming from Chris Wetherbee of Citigroup. Please go ahead.
