FedEx Corporation (NYSE:FDX) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Operator: The next question will come from Ken Hoexter with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Ken Hoexter: Hey, great, Mike, if I can just follow-up on a couple of thoughts there. Your thoughts on the scale of improvement at Express, can you reach mid-single-digit, is there a kind of a range as you’d put within the target same at Ground? Is that going to reach double-digits, if we’re going up and then magnitude at Freight margin if you’re looking at declining expectations, and then I guess within that, any thoughts on Europe and TNT integration within that Express category? Thanks.

Mike Lenz: That was a lot. Certainly, like I said, we will see margin improvements at Express and at Ground in ‘24. Freight will definitely will see some margin pressure there, so I’m going to leave it at that. The Freight will mitigate, like I said earlier, we will see the largest margin pressure at Freight in Q1 and that will mitigate as we move through the year. Similarly, I would expect the Express margin improvement to improve to a greater degree beyond Q1, as well as we move through the year. So I’ll leave it at that. As it relates to Europe, we are absolutely — as a component of that Express improvement projecting improved profitability in Europe, keep in mind that within the DRIVE domains, we’ve identified $600 million of value that we will realize from the Europe initiatives there. So we will absolutely see progress on that in ‘24 and going forward.

Operator: The next question will come from Scott Group with Wolfe Research. Please go ahead.

Scott Group: Hey, thanks, good afternoon. So, Raj, in one of the earlier answers, you basically said one, two, three, right, for the earnings sensitivity and revenue sensitivity. So that’s basically every billion of revenue gets you an extra dollar of earnings, is that the right sensitivity to think about just longer-term beyond just this year as Freight eventually recovers? And then just separately, the $5.7 billion of CapEx this year, how much is included in aircraft? I just want to get a sense of what the CapEx could look like in a couple years when we’re spending a lot less on planes. Thank you.

Mike Lenz: Okay. Scott, so first on the aircraft CapEx, we came in at about $1.7 billion in ‘23, about $1.5 billion for ‘24, slightly lower than that in ‘25 and then as Raj said approximately below that even into ‘26, so that’s the aircraft component of it.

Raj Subramaniam: And Scott, on the one, two, three, I just wanted to keep the math straight-forward here, it’s simple one, two, three formula, but the point I wanted to make also is that, as it accelerates beyond that, then the curve becomes non-linear. As you know, we have significant operating leverage. I think you are the one who called it, opening the jaws of the crocodile then that’s kind of what’s going to happen.

Operator: The next question will come from Conor Cunningham with Melius Research. Please go ahead.

Conor Cunningham: Hey, everyone, thank you. Just on the ‘24 revenue assumption, I’m a little confused on how that will work with export yield pressure. It just seems like the other lever is going to be volumes in general. Just to be super clear, are you assuming a year-over-year increase in ’24 at the midpoint? Just any help there would be great. Thank you.