Hub Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:HUBG) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Geoff DeMartino: We’re targeting 80% insource. We’re still the largest purchaser of third-party drayage. We think that’s important and it’s a good lever actually to have through cycles. Allows us to flex up more quickly to service our customers in high demand environment and create a more variable cost structure as we see demand dwindle. So we want to remain in that position as for that 20%. We think it’s kind of optimal. And we’ll maintain a focus on that. We’re running to start the year in kind of the 70% range, which is great. Obviously, it’s on lower volumes. So we need to continue to hire as we see volumes pick up to maintain that share. But I would tell you I think that 65 to 70 number for a full year is really a good target that we have set which would be some pretty strong growth on a year-over-year basis.

Scott Group: Okay. Thanks for the back and forth. Appreciate it. Thank you, guys.

Phillip Yeager: Thanks Scott.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Chris Kuhn of Benchmark. Your question please, Chris.

Christopher Kuhn: Yes, hi good afternoon guys. Can you just talk about maybe your plans for container adds some IMCs that are reported talked about holding off on container additions this year just wondering what your thoughts are on that? Thank you.

Geoff DeMartino: Yes, thank you. I think it’s a really good question. In our preliminary CapEx planning, we have planned a call it, 5% to 6% sort of – net increase in our fleet. We think that it is very important to maintain consistency in capital expenditures and investment into the fleet that allows us to support our customers as we see returns of demand and maintain service levels at a better level. So, we want to keep that consistency and we said that in our prepared remarks. And so, you will see us net add some this year. It would be less than the 11% that we did this year. But we will have a net add to our container fleet.

Christopher Kuhn: All right, great. Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Allison Poliniak of Wells Fargo. Your question please, Allison.

Allison Poliniak: Hi, good evening. Just want to turn to M&A. I know you talked about the pipeline being active, but could you maybe give us a little color on what that pipeline is looking like in terms of our multiples becoming more reasonable out there? You did talk maybe doing more than one just management capacity to handle sort of an increase in M&A, just any thoughts there?

Phillip Yeager: Sure, yes we’ve been pretty active the last several years – kind of averaging around one a year. And so, we feel like we’ve got a really good playbook developed and we’ve got the disciplines in place to be able to handle more than one. For us, we’ve kind of targeted anywhere from $100 million to $300 million in deal size historically. I think with the success we’ve had, we’d like to actually go a little bit larger, if it makes sense. We’re conservative company and we’re cognizant of maintaining appropriate levels of leverage. So we could do two smaller ones or maybe one larger one as part of our M&A strategy. I think multiples are probably going to come in to some degree. And in 2023, I think the last two years saw a pretty strong bid from private equity buyers and seems like the financing markets have sort of dried up for those types of transactions.

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