Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings Inc. (NYSE:KNX) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Ken Hoexter: If I can just kind of maybe follow up on that $4 floor and the stress test there, just maybe talk a little bit about the Truckload side moving back into the — does that go to mid — upper 80s in your thought? And I guess, specifically, confidence in the gains, you’ve got $10 million to $15 million. It seems to have $10 million to $15 million sense to the targets, which would — could put some pressure alone, I guess, on that floor. And then on the — I guess, on the intermodal side, any comments on the now transition of Schneider over to Union Pacific? Obviously, they had some service issues, how your service has been. And is that — I know you mentioned kind of the mid-90s that — can you see deterioration if they start getting maybe better access to the yards or thoughts on intermodal?

Adam Miller: Sure. So I’ll start on your truckload question. Last quarter, I talked about in a difficult environment, the Truckload segment as a whole, which would include our over the road and our dedicated business operating in the mid-80s. And that would be our expectation for the full year with that being a little more challenged in the first half of the year and then improving into the back half, particularly into second quarter — or sorry, the fourth quarter. As it relates to your intermodal question, thus far, there hasn’t been much impact with the conversion from Schneider from the BN to the UP. I think we watch our service closely. I mean there’s certain areas where we certainly can improve the service. And I don’t know that it’s related to the Schneider conversion.

I think just kind of the challenges that we’ve been dealing with, with some of our rail partners across the board. But it does seem like the rail fluidity is improving, rail labor is more readily available, and we have confidence that will continue to improve. And I think our customers have seen that. I think we’ve improved service dramatically with certain customers where we expect to receive large awards this year. And so we’re confident to be able to build that low count into the back half of the year. But I think the first half is still going to be a bit of a challenge kind of given the environment we’re currently in.

Ken Hoexter: And Adam, can you just wrap up on the gains on sale, right? Because that’s such a big, I guess, swing factor in that range.

Adam Miller: Yes. We had the gains coming off meaningfully from where they were last year. And we have a good purview into the used equipment market. And even in the first quarter when spot market has been as slow as it has been, which would typically mean that you’ve got small carriers not buying equipment, we’re still seeing activity. And I think that’s a result of just very lean inventories because the OEMs have still been challenged to fill everyone’s orders. And I think most of the large carriers have continued to age their fleet out. And so that’s just limited the inventory of used equipment. And so what we are selling is still at healthy margins. And we don’t see that changing dramatically throughout the year.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Bert Subin from Stifel.

Bert Subin: Dave, if I look at Slide 14, I don’t want to belabor the point, but I think it’s obvious thinking about your $4-plus earnings guidance, that implies about 100% earnings power expansion, which is obviously a tremendous feat. And so I think people are trying to get their arms around that. If I look at Slide 14 in those guidance assumptions, where would you say the greatest uncertainty is in your mind as you go through them?

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