Ryder System, Inc. (NYSE:R) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Robert Sanchez: Yeah. I would tell you, excluding the acquisition, Dedicated is relatively flat. I think given — especially — that’s the way we planned it out, especially given we had a lot of effort to integrate this acquisition this year. And the market we expect to continue to be somewhat soft, at least through the middle of the year. We start signing stuff in the back half of the year, that will more benefit 2025. But I’ll let Steve give you some additional color.

Steve Sensing: Yeah, I think from a pipeline standpoint, we’re down at the end of the year versus last year, single digits. Customers are continuing to delay decisions. Typically, it’s about a six-month decision. It’s now protracted out to about nine months. So you’ve got some timing issues there. Deal size is slightly down, but we’re focused on our marketing efforts. Our sales team is refocused on expanding our book of business across customers and many other initiatives that we’ve got out there. So as Robert said, I expect the first year to be kind of a slow part and then as the market bounces back in the back half and pipeline should increase.

Justin Long: Understood. Thanks for the time.

Robert Sanchez: Thanks, Justin.

Operator: At this time, there are no additional questions. I’d like to turn the call back over to Mr. Robert Sanchez for closing remarks.

Robert Sanchez: Okay. Well, thanks, everyone, for your interest. Listen, I certainly am proud of the performance in ’23 and excited about our outlook for 2024. We’ve been talking about this transformation that we’ve done through the balanced growth strategy with higher highs and higher lows. I think you’re seeing now three consecutive years of us being able to deliver on that. As we continue to grow the contractual earnings of the company, you’re going to have the ups and downs of rental and used vehicle sales. But each year, that contractual earnings number is going to continue to — we expect and we certainly are focused on continuing to grow that number and certainly within the ranges of our return on equity targets that we’ve outlined. So we feel very good about where we’re at and the execution and excited about what we’re going to deliver this year. So thank you all for your interest and look forward to seeing you soon.

Operator: This does conclude today’s conference. We thank you for your participation.