Schneider National, Inc. (NYSE:SNDR) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Stephen Bruffett: Ah okay, this is Steve. And I’ll take a crack at that one. I think it probably is – we don’t necessarily – when we were sitting here a year ago, we felt pretty strongly about a first half, second half narrative of 2022. We felt like the first half of the year would remain quite robust and then soften a bit in the second half and it kind of played out that way in that year as we sit here at this point in the year, I don’t know if it’s exactly a first half, second half narrative. But I think it’s like I articulated in the prepared comments earlier, more of a steady improvement as we go through the year. So I do think fourth – first quarter of 2023 could be the softest point and then we see some traction steadily gaining as we move throughout the year.

So that could, by definition, play out to be a stronger second half than the first, but I don’t know they will uniquely fit within the months, quite like that. I think we see some improvement before the second half.

Bert Subin: Thanks Steve, thanks Mark.

Stephen Bruffett: You bet.

Operator: Our next question is from Jack Atkins with Stephens. Please proceed with your question.

Jack Atkins: Okay great. Good morning and thanks for taking my questions.

Mark Rourke: Good morning, Jack.

Jack Atkins: So Mark, I guess maybe a question for you. I mean I’m looking at the stock it’s trading at a couple of turn discount to your larger truckload peers pretty substantial discount to some of your intermodal peers. When you think about capital allocation, you guys announced a $150 million buyback, but it’s principally related to sort of offsetting dilution. My understanding is, like there’s just some challenges buying back stock more aggressively because of the dual share class structure? So I guess as you got to think about things moving forward, why does the dual share class make sense here? Do you feel like it’s doing your B Class shareholders justice? And I guess, is the Board considering some changes?

Mark Rourke: Well, Jack, there’s a lot there that I’m probably not at liberty to discuss or talk about. So I don’t have any changes to predict or really even bring color to as it relates to that. So what we are focused on as it relates to your opening comments on the discount, I think we’re going to continue to focus on this multimodal platform. that has different capital intensities based upon our truck, Intermodal and Logistics business. And keep looking for ways organically to invest in those strategic growth drivers that we keep hitting upon, but also prepare ourselves and be very active and looking for acquisitive opportunities from our capital allocation priorities that can help advance those three strategic growth drivers of Dedicated, Intermodal and Logistics.

And so, those are the things that we’re focused on. We would like with our share buyback. You know this, it’s just from a capital allocation approach there as we’d like to get to a fixed amount of shares so that we can be more predictable what our share count is and not to add to it with incentive grants. And so, we think that $150 million authority over the next three years will allow us to achieve that portion of our capital allocation strategy. But our real primary focus is around the organic investment and potentially where we can find the acquisitive opportunities that help us advance like we did this past year with MLS, a raging success from our view it got from both a Dedicated growth and a Dedicated effectiveness standpoint. And so, we would like to look at those options as well.

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