Werner Enterprises, Inc. (NASDAQ:WERN) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Werner Enterprises, Inc. (NASDAQ:WERN) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript November 1, 2023

Operator: Good afternoon, and welcome to the Werner Enterprises Third Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. [Operator Instructions] After today’s presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. [Operator Instructions] Please note, this event is being recorded. I’ll now turn the call over to Chris Neil, Senior Vice President of Pricing and Strategic Planning.

Chris Neil: Good afternoon, everyone. Earlier today, we issued our earnings release with our third quarter results. The release and the supplemental presentation are available in the Investors section of our website at werner.com. Today’s webcast is being recorded and will be available for replay later today. Please see the disclosure statement on Slide 2 of the presentation as well as the disclaimers in our earnings release related to forward-looking statements. Today’s remarks contain forward-looking statements that may involve risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially. The company reports results using non-GAAP measures, which we believe provides additional information for investors to help facilitate the comparison of past and present performance.

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A reconciliation to the most directly comparable GAAP measures is included in the tables attached to the earnings release and in the appendix of the slide presentation. On today’s call with me are Derek Leathers, Chairman, President and CEO; and Chris Wikoff, Executive Vice President, Treasurer and CFO. Now I’ll turn the call over to Derek.

Derek Leathers: Thank you, Chris, and good afternoon, everyone. 2023 has presented us with a challenging operating environment. The third quarter was no different, and our financial results did not meet our expectations. Despite the difficult quarter, I’d like to start by thanking our 14,000-plus talented Werner team members for all that you do each day to uphold the Werner brand and reputation by staying true to our core values, making safety our top priority and providing superior service to our highly valued customers. During the third quarter, we recognized for several awards that demonstrate our commitment to our associates, Newsweek named Werner as one of America’s Greatest Workplaces for 2023. In addition to being named one of America’s Greatest Workplaces for Diversity and for Parents and Families.

These achievements highlight our focus on building a strong culture for all our team members. We are committed to remaining a company that enables and encourages our associates to thrive in their careers. We are also pleased to be recognized for our environmental stewardship by earning the SmartWay High Performer Award for the seventh consecutive year. This recognition is based on companies who lead the transportation industry in producing more efficient and sustainable supply chain solutions. In addition to our focus on our associates in the environment, safety remains our top priority. In the third quarter, we are proud to celebrate Tim Dean, our second professional driver to achieve 5 million accident-free miles, a very significant accomplishment over his 35 years driving for Werner.

Tim represents what we desire for all our professional drivers and unwavering commitment to safety and service one mile at a time. And lastly, we were recognized for our superior quality and service in the industry, including the 2023 Quest for Quality Award. These awards demonstrate our ongoing commitment to excellence and the execution of our Drive strategy. As illustrated on Slide 5, we remain laser-focused on being a brand known for safety, reliability, service and durable results. Our financial strength, scale, capabilities and diversified portfolio, combined with our ongoing commitment to innovative technology and sustainability will continue to drive long-term value and further position Werner as a top North America carrier and logistics company of choice.

Let’s move on to Slide 6 and highlight our third quarter results. During the quarter, revenues decreased 1% year-over-year to $818 million. Net of fuel surcharges in our third quarter revenue grew 3% versus the prior year. Adjusted EPS was $0.42. Adjusted operating income was $42 million or an operating margin of 5.1%. Adjusted TTS operating margin was 8.5%. Our primary focus in this complex operating environment is controlling what we can. This includes operational execution by leading into the strength of our dedicated fleet through superior customer service and fleet efficiency. This focus continues to result in strong customer retention, a stable fleet and competitive margins. As we anticipated heading into the quarter. One-way Truckload remains challenged by elevated spot exposure and ongoing pricing pressure.

We remain focused on utilization of one-way assets and optimizing the fleet while maintaining long-term pricing discipline. Despite a shorter average length of haul, we realized 3.3% year-over-year growth in average total miles per truck per week, with the second consecutive quarter of improvement. Within logistics, Q3 volume and revenue continue to perform well, delivering double-digit revenue growth and strong volume growth. We continue to execute our cost savings program and have seen sequential and year-over-year progress in certain expense categories. In addition, we have a line of sight to the nonrecurring year-to-date spend that is supporting our long-term technology strategy, and we remain optimistic about the benefit to earnings once complete.

That said, we continue to face macro headwinds with lower equipment gains, higher interest expense and inflationary pressures. In short, freight conditions in the third quarter were challenging. And along with the second quarter, I would describe this as the most difficult period in my career from a market perspective. Despite these challenges, our results continue to reflect the business model that is durable, diversified and resilient, even in a lower for longer and tough operating environment. Our elevated rigor on cost-saving initiatives, focused on innovation and reinvestment in the business positions us well to benefit as freight conditions improve. Let’s move on to Slide 7. Last quarter, I provided a more in-depth update on our Werner EDGE and Cloud First, Cloud Now multiyear technology strategy.

This strategy combines a blend of best-in-class third-party market solutions with proprietary technology, talent and innovation to generate sustainable and operational benefits. It works in tandem with our tech-driven, feature, and data rich solutions and digital freight marketplaces such as the launch of Werner Bridge earlier this year. Our technology and innovation journey is progressing with 100% of our Logistics segment absent our Werner Final Mile business expected to be fully transitioned to our EDGE TMS platform by end of this year. As we look ahead to 2024, we are preparing for the transition of our TTS business. This marks a major step in our strategic roadmap. Executing our vision requires considerable investment in time, energy, and capital.

As shown on the right hand side of the slide, the OR impact from ongoing development and duplicative platform expenses is estimated to be 30 basis points to 40 basis points on a year-to-date basis for 2023. By channeling all freight through Werner EDGE, we foresee numerous advantages, a better customer experience, lower cost of execution, and improved optimization from better visibility. This results in a more mode agnostic approach and greater revenue and earnings potential as returns on these investments are realized in future years. Before turning over to Chris to discuss our financial results in more detail, let’s move to Slide 8 to highlight our current view of the marketplace. The freight market has remained challenging in third quarter and into October, dedicated demand remains steady and we have a pipeline of opportunities that we can capitalize on.

The one way operating environment continues to be challenging given lower rates with new contract rate implementations largely behind us, higher than normal bid churn, and rapidly rising fuel prices in the quarter. Despite a very competitive marketplace, we expect solid volume in logistics, but margins will continue to be impacted due to downward pricing pressure and costs related to new business implementations. As we look to peak season to close out the year, our larger retail customers continue to signal more normalized inventory levels and improved mix of SKUs that better align with a post-pandemic consumer. That said, we remain cautious about consumer behavior given mixed data points and themes impacting spending, particularly for goods versus services and recent global tensions.

As a result, we expect a more muted peak season. Looking out as capacity continues to exit the market with 57 consecutive weeks of DOT net truck deactivations, we are well-positioned to benefit from a more balanced supply and demand freight market going forward with upward momentum to lock in more contractual freight at improving rates. With that, let me turn it over to Chris to go through the third quarter results in more detail.

Chris Wikoff: Thank you, Derek, and good afternoon. Let’s continue on Slide 10. Third quarter total revenue was $818 million, which was down 1% versus prior year. Net of fuel surcharges Q3 revenues grew by 3%. TTS revenues net of fuel were down low-single digits despite a softer freight market, while Logistics revenues grew for the 12th straight quarter reporting double-digit growth. Adjusted operating income was $42 million and adjusted operating margin was 5.1% a decrease of 47% and 450 basis points respectively versus prior year. Adjusted EPS of $0.42 was down $0.48 year-over-year due to the macroeconomic environment, lower equipment gains, higher interest expense and ongoing inflationary headwinds. Our cost savings program is serving to mitigate some of the impact on operating margins.

Through the end of the third quarter, we have now identified in year run rate savings of over $43 million. Although there is more work to do, we are pleased with our progress to date and as of the end of the third quarter, we have realized over 70% of targeted savings. Turning to Slide 11 and our Truckload Transportation Services results. TTS total revenue for the third quarter was $572 million, down 8%. Revenues net of fuel surcharges fell 4% to $489 million. Given the macro environment, TTS top line performed well. Third quarter TTS adjusted operating income was $42 million and adjusted operating margin was 8.5%, a year-over-year decrease of 45% or 640 basis points due in part to rapidly accelerating diesel fuel prices compressed pricing in one way and lower equipment gains against a strong prior year comp.

In the third quarter, gains on sale of revenue equipment totaled $8.8 million, a decline of $11.3 million, or 56% versus prior year. While we sold almost 1.5 times as many tractors and over 3 times more trailers compared to prior year period, average price and gains were significantly lower. Year-to-date, we have achieved $39 million of equipment gains and are on track to achieve our full year guidance. TTS adjusted operating expenses, net of fuel surcharges and equipment gains declined 0.9% compared to our TTS rate per mile, which decreased 2.9%. We saw improvements in the quarter in various expense categories, supplies and maintenance expense is trending well and was down 11% versus the prior year and 6% sequentially as we are recognizing the benefits of shifting more of our repair and maintenance capabilities in-house while also benefiting from a newer younger age fleet.

TTS insurance and claims were down 9% versus the prior year. We continue to focus on safety and are proud to report a 19-year record low in DOT preventable accidents in the third quarter. Our strong safety record led to a low-single digit premium increase on our excess insurance coverage, which was effective at the beginning of August. Although, the rise in cost per claim plus record verdicts and settlements remains an industry headwind, we are encouraged by our recent trend. Driver pay and benefits continue to moderate and we are down over 1% year-over-year. We are committed to controlling costs and performing within our annual TTS operating margin range of 12% to 17% over the long-term. Given the unique and very challenging operating environment that includes ongoing pricing pressure, primarily within one way and lower equipment gains, we fell below the annual range this quarter on a trailing 12-month basis.

Despite near-term choppiness, we remain confident in our ability to achieve long-term TTS operating margins within this stated range. Turning to Slide 12 to review our fleet metrics. TTS average truck count was 8,226 during the quarter were down just over 3% versus prior year. We ended the quarter with the TTS fleet down 1.4% sequentially and down 4.8% year-over-year. Within TTS, dedicated revenue was $306 million, down 2%. Dedicated represented 64% of segment revenue net of fuel compared to 62% prior year. Our TTS segment revenue per truck per week net of fuel has grown year-over-year 18 of the last 23 quarters and while down less than 1% year-over-year in Q3, this compares to industry benchmarks showing significantly larger declines. The dedicated average truck count during the quarter decreased 2% to 5,254 trucks, at quarter end, dedicated represented 64% of the TTS fleet.

Dedicated revenue per truck per week decreased 0.4% year-over-year, negatively impacted by one fewer business day in the quarter. Year-to-date, dedicated revenue per truck per week increased 1.8% year-over-year and is on track to increase nine out of the last ten years. Overall, dedicated is performing well and remains solid. Dedicated has steadily grown over the last ten years across all economic conditions, with an annual customer retention rate of over 95%. Our pipeline of opportunities remains healthy, given our unique scale, reliability, strong relationships across our portfolio of large enterprise customers. As customers continue to monitor the macro environment, we are seeing some delays in expanding existing dedicated fleets. However, as Derek mentioned, the dialogue with our customers about future opportunities remains positive.

One-Way Trucking revenue during the quarter was $176 million, a decrease of 7% versus prior year. One way average truck count during the quarter was down 6% to 2,972 trucks. One way revenue per truck per week was down 1.6% year-over-year due to a mid-single-digit rate per total mile decline offset by a significant increase in miles per truck. One way third quarter total miles per truck per week increased 3% year-over-year. This marks a second consecutive quarter of improvement driven by further engineering of our fleet, improved terminal velocity and less equipment downtime. These results were especially encouraging given the decline in average length of haul. Turning now to our growing logistics segment on Slide 13. In the third quarter, Logistics segment revenue was up 23% year-over-year at $230 million and now represents 28% of total Werner revenues.

Truckload brokerage revenues drove the largest portion of the year-over-year growth, increasing over 48% driven by the Reed acquisition and strong performance from our organic business. This month marks the one year anniversary of the Reed acquisition and we are pleased with the performance as Reed is seeing volume growth compared to its pre-acquisition levels. Our organic Truckload Logistics segment has also performed well. Excluding Reed, volumes in Truckload Logistics increased 9% sequentially and 8% year-over-year. We continue to grow our domestic and Mexico cross border power only solution as both our customers and alliance carriers see tremendous value in the Werner network and growing trailer pool. Power Only represented a growing portion of the Truckload Logistics revenue during the quarter.

Final Mile continued to show strong growth, reporting a 16% year-over-year revenue increase during the quarter despite a softer market for discretionary spending on big and bulky products. And as expected, intermodal revenues, which make up approximately 11% of segment revenue declined year-over-year from both lower volumes and revenue per load. Third quarter logistics adjusted operating income was $3.2 million and adjusted operating margin was 1.4%, down 160 basis points year-over-year, driven by rate and gross margin compression, new business implementations and expense headwinds. While we remain excited about the midterm and long-term benefits of our logistics business, we expect near-term margins will remain challenged. Let’s look at our cash flow, liquidity and capital metrics on Slides 14 and 15.

We ended September with $43 million in cash and cash equivalents. Operating cash flow remains strong at $74 million for the quarter, or 9% of total revenue. Year-to-date, operating cash flow is $356 million and 14% of revenue, an increase of 75 basis points year-to-date, year-over-year. Net CapEx in the third quarter was $120 million or 15% of revenue, and year-to-date was $374 million or 15% of revenue, reflecting lower year-over-year gains and a greater pace of reinvestment in the business as we continue to refresh the fleet. With the increased investment, we are seeing a lower average age of our trucks and trailers benefiting maintenance expense while also preparing for future emission changes. Having the most modern and safest equipment, benefits our professional drivers, customers and positions us well as the market strengthens.

Free cash flow was a negative $46 million for the third quarter, largely due to our fleet investments. Year-to-date, free cash flow is negative $18 million or negative 1% of total revenues, and it reflects an elevated level of net CapEx. We continue to expect the net CapEx for second half of 2023 to be lower than the first half of 2023, with further easing in the first half of 2024. Our total liquidity at quarter end was strong at $452 million, including cash and availability on our revolver. On Slide 15. We ended the quarter with $690 million in debt, $50 million higher than the end of second quarter and down $4 million compared to the start of 2023. Our debt structure is primarily long-term and provides ample credit capacity for growth and accretive investments, with over 87% of our outstanding debt not maturing until the second half of 2027.

During the third quarter, we increased our fixed rate debt from 35% to 54%. We remain pleased with our low leverage and healthy balance sheet, including our long-term and low cost access to capital and our overall capital structure. Moving on to Slide 16 to review our capital allocation priorities. We will continue to prioritize strategic reinvestment in the business for fueling growth and competitive advantage, including modernizing the fleet, while also investing in safety, technology and innovation. In addition, we will maintain our longstanding commitment to return value to our shareholders through our quarterly dividend plus periodic evaluation of share repurchases to be balanced with availability of excess cash and impact to leverage.

Opportunities to grow organically remain clear and compelling, in particular within dedicated and our asset light businesses. Accretive acquisitions also remain an avenue for growth where opportunities of relevant size and synergies align with our culture and prioritize competitive advantages. We are continuing to integrate the four acquisitions that we have executed to date. And lastly, we are committed to preserving a strong and flexible financial position with access to liquidity, while maintaining low and modest net leverage. Before turning it back to Derek for closing remarks, let’s turn to Slide 17 for an update on our full year guidance. We are lowering our truck fleet guidance range for full year 2023 to a range of down 5% to down 3% from down 4% to down 2%.

We are narrowing our net CapEx guidance for the year from a range of $400 million to $450 million to $425 million to $450 million. We anticipate that this may exceed our long-term net CapEx range of 11% to 13% of revenue as we’ve invested heavily to refresh the fleet ahead of an upcycle, increasing asset reliability, lowering operating costs and getting ahead of upcoming regulatory changes. Dedicated revenue per truck per week is expected to remain within our full year guidance of zero to 3%. One-Way Truckload revenue per total mile for third quarter decreased 4.8% and is down 4.4% year-to-date within our guidance range. Our guidance range for the fourth quarter is down 9% to down 7% due primarily to difficult peak comparables. We expect One-Way revenue per total mile to be flat to down low single digits sequentially from Q3 to Q4.

For the used truck market, we expect continued declining demand with moderating pricing and equipment gains as we close out the year. We reached $39 million in equipment gains year-to-date and we are tightening our expected range for the full year to between $42 million and $47 million. We expect net interest expense this year will be $20 million to $25 million higher than last year because of the continued pace of Fed tightening and more debt versus prior year. Our tax rate in third quarter was 23% and is 24.3% year-to-date. We are maintaining the full year range of 24% to 25%. The average age of our truck and trailer fleet in third quarter was 2.0 and 5.1 years compared to 2.3 and five years respectively at the end of 2022. I’ll now turn it back to Derek.

Derek Leathers: Thank you, Chris. Again, as we’ve noted throughout our comments today, the freight backdrop is challenging and our recent results are not consistent with our long-term expectations. That said, both strong revenue retention and progress on diversifying our portfolio deeper in both dedicated and logistics positions us well for the future. Our approach has created competitive advantages that will continue to fuel our growth, durability and earnings. We are uniquely positioned to service the most complex freight needs of large enterprise customers, including over half of the largest U.S. retailers in addition to growing in other verticals with customers who are winning in their space. We have the benefit of broad solution selling to large enterprises across our highly integrated dedicated offering, our nationwide Final Mile solution plus cross-border and logistics, while also growing share with small and medium sized customers within brokerage.

Our comprehensive footprint and terminal network across the country puts Werner within 150 miles reach of 90% of the U.S. population. And as nearshoring increases, we have the largest Mexico cross-border franchise and truckload and deep experience operating in this complex market. We have a long history of leading in innovation and we are primed to benefit from more recent investments in technology aimed at greater operational effectiveness and enhancing the experience of both our customers and associates. We continue to attract and retain top talent, including highly qualified professional drivers that embrace and carry out our commitment to superior safety, award winning service and in turn allows us to retain our strong portfolio of winning customers.

I’m proud of our team and the exciting future for Werner. And at this point, I’ll turn the call back over to our operator to begin the Q&A.

Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our first question is from Christian Wetherbee with Citigroup. Please go ahead.

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Q&A Session

Unidentified Analyst: Thanks operator. This is Rob on for Chris. Derek with the updated kind of guidance, could you give us a sense of how you’re thinking about the fleet’s allocation to the spot market just in light of where we are? Could you give us an update kind of where we are today? And how you’re thinking about potentially repricing as we go into next year?

Derek Leathers: Yes, sure Rob. Thanks for the question. Right now on One-Way Truckload, we are – in that part of our business, we’re at about 15% call it roughly of our fleet in the spot market. Clearly that’s more than we’d like to see in that market. And as in recent weeks, we’ve seen some capabilities of kind of lowering that number. As we get deeper into peak one of the opportunities in front of us is to get some of those units out of the spot market and into whether it be contract freight that we have opportunities to grow with or peak opportunities. And as we think about peak this year, what we’re seeing broadly is volumes similar to a year ago. But obviously the price relative to those opportunities is significantly less than where it would have been last year.

I still believe there’s an opportunity for volumes to potentially even finish up year-over-year relative to peak, but without that same incremental pricing opportunity. Regardless of that, as you take trucks out of peak or out of spot and into that environment, the opportunity for significant shift in pricing on those trucks is still available. And so that’s encouraging. And as we look into next year, I think it really comes down to how the consumer holds in and whether they can in fact stay strong through peak and into the start of the year coupled with the ongoing net deactivations and general trucking attrition that we do see taking place at a more rapid pace. That’ll really kind of set the stage for what the first half of next year looks like.

Unidentified Analyst: Thanks, Derek. And my follow-up is, what’s the current spread for your spot related trucks relative to your contractual rates as we think about some of the business shifting around?

Derek Leathers: Yes. Right now the spread net of fuel is in the – call it, $0.40 to $0.60 range just depending on the week. But it’s been at that similar level now for a while. I mean, spot rates really haven’t changed much in the last couple of quarters. They’ve been fairly steady. Obviously, we’ve seen a little degradation in One-Way Trucking rate per total mile, but that spread has seemed to hold in at about those levels in the last four or five months.

Unidentified Analyst: Appreciate the time, guys.

Derek Leathers: Thank you.

Operator: The next question is from Tom Wadewitz with UBS. Please go ahead.

Mike Triano: Thanks. This is Mike Triano on for Tom. So you mentioned the total TTS rate per mile was down only 3% in 3Q, which in this type of market points to all the good work that you’ve done to build a dedicated business and also build more resiliency in One-Way. But the TTS award in the low 90s is similar to some peers who are seeing more pressure on price. You’ve highlighted the $43 million of cost savings, but even with that you’re still in the low 90s. So I’m just wondering if there are more cost efficiencies to be realized that can help you get the OR more in line with your performance on price. Thanks.

Chris Wikoff: Hey, Mike, this is Chris. Thanks for the question. Yes, we still feel good about the 12% to 17% target range for TTS over the long-term. As you know, this has been a uniquely challenging cycle, inflation being up, rates being down, imbalanced in terms of supply and demand. I think it’s important to note that within TTS, 64% of that is dedicated. And while we don’t disclose those margins, dedicated continues to have double-digit margins, steady, durable. And so the volatility there is really within our One-Way business where we do have that elevated spot, as Derek just mentioned, and continued pricing pressure. So where we can continue to grow dedicated at premium contract pricing, more stability, while also growing certain sleeves within the One-Way business, including the cross-border, where there’s good growth and opportunity there from a top line perspective and overall mix within TTS that can position us well.

Also remember that given the One-Way business, there can be a meaningful difference as we move out of spot, move those rates into contract rates and then potentially move those into a further dedicated premium rate. So with an improved market, that can have a significant help to the overall operating margins. And then you mentioned the cost improvements. Yes, we’ve made some good strides there in supplies and maintenance and even insurance and some other categories. That program continues to progress and by continuing to focus on cost improvements, as we’re starting to see here, that certainly will help going forward to the TTS margin.

Mike Triano: Would you point to any particular cost bucket within that $43 million where you say, look, we could probably do a little bit more whether it’s on the supplies and maintenance side or on kind of the driver recruitment and pay side?

Chris Wikoff: Well, yes, actually all those that you mentioned are part of that program. But we’re excited about the recent improvement year-over-year that we’ve seen in supplies and maintenance. We’ve talked a lot about that on other calls of several quarters to bring more of that in-house, as well as just having a younger, more modern fleet that obviously has a lower operating cost. For Q3 supplies and maintenance was down double-digits year-over-year. Also, insurance was down 9% year-over-year in the quarter. And insurance for Q3 was the first quarter since Q1 of 2022 that was less than 4% of revenue. Driver pay and benefits was down 2% year-over-year. Some of that due to the fleet as well as some pay changes. So it’s multipronged in terms of how we’re building that bucket and going after cost improvement.

Derek Leathers: And to answer directly about ongoing improvements in some of those areas, we’re certainly past the middle innings in some of the initiatives relative to supplies and maintenance. But there is still room to grow. As Chris mentioned, we have the ability to still bring further density into our shops. We’re excited about that. It’s an ongoing effort. We’re clearly reaping the benefit, although it’s an expensive way to get there, of the elevated CapEx as it relates to trucks out of warranty and trucks over 400,000 miles. To put some color on that. Just as an example, a year ago this time we would have had over 500 trucks greater than 400,000 miles in the fleet. And today, as we sit here, we have less than 50.

So we’re still continuing to work more aggressively on in-house maintenance, quality of that maintenance, but also the fresher fleet gives us a pretty good head start on that. As we continue to work our acquisitions into and integrate onto one platform, there’s some real visibility advantages and opportunity for us to take some additional cost out. Unfortunately, the reality of the acquisition timing was that it was at the same time we were building out the largest tech journey really in our history. We knew that going into it. We knew it would be more painful as a result, but we still believe that the underlying asset was worth making a decision to move forward and to fill the portfolio out to better prepare us for the future.

Mike Triano: Thanks. Appreciate all the thoughts.

Operator: The next question is from Jack Atkins with Stephens. Please go ahead.

Jack Atkins: Okay. Great. Thank you for the time guys. Really appreciate it. I guess, Derek, for my first one, if I could maybe pick up on where you left off there at the end. In terms of just the cost associated with the tech investments you’ve been making, I’m sure that’s burdening the P&L this year. Is there a way to maybe help us think about the level of expense you’ve been incurring there? And I guess, as we sort of think forward, once you begin to see the benefits from that, how are the tech investments you’re making now setting Werner up for the long-term?