XPO Logistics, Inc. (NYSE:XPO) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Stephanie Moore: Hi, good morning. Thank you. I wanted to touch a little bit on kind of maybe the strategy in which you’re managing this dislocation in the market. And if you could touch a little bit on if your immediate focus is more so on kind of capturing the volume opportunity and how do you kind of manage that strategy with pricing and kind of maybe more of a longer-term opportunity here? So maybe just talk a little bit about the initial reaction to the volume and flow.

Mario Harik: Thanks, Stephanie. Well, we are looking at it in a very balanced approach. Step number one is, making sure that we safeguard the capacity to existing customers and we keep on honoring the capacity commitments we had with them. But when you think about the influx of volume, we are assessing those opportunities to bring incremental freight on a case-by-case basis, both from existing and from new customers. We are using that as an opportunity to improve the mix as a whole for our customers. And as I mentioned earlier, we’re looking at it in two main criteria. One is, making sure that the customers that we’re onboarding freight for have four-by-four feet type skids that fits well in an LTL network. And we’re also looking at it from an OR perspective and making sure that we are on-boarding margin-accretive business as we are adding.

So we’re being very disciplined into the shipments and tonnage we’re bringing on to our network. And now, on the pricing side, when you take out, as Kyle mentioned earlier, 10% of the capacity in the market, it does cost more to move freight for your customers and also we want to make sure we’re charging a fair price given the value that we are offering our customers as well with the improvements we’re seeing in our service product over time as well. So we’re looking at it in a very balanced way in terms of being disciplined how we add volume, while leaning onto the price lever as well.

Stephanie Moore: Great. No, that’s very clear. And then maybe switching gears entirely, could you give us an update on your European business and any strategic changes you might have selling that business and kind of where we stand today? Thanks.

Mario Harik: Thank you. Well, we announced stopping that process in the near term in the month of December. But our goal long-term continues to be a — being a pure-play North American LTL company. Now that said, this business is operating really well. As you heard from Ali and Kyle, we’re doing really well despite the softer macroeconomic environment in Europe. Our organic revenue is largely unchanged on a year-on-year basis and the team there is doing a fantastic job servicing customers.

Operator: Our next question is from Chris Wetherbee with Citi. Please proceed.

Chris Wetherbee: I guess, Mario, you talked about the potential for pricing improvement and closing the gap with peers. And I think when we talked to you guys back in May, there was the opportunity for maybe double-digit over a multi-year basis. But obviously what’s going on I think is accelerating pricing and yield opportunities. As you think about that, particularly as it relates to your longer-term operating ratio targets, how much return — is there a way to think about what the sort of nearer-term opportunity is on that 10% of that operating ratio? I wanted to get a sense of sort of what the pricing dynamic — how much of that’s being pulled forward over the next couple of years and to maybe the next couple of quarters.

Mario Harik: Yes. So when you think about it, I think this is still a very fluid situation here given the disruption that happened in the market. So Chris, it’s tough to evaluate how quickly the pace of improvement is going to go here in the near term. But over the next weeks and months, we’re going to have a better picture on where things are shaking out. But it’s fair to assume that you would see an overall yield and price acceleration. And also the way we look at it, it’s all about charging a fair price for the service that we are offering our customers. When you look at these service improvements, I’m incredibly excited about having Dave on the team and all the progress that our operating teams are doing on keep on improving the service product.