U.S. Xpress Enterprises (USX) Tops Q4 EPS by 4c, Revenues Beat

U.S. Xpress Enterprises (NYSE: USX) reported Q4 EPS of ($0.05), $0.04 better than the analyst estimate of ($0.09). Revenue for the quarter came in at $449.63 million versus the consensus estimate of $432.09 million.

Fourth Quarter 2019 Highlights

• Operating revenue of $449.6 million compared to $469.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2018
• Operating income of $1.4 million compared to $21.1 million in the fourth quarter of 2018
• Operating ratio of 99.7% compared to 95.5% in the fourth quarter of 2018
• Net loss attributable to controlling interest of $9.6 million, or $0.20 per diluted share, included a $6.8 million, or $0.14 per share, write off of an equity method investment compared to Net income attributable to controlling interest of $7.0 million in the fourth quarter of 2018
• Adjusted net loss attributable to controlling interest, a non-GAAP measure, of $2.8 million, or $.05 per diluted share, compared to Adjusted net income of $19.5 million in the fourth quarter of 2018

Eric Fuller, President and CEO, commented, “Our fourth quarter results were impacted by the continued challenging market conditions experienced through much of 2019, posing a headwind to our financial results. Despite the market backdrop, I am very encouraged with the many successes that our team achieved this past year, as we made significant progress advancing our strategic initiatives focused on delivering improved efficiency. One area of focus is to continue to engineer the company to provide for a future of advanced technology, automation and high optimization. Our team has made real strides digitizing our systems to reduce the number of manual decisions made on a daily basis. We also made strong progress in our goal of delivering a ‘frictionless order’. When complete, we will significantly reduce the level of repetitive work required by our drivers and, as a result, allow them to spend more of their time moving freight and servicing our customers.”

Mr. Fuller said, “Our Dedicated division continued to perform very well in the fourth quarter having delivered its third consecutive quarter of record productivity. We were pleased that average revenue per tractor per week remained above $4,000, while we grew the truck count in this division by 2.9% sequentially. The execution in Dedicated through the year has been excellent and consistent with our long-term strategy, which is to continue to grow the business over time as attractive opportunities arise.”

Outlook

The Company’s baseline assumptions for 2020 include slow growth in industry-wide truckload shipments, a continued reduction of total truckload capacity from the market, which is expected to drive an inflection in pricing later in the year, and relatively benign cost inflation. The first quarter is generally our weakest quarter of the year as we experience lower revenue per tractor and higher costs than the other quarters due to seasonal freight fluctuations and harsher operating conditions. While we see positive trends in certain areas, there continues to be uncertainty in the short-term environment, which will impact the actual sequential margin deterioration in the first quarter. We continue to believe that market conditions will improve in the back half 2020. The timing and magnitude of market changes will have a significant impact on our quarterly results given our substantial operating leverage.

For earnings history and earnings-related data on U.S. Xpress Enterprises (USX) click here.

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