RXO, Inc. (NYSE:RXO) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript May 3, 2024
RXO, Inc. isn’t one of the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds at the end of the third quarter (see the details here).
Operator: Welcome to the 1Q 2024 RXO Earnings Conference Call. My name is Julie and I will be your operator for today’s call. Please note that this conference is being recorded. During this call, the company will make certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of Federal Securities laws, which, by their nature, involve a number of risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. A discussion of factors that could cause actual results to differ materially is contained in the company’s SEC filing as well as in its earnings release. You should refer to the copy of the company’s earnings release in the Investors Relations section on the company’s website for additional important information regarding forward-looking statements and disclosures and reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures that the company uses for discussing its results.
I will now turn the call over to Drew Wilkerson, Mr. Wilkerson, you may begin.
Drew Wilkerson: Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining today. I’m here in Charlotte with RXO’s Chief Financial Officer, Jamie Harris; and Chief Strategy Officer, Jared Weisfeld. In the first quarter, the prolonged soft freight environment continued. RXO delivered adjusted EBITDA at the midpoint of the range we gave you in February. In our brokerage business, we posted double-digit volume growth for the fourth consecutive quarter. Total brokerage volume grew by 11%, with 8% growth in full truckload and 29% growth in less than truckload. Full truckload represented 83% of our volume in the quarter. Our LTL business is growing rapidly, and our increased scale and automation capabilities are enabling it to deliver profitable growth.
Jared will discuss our results by vertical later, but most of our full truckload verticals grew year-over-year. In addition, cross-border volume increased by 37% year-over-year. We continue to strategically manage our mix of contract and spot volume. Contract business represented 79% of our mix in the quarter and positions us well to earn spot volume and project loads when the market improves. Within brokerage, our gross margin was 14.2% in the quarter. In Complementary Services, on a year-over-year basis, Managed Transportation again grew the number of synergy loads it provided to Truck Brokerage. In addition, in the first half of this year, Managed Transportation was awarded or is onboarding more than $350 million in freight under management.
In last-mile, we continued to focus on our service and our customer relationships, which generated revenue opportunities with new and existing customers. We also focused on optimizing our network of last-mile hubs and decreasing our cost of purchased transportation. RXO’s company-wide gross margin was 17.4% in the quarter. At RXO, we built our business on 4 main growth drivers; service, solutions, innovation, and relationships. When it comes to service, we understand that every shipment matters to our customers, and we work to deliver a great customer experience that delivers value at every touch point. We offer a wide variety of solutions to meet every freight transportation need. We are proactive in solving our customers’ toughest challenges.
We innovate and design technology that leverages data to help customers and internal stakeholders make better decisions and improve productivity. And we build multi-layer, long-term relationships with customers that are built on trust. Our focus on these areas has enabled us to grow quickly. Because of the trust customers have in us and the value we create for them, our company-wide sales pipeline is the largest it’s been in four years. We recently made an organizational change that will position us to win even more customer business. We moved our Freight Forwarding business under Managed Transportation to help create more comprehensive solutions for our customers. In many cases, customers were purchasing services from both groups. Our Forwarding business has built many domestic services that complement our Managed Transportation business.
This combination will reduce costs and accelerate the many natural synergies between the two teams. Jamie will discuss what this means for our financial reporting, but from a strategic standpoint, this combination will enable RXO to more quickly innovate and grow. Next, I want to talk about the overall market conditions and how they affected our business in the first quarter. The freight market remained soft. All major freight market KPIs weakened as the quarter progressed. The quarter was mixed in terms of carrier exits. While carriers left the market every month, the rate of exits was slower than anticipated and in some weeks, the total number of registered carrier authorities actually increased. On the demand side, while the macroeconomy remained reasonably healthy, the data was more mixed than prior quarters.
Employment, wage growth and retail inventory positions were all encouraging, yet GDP grew at a slower rate than the market’s expectations and inflation remained sticky. January was a difficult month for everyone in the industry, including RXO. As we mentioned during last quarter’s earnings report, severe weather caused a temporary market squeeze. But as the weather improved into February, we moved quickly to bring down our cost of purchased transportation. Gross profit per load and gross margin improved every month as the quarter progressed. While we did see some weakening in full truckload volume, it was more than offset by the improvements in gross profit per load. Given current market conditions, we’ve taken swift actions on costs. Jamie will talk more about this in a few minutes, but this year’s actions will now result in at least $35 million of annualized savings.
That’s $10 million more than the estimate we provided to you last quarter. We’ll see the full benefit of these actions in the second half of the year. I’m proud to work with the team that embraces a continuous improvement mindset and reacts quickly to market conditions. Let’s now discuss our expectations for the second quarter. Typically, by this point in the year, we would see a positive seasonal increase in full truckload volume within our brokerage business. That has not materialized, given the sustained market weakness. In addition, and as we’ve discussed previously, we believe carrier rates are at or near the bottom and we’re preparing for a market recovery. We’re making strategic decisions on price based on where we think the market is heading.
We’re doing this to ensure we earn a fair margin in an environment where carrier rates rise, because we provide great service to our customers and have a history of honoring our contractual agreements, we’re also in prime position to capture spot volume and project freight when the market recovers. Nonetheless, we do anticipate that we will grow our consolidated brokerage volumes again year-over-year in the second quarter. Our ability to grow total brokerage volumes is a testament to the diversity of our portfolio. Our LTL business continues to gain traction and will grow strongly year-over-year in the second quarter. We expect brokerage gross margin to hold relatively steady to what we saw in the first quarter. With our improvement in the brokerage gross profit per load and our momentum within complementary services, we anticipate that adjusted EBITDA will increase significantly on a sequential basis in the second quarter.
RXO’s focus on providing the best service, the most comprehensive set of solutions, continuous innovation and close customer relationships is enabling us to take market share and grow our sales pipeline. When you combine that with our disciplined focus on costs and the expertise of our team, RXO is primed to deliver significant earnings growth when the market inflects. Now, I’ll turn it over to Jamie to discuss our financial results in more detail. Jamie?
James Harris: Thank you, Drew and good morning everyone. Let’s review our first quarter performance in more detail. We generated $913 million in revenue compared to $1 billion in the first quarter of 2023. Gross margin was 17.4%. While gross margin declined 130 basis points year-over-year, we’re pleased with our performance given the current freight environment. Our adjusted EBITDA was $15 million at the midpoint of the guidance range we provided you in February. This compares to $37 million in the first quarter of 2023. Our adjusted EBITDA margin was 1.6%, down 210 basis points year-over-year. The declines in these metrics were primarily due to lower freight rates and lower brokerage gross margin. Below the line, our interest expense was $8 million.
For the quarter, our adjusted diluted loss per share was $0.03, which includes approximately $0.01 of discrete tax benefits. You can find a bridge to adjusted EPS on Slide 8 of the earnings presentation. Now, I’d like to give an overview of our performance within our lines of business. Brokerage generated $564 million of revenue, down 6% year-over-year, primarily due to lower freight rates. However, as Drew mentioned, brokerage volume for the quarter increased by 11% year-over-year, the fourth consecutive quarter of double-digit volume growth. Brokerage gross margin remained at a strong 14.2%, above the high end of our expectations, primarily due to lower cost of purchased transportation. While gross margin declined 210 basis points year-over-year, it only declined by 60 basis points sequentially.
Complementary Services revenue in the quarter of $384 million was down 12% year-over-year. The revenue decline was primarily due to a decrease in automotive expedite volumes in our Managed Transportation business. Complementary Services gross margin of 20.6% declined by 20 basis points year-over-year. Please turn to Slide 9 as we discuss cash flow. Our adjusted free cash flow in the first quarter was $1 million, exceeding the expectations that we shared with you in February. Over the trailing six months, we generated $7 million of adjusted free cash flow, representing conversion of about 15%. Lower profitability levels at the bottom of the freight cycle continue to negatively impact cash conversion. We remain comfortable with the conversion range of 40% to 60% over the long-term through market cycles.
We ended the quarter with $7 million of cash on the balance sheet, slightly above expectations due to strong receipts in the quarter. The primary use of cash over the last six months was to prepay our $100 million term loan in November of 2023. Looking ahead and as we’ve discussed previously, we pay interest due on our senior notes in the second and fourth quarters. That will be about a $14 million use of cash in each of those quarters. Additionally, in the second quarter, we anticipate approximately $10 million of outflows for previously discussed legacy claims. As you can see on Slide 10, our liquidity position remained strong with over $600 million of committed liquidity at the end of the quarter. Quarter-end gross leverage was 3 times trailing 12 months adjusted EBITDA and net leverage was 2.9 times and approximately half a turn sequential increase due to our cycling of last year’s EBITDA.
During the quarter, we also proactively enhanced our liquidity position. We amended our revolving credit agreement to relax our covenants for 12 months beginning in the second quarter of 2024. We remain comfortable with our current leverage ratio and given the strong free cash flow characteristics of our business, we will delever rapidly as the cycle inflex. Our customers want to work with partners like RXO that have a strong financial position and can perform and invest across all market cycles. We are pleased with our cash flow and our balance sheet given this extended soft freight cycle. Let’s talk about cost. We’re operating with a continuous improvement mindset and our actions are yielding tangible results. Last quarter, we communicated that we would strategically invest in the business, while eliminating at least $25 million of annualized expenses in 2024.
In the first quarter, we moved quickly to take actions to further optimize our cost structure. We now expect to take out at least $35 million of annualized operating expenses this year. That’s in addition to the cost savings associated with last year’s actions. We realized a small benefit from our 2024 actions in the first quarter, but we’ll see a more meaningful benefit in the second quarter and beyond. The second half of 2024 will fully benefit from the annualized impact of our actions and will help offset year-over-year declines in gross profit per load and inflationary pressures. It’s important to note that the 2024 restructuring charges we previously communicated to you remain unchanged despite the higher cost takeout. We’re getting more efficient and productive with every action, and the steps we’re taking now will deliver significant operating leverage when the cycle turns.
Now, let’s discuss our expectations for the second quarter and full year. With the improved momentum Drew mentioned earlier, we anticipate a meaningful sequential increase in our adjusted EBITDA and expect to deliver between $24 million and $30 million of adjusted EBITDA in Q2. Jared will provide more details on our outlook shortly. Slide 14 includes our modeling assumptions for the full year. We continue to expect the following; capital expenditures between $40 million and $50 million; depreciation expense between $56 million and $58 million; amortization of intangibles, approximately $12 million; stock-based compensation expense between $24 million and $26 million; restructuring, transaction and integration expenses between $20 million and $25 million; net interest expense between $31 million and $33 million.
We expect our full year 2024 adjusted effective tax rate to be approximately 30%. You should also model an average diluted share count of approximately 120 million shares. One other thing that you’ll see beginning next quarter, as Drew mentioned earlier, we’ve combined our Managed Transportation and Freight Forwarding businesses to improve our customers’ experience and help drive growth. Starting in the second quarter, you’ll see these businesses combined in our earnings presentation and financial statements. Overall, given the current state of the freight cycle, we’re pleased with our execution. Our businesses are operating well. We’re taking proactive and sustainable actions to reduce cost and we continue to invest strategically. All of this positions RXO well for the cycle inflection.
Now, I’d like to turn it over to Chief Strategy Officer, Jerry Weisfeld, who will talk in more detail about our results and our outlook.
Jared Weisfeld: Thanks Jamie and good morning everyone. We continued to outperform the market in the first quarter, growing brokerage volume by 11% year-over-year. This is our fourth consecutive quarter of double-digit volume growth in the prolonged soft freight market. More specifically, we grew our full truckload volumes by 8% year-over-year. On a three-year stack, our full truckload contract volumes grew by approximately 40%. LTL volume in the quarter grew by 29% year-over-year. Our full truckload customers award us LTL freight because of our strong service and relationships. LTL represented approximately 17% of brokerage volumes in the first quarter. We also maintained a favorable mix of contract and spot business in the quarter, with contractual volume representing 79% of our business, down 100 basis points sequentially and up 200 basis points when compared to the first quarter of 2023.
Contract volume grew 18% year-over-year. Within our full truckload business, we saw year-over-year volume growth in most of our major verticals. Retail and e-commerce volumes grew by 10% year-over-year. Volume from industrial and manufacturing customers increased by 13% year-over-year, accelerating from 8% last quarter. The acceleration in our industrial volumes was consistent with the ISM manufacturing PMI entering expansionary territory in the quarter, the first time it’s expanded in approximately year and a half. Automotive grew at 21% year-over-year, although at a slower pace than the last few quarters. From a profitability perspective, brokerage gross margin of 14.2% was ahead of the 12% to 14% range we provided you in February and was a result of our quick actions to bring down our cost of purchased transportation.
Brokerage gross margin percentage and brokerage gross profit per load improved every month throughout the quarter. In the first quarter, we launched several new technology enhancements across multiple modes of transportation. We increased dedicated lane capabilities to enhance the carrier experience and seven-day carrier retention remained strong at 76% in the quarter. We also added increased LTL automation capabilities across the order life cycle. We remain excited about the growth and profitability of our LTL business. Our technology enables our people to become even more productive. On a rolling 12-month basis, productivity in our brokerage business, as measured by loads per head per day, improved by over 18% year-over-year. I’d now like to review our brokerage financial performance and market conditions in more detail.
You can find this information on Slides 11 through 13 of the presentation. Revenue per load declines eased for the third consecutive quarter and declined by 15% year-over-year. The year-over-year decline improved by 500 basis points when compared to the fourth quarter. To get a better view of our consolidated year-over-year price declines on a per load basis, it’s important to consider the impacts of length of haul, mix, and changes in fuel prices. When normalizing for those items, revenue per load on a percentage basis was down high single-digits year-over-year, in line with the broader market. This decline moderated when compared to last quarter’s low double-digit year-over-year decline. We generated strong gross margin percentage across all different parts of the freight cycle by leveraging our proprietary technology and pricing algorithms to procure capacity at better than market rates.
We expect year-over-year revenue per load declines to improve again in the second quarter, marking the fourth consecutive quarter of moderating declines. Importantly, the change in full truckload year-over-year revenue per load should meaningfully improve into the second quarter. To give additional context, in the month of April, full truckload revenue per load was down just mid-single digits on a year-over-year basis and up slightly when compared to the month of March. As we look towards the end of the second quarter, we believe full truckload revenue per load will be approximately flat year-over-year. This would mark the first time in about two years that revenue per load has held on a year-over-year basis. Let’s move to Slide 12 and discuss brokerage monthly gross margin trends.
The market loosened after January’s acute inclement weather. Load-to-truck ratio, tender rejections, and line haul spot rates all moved lower throughout the quarter. We moved quickly and leveraged our proprietary technology to reduce our cost of purchased transportation in February and March. Let’s go to Slide 13 and briefly look at RXO’s brokerage gross profit per load, which decreased sequentially in the first quarter because of January’s weather-related challenges. However, as we’ve just walked through, our gross profit per load improved every month as the quarter progressed. I’d now like to look forward and give you some more color on the second quarter outlook that Jamie provided. Let’s start with volume. We expect to grow year-over-year brokerage volumes again in the second quarter, although at a slower rate relative to the first quarter’s growth rate.
We expect full truckload volume to be down low-to-mid single-digits year-over-year, primarily because of the prolonged weak freight market and more difficult comps given our robust brokerage volume growth in 2023. To put that in perspective, a low-to-mid single-digits year-over-year volume decline in the second quarter would still result in full truckload contract volume growth of approximately 40% on a three-year stack, which speaks to our significant multi-year market share gains. As Drew mentioned earlier, we approached this bid season, anticipating a freight market recovery. We’re focused on reliably servicing our customers’ needs and honoring our contractual rates. These actions will put us in prime position to capture spot volume and project freight when the market recovers.
Turning to LTL, we have significant momentum and expect year-over-year volume growth to be more than 30%. We expect brokerage gross margin to be between 13% and 15% in the second quarter, approximately flat at the midpoint when compared to the first quarter. While RXO’s brokerage gross margin in March and April came in at the high end of that range, we are assuming some seasonal moderation in May and June as a result of DOT Roadcheck and produce season. We’re also not assuming any material spot opportunities in our second quarter outlook. We expect a sequential improvement in brokerage gross profit per load in the second quarter. In Complementary Services, we expect typical positive Q2 seasonality, primarily in our last mile business. Putting it all together, we expect RXO’s second quarter adjusted EBITDA to be between $24 million and $30 million.
From an industry perspective, there is still too much truckload capacity relative to current demand. Carriers are exiting the market slowly, but we still expect the pace of exits to accelerate throughout the year given the challenges to carriers’ unit economics. Encouragingly, we saw an acceleration in carrier exits in April when compared to March. In summary, we’re continuing to execute well in the soft freight market. We’re entering the second quarter with improved momentum and the largest sales pipeline over the last four years. We’re optimizing our cost structure while strategically investing in our business and have a playbook to deliver strong earnings growth when the market inflects. With that, I’ll turn it over to the operator for Q&A.
Operator: Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Stephanie Moore from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
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