Old Dominion Freight Line, Inc. (NASDAQ:ODFL) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Page 2 of 14

And so, it’ll be a little different situation, I think, playing out this year in comparison to 2022, when, beginning with April, our volumes were either decreasing or flattish on a month-over-month basis as we worked our way through the year. Certainly, we’d like to see volumes flowing into us as we transition and make our way through 2023. And hopefully start getting a little help from the macroeconomic environment as well.

Jordan Alliger: All right, thank you.

Operator: Our next question comes from Jack Atkins with Stephens. Please go ahead.

Jack Atkins: Okay, great, thank you. Greg, congratulations on your retirement, and I think the $34 billion of shareholder value you’ve created since you’ve been CEO. Congrats on that. And Marty, you’ve got some big shoes to fill, but congratulations to you as well.

Marty Freeman: Thank you, Jack. He taught me well.

Greg Gantt: Thanks, Jack. Appreciate the kind words.

Jack Atkins: Absolutely.

Greg Gantt: And it’s been a good run.

Jack Atkins: Absolutely has been. So, I guess maybe if we could — Adam, if you could maybe expand a bit on the January trends a bit more. You talked about January being up a bit or maybe even flattish versus December. Anything you feel comfortable sharing there in terms of January revenue trends and tonnage or shipments trends, that’d be helpful? And then, I guess, as you think about the operation ratio, first quarter versus fourth quarter, anything you can maybe share relative to normal seasonality would be helpful there? So, I’ll turn it over to you, Adam.

Adam Satterfield: Yes, I guess from a volume standpoint on a year-over-year basis, January, our tons per day were down 7.8% that compares to December where we were down 12.3% overall. I would point out and obviously we will continue to give our mid quarter updates. We have a little bit easier comparison with the January year-over-year comp, and we had very strong performance in February of last year. So, that kind of gets a little bit more difficult there. And then, they obviously start getting easier. So, I guess be aware of that when we give that February update in a month or so. But nevertheless, I was pretty pleased with the way really going back through the fourth quarter. December came in a little bit stronger than what our normal sequential change is.

And that’s the month we kind of talked about I think on the last call in the fourth quarter in particular in some slower economic environment is where we have seen pretty hefty drop-off in our business levels. And the fact that we stayed pretty steady rather I think was a positive takeaway for me. I was hoping that we would see our sequential performance from a volume standpoint to be it a little closer to our 10-year average trends. And certainly it was. The fourth quarter volumes were down 4.4% sequentially. The normal changes of 1.3% decreased. But if we compare back to where we were in the second and third quarters relative to our 10-year average changes, I think we are starting to trend back in the right direction, and whether or not we get back to the full 10-year average at least in the first-half of the year remains to be seen.

I think we probably need a little bit stronger economy. But I do think that we are going to start seeing some increases like we mentioned particularly starting in March and then continuing through the second quarter. And then, we will see where things go from there. But I think that certainly that volume environment really will dictate what the operating ratio does typically just to give a little bit more color on the first quarter operating ratio. We typically have about a 100 basis point increase there coming off the fourth quarter. In this particular first quarter of 2023, we did have a favorable insurance adjustment. We have talked on — and given the guidance for 4Q assuming that line held steady. There was improvement there. And I think that that will normalize back to around 1.2% of revenue in 1Q of 23.

Page 2 of 14