Universal Logistics Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:ULH) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Chris Wetherbee: Okay, that’s helpful. And then I guess maybe the final question would just be sort of maybe taking a step back and thinking bigger picture. I think there’s a general sense, particularly with retail exposed freight, that we are going through a meaningful normalization of inventories as it stands currently. And that maybe by late spring, there’s the potential for some, that normalization to have largely occurred in maybe the return of a degree of strength. I don’t know if that’s sequential or year-over-year, but generally want to get your sense of how you think about at least on the retail piece of your business, and frankly, on the industrial side too whether you think there might be offsets that could sort of dampen that potential second half recovery?

Tim Phillips: Yes. on the retail side, like I said, the customers are holding their cards pretty close, we feel that the Q1 will be challenged, we think that when we get out of the Chinese New Year, they start ordering again, we should see some rebound in Q2, but don’t expect there to be any kind of normalization, as you put it prior to the second half of the year. And to this degree, we don’t know exactly what yet. Some of the retail customers that said there would be a normal type season. But what’s normal mean, over the last couple of years, because there’s been so many peaks and troughs. So we think positionally, though the second half of the year will definitely be better than the first half of the year. And on the industrial space, I think that, let’s break that down a little further Class 8, I think that we’re going into a solid for first half of the year.

And I think a lot of that will run its cadence into the second half of the year. All indications on automotive plants that we serve is a very strong year. Inventories are rising, but there seems to be a strong demand for those products in the plants that we’ve serviced. So we feel good about that. Our steel and industrial goods that we haul from a transportation perspective, our load counts had decreased somewhat, although pricing has remained pretty stout. One area we see is our agriculture and heavy machinery business is some positive forecasts for 2023 that there’s still demand. And I think if you encompass that all together, I think you’ll feel if you ask whether it’s a Class A, an automotive, agriculture and heavy machinery, I think there’s still part issues and supply chain issues out there, maybe not to the degree we saw in 2022.

But I think they still linger out there that cause some disruption of cadence, but overall on the industrial, the auto space, we feel comfortable with 2023.

Operator: And with no remaining questions, this will conclude our question-and-answer session. I’d like to turn the conference back over to management for any closing remarks.

Tim Phillips: Thank you, Joe. I appreciate everyone dialing into the call today. As I mentioned, I’m extremely excited about the opportunities in front of Universal in 2023. We’ve already hit the ground running with new contract logistics programs and are cautiously optimistic about inventory restocking in the second half of €˜23, which will help drive transportation growth. Finally, I cannot wait to see our compliant Southern California company driver model to deliver certainty into our valued customers supply chains, as import volumes grow seasonally. I look forward to talking to everyone on our Q1 2023 call in April. Thank you.

Operator: The conference has now concluded. Thank you very much for attending today’s presentation. You may now disconnect your lines.

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