Werner Enterprises, Inc. (NASDAQ:WERN) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Our non-driver salaries, wages and benefits are also still a bit elevated. But again, part of that is the maintenance head count that we’ve been building in that category in order to then move forward with this in-house maintenance capability as well as still some elevated head count from our acquisitions. And we have more work to do in terms of integration. It’s on pace, but we have more opportunity there going forward. And then we’ve talked about in the past how we have made some investments, go-to-market strategy investments in Final Mile. So that’s a bit elevated. But that – we’re growing that business to scale. We’re excited about that, and we look for greater profitability there.

Ravi Shanker: Very helpful, Chris. Thank you.

Operator: The next question is from Bascome Majors with Susquehanna. Please go ahead.

Bascome Majors: Good evening. As you think about growing the dedicated business over time, can you talk about how some of the in-sourcing or private fleet efforts from your largest customer is impacting that and the strategy you have to both offset and overcome that either with other business or other customers or just strategically to stay engaged there? Thank you.

Derek Leathers: Sure, Bascome. I’ll take that one. I’ll start with the obvious. They are our largest customer. And as such, both parties have some – we have a vested interest in making sure that the solutions we put in place are sustainable for both of us. Their growth has been impressive, will remain impressive. And as I think about them moving forward, it’s certainly something that excites us. We can’t exclusively be that growth partner or that growth avenue for them because, as you know, we’re going to stay disciplined to the diversity within our portfolio. We’re going to stay disciplined to our approach, both geographic diversity as well as vertical diversity, but probably most importantly, what our representation with any one customer is.

With all that said, it’s a mutually executed strategy. We work with them very closely. We’re actually growing with them. Here recently, we have opportunities to continue to do so where it makes sense for us. But we’re well aware that they have a strategy to have a private fleet in addition to that. We have many other customers who have private fleets, and yet we operate Dedicated side by side. I often believe that it makes for better customers because they are exposed to the weather out there, so to speak. They understand better and become better buyers of freight. And they’re more educated in their acquisition of capacity. That – all of those things lead me to believe we’re in good shape there. We’re going to continue to have open dialogue.

But what it’s really going to do is force us to continue on a plan that we set forth some time ago anyway, which is making sure we’re diversifying across multiple verticals, multiple geographies and expanding the quality service and product that we have to offer to more new customers as well as what we’ve been good at for a long, long time, which is growing deeper and broader with existing.

Bascome Majors: Thank you for that expansive answer. I just wanted to touch on one point you made in the middle of it. Did you say that despite them growing their fleet, you’re still growing trucks with this customer? Just wanted to make sure that I heard that.

Derek Leathers: Yes. I’m saying as we – as they are growing their fleet, we still have opportunity to pick up new opportunities with this customer, yes.

Bascome Majors: Thank you for the time.

Operator: The next question is from Elliot Alper with TD Cowen. Please go ahead.

Elliot Alper: Great. Thank you. Maybe on the Logistics side, you talked about stabilization in the outlook but called out some margin pressure in the back half of the year or in 3Q. Can you maybe parse that out between Truckload, Final Mile and Intermodal?

Derek Leathers: Yes. I mean look, I’m going to focus on Truckload with my answer. As it relates to the reality, that is the largest portion of that Logistics portfolio. And what we’re really saying there is, look, we’re very proud of not only holding serve on our organic Brokerage business and really sort of outperforming the market in terms of the amount of revenue we’ve held on to and volume, probably more importantly. But with the Reed acquisition and their ability to not just be at scale from the time of acquisition but having grown further since that time, we’re pretty bullish on our capabilities in that space. We also love where we’re at as it relates to the conversion within our EDGE platform and our ability to operate more efficiently over time as we grow into that business.