Heavy Duty Trucking, September 2018

HDT SEPTEMBER 2018 14 WWW TRUCKINGINFO COM Hotline David Carson President Western Star SIGN UP FOR YOUR DAILY NEWS AT WWW TRUCKINGINFO COM HEADLINENEWS TRUCKINGS MOST RESPECTED BUSINESS REPORT U S Xpress IPO another step in transformation U S Xpress recently reported its first quarterly earnings since taking the company public again a move that President and CEO Eric Fuller told HDT is a continuation of the transformation of the company he and the new leadership team have been going through since 2015 Thats when the Chattanooga Tennessee based truckload carrier started the transition from a more entrepreneurial type of management a legacy from co founders Pat Quinn and Max Fuller who started the company in 1986 in the years following deregulation In a planned transition Eric Max Fullers son has spent the last few years building his management team which also includes the late Pat Quinns daughter attorney Lisa Quinn Pate as chief administrative officer Max Fuller is still executive chairman The transformation involved changing the companys culture and recruiting the people needed to do that with initiatives focused on improving driver retention increasing asset utilization and driving a culture of cost management This summers IPO was not the first time U S Xpress which describes itself as the fifth largest asset based truckload carrier by revenue has been publicly traded It went through its first IPO in 1994 but the co founders took it private again in 2007 However Eric Fuller explained in an interview that leveraged buyout left the company with a lot of debt Being highly leveraged in a cyclical industry is a kind of scary proposition he said So the proceeds from the IPO will help make that a little less scary Its second quarter numbers showed significant increases over a year earlier in revenue operating income and operating ratio Its the latter that is the real bugaboo Fuller explained It was 955 down from 993 a year earlier The adjusted operating ratio had improved from 985 to 934 In fact Fuller said its the companys best adjusted operating ratio since 1998 But its not good enough Historically there was a 700 basis point worse performance than our peers he told HDT So weve been working on closing that gap and this last quarter was just a continuing of our strategy that has continued to drive overall better operating margins for the organization Deborah Lockridge Read Q A with Eric Fuller at www truckinginfo com EricFuller Q Whats hot in the vocational market right now A Spending in construction both residential and non residential The rates are quite high the dollars being invested are quite significant So that is driving the business very well And I think we are seeing a lot of replacement activity happening with vocational vehicles There were deferred purchases over economic cycles people were holding trucks longer There are some vocational trucks built 30 plus years ago still being used so replacement cycles are a little bit different than for on highway but they are worked hard so there are points where those investments are important for companies that are growing or working to grow Q Both Western Star and Freightliner play in both the vocational and onhighway markets What are the key differentiators A We have some crossover between our products I think whats important is were extremely committed to the vocational marketplace using both Freightliner and Western Star products There are certain regions or relationships with dealers that might lead a customer to one or the other brand but we want to position all our products in our portfolio as an opportunity for customers to buy whatever their need is We believe that we have every single part of that marketplace covered between Freightliner and Western Star Read the full interview at www truckinginfo com carson U S Xpress raised more than 250 million in an initial stock offering in June PHOTO U S XPRESS