Covenant Logistics Group - Earnings Call - Q2 2025

Transcript

Speaker 2

Welcome to today's Covenant Logistics Group Inc. Q2 2025 earnings release and investor conference call. Our host for today's call is Tripp Grant. At this time, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. I would now like to turn the call over to your host. Mr. Grant, you may begin.

Speaker 4

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Covenant Logistics Group Inc.'s second quarter 2025 conference call. As a reminder, this call will contain forward-looking statements under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act, which are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. Please review our SEC filings and most recent risk factors. We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. Our prepared comments and additional financial information are available on our website at www.covenantlogistics.com/investors. Joining me today are CEO David Parker, President Paul Bunn, and COO Justin Kale. Revenue rebounded during the second quarter to a new record high thanks to growing our dedicated fleet, strong new business awards in managed freight, small acquisitions, and a receding impact of weather and avian influenza.

However, margins remain compressed, particularly in our asset-based segments due to an inflationary cost environment, persistently high claims expense, a quarter-inch jump in fuel prices, and continued pressure on volume and yields in our expedited and legacy dedicated segments. During the quarter, we repurchased approximately 1.6 million shares, or 5.7% of the average diluted shares outstanding, for a total cost of $35.2 million. The average price per share repurchased was $22.69. Approximately $13.8 million remains available under our $50 million share repurchase authorization. We retain the full range of capital allocation alternatives based on our current financial profile. Year-over-year highlights for the quarter include consolidated freight revenue increased by 7.8%, or approximately $20 million, to $276.5 million. Consolidated adjusted operating income shrank by 19.6% to $15 million, primarily as a result of year-over-year cost increases within our truckload segment.

Our net indebtedness as of June 30th increased by $49 million to $268.7 million compared to December 31st, 2024, yielding an adjusted leverage ratio of approximately two times and debt-to-capital ratio of 39.2% as a result of executing our share repurchase program and acquisition-related earnout payments. The average age of our tractors at June 30th increased slightly to 22 months compared to 21 months a year ago. On an adjusted basis, return on average invested capital was 7% versus 8% in the prior year. Now, providing a little more color on the performance of the individual business segments, our expedited segment yielded a 93.9% adjusted operating ratio, a result only slightly better than the year-ago quarter. While this result falls short of our expectations for this segment, we were pleased with the year-over-year consistency.

Compared to the prior year, our expedited average fleet size shrunk by 50 units or 5.5% to 860 average tractors in the period. We expect the size of the fleet to flex up and down modestly based on various market factors. As market conditions improve, our focus will be on improving margins through rate increases, exiting less profitable business, and adding more profitable business. Dedicated's 95% adjusted operating ratio improved sequentially, though it fell short of both the prior year and our long-term expectations for this segment. On a positive note, we were successful in growing the dedicated fleet by 162 tractors or approximately 11.7% compared to the prior year and grew freight revenue by $8.3 million or 10.2% compared with the 2024 quarter.

We continue to win new business and specialize in high-service niches within our dedicated segment and reduce exposure to more commoditized end markets where returns have not justified continued investment. Going forward, we remain focused on our strategy of growing our dedicated fleet specifically in areas that provide value-added services for customers. Managed freight exceeded both revenue and profitability expectations for the quarter. We were pleased by the team's ability to bring on new freight, handle overflow freight from expedited, and reduce costs. The quarter benefited from non-recurring business that is expected to roll off during the third quarter. We point out that this segment generally is susceptible to volatility of revenue gains and losses and to margin expansion and compression related to the cost of sourcing capacity during market cycles. Over the longer term, our strategy is to grow and diversify this segment.

We note that an operating margin in the mid-single digits generates an acceptable return in capital given the asset-light nature of this segment. Our warehouse segment experienced gross revenue that was effectively flat to the prior year quarter, but adjusted operating profits fell by approximately 45%. The significant reduction in adjusted operating profit is largely due to facility-related cost increases for which we have not yet been able to negotiate rate increases with our customers, and startup-related costs and inefficiencies related to new business. We anticipate improvements to adjusted margin during the remainder of the year. Our minority investment in Transport Enterprise Leasing contributed a pre-tax net income of $4.3 million for the quarter compared to $4.1 million in the prior year period.

Transport Enterprise Leasing's revenue in the quarter increased by 34% compared to the prior year, primarily by increasing its truck fleet by 429 trucks to 2,635 and increasing its trailer fleet by 866 to 7,880. The revenue increase was largely offset by lower margins on leased revenues and equipment sales due to a soft market. Regarding our outlook for the future, our team is performing well while keeping the pedal down on growth and shifting next toward more contracted, specialized in the high-service niches. Covenant Logistics Group Inc. is one of the few companies in our industry to grow revenue and fleet count year over year, while the combination of tepid general freight market and startup costs and new dedicated accounts, along with inflationary costs, has pressured margins more than we'd like. We see a path to improving fundamentals as the year develops.

Our baseline expectations for the second half of the year include additional startups in our dedicated segment, a slowly improving general freight market, and modest peak season that will benefit expedited and dedicated, and a wide range of outcomes in managed freight. If the general freight market fails to improve, we still expect mix change and seasonality to generate better results in the second half of the year. When the general freight market improves and the typical peak season takes place, we believe leverage exists in our market to capitalize on expedited, certain dedicated accounts, and managed freight.

Regardless of what the remainder of 2025 has in store for us, our team is aligned and focused on continuing to execute on our strategy and plan, which includes a disciplined approach to capital allocation, executing with a high sense of urgency, improving operational leverage as conditions improve, growing our dedicated fleet, and improving our cost profile. Thank you for your time, and we will now open up the call for any questions.

Speaker 2

Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad now. You'll be placed in the queue in the order received. Please be prepared to ask a question when prompted. Once again, if you have a question, please press star one on your phone now. Our first question will come from Scott H. Group with Wolf Research.

Hey, thanks. Good morning. You just talked about, I think, improving or optimism about improving fundamentals in the back half of the year. Maybe just give us some sense of what you're seeing in the market, any sort of customer conversations around peak, any impact from English proficiency enforcement, broad views about how the market's developing.

Speaker 6

Hey, hey, Scott. This is David. Yeah, you know, we are definitely seeing, I believe, some green shoots that are starting to show forth. We, I think we all have been looking forward for three years. The thing is, in three years, I think we all will say there's been two or three times we felt like something was happening that never did quite, you know, have any longevity to it. I do believe there are some opportunities out there in the marketplace today. As I look at bids, as I look at mid-year bids that, you know, people that did bids six months ago that all of a sudden are having some issues on capacity that are starting to come back and want to ask questions.

I'm looking at, not inability, but pricing that is not going down, may not be going up as much as I want or those kinds of things. I don't sense the pressure on rate decreases across the book of business. I do think that some things are happening. I think some things are happening in the capacity side as well, as I look about, as we know some of the things that are going on from English and, you know, English language and those kinds of things that none of us considered saying that it that it's really taking an effect. We're testing some of that on the solution side with the business. It's been kind of ups and downs at the very beginning of it.

They really sensed it and had to say goodbye to some carriers that could not guarantee that they were going to have some English-speaking people. That said, overall, I feel pretty good about what I'm starting to see in the market. I could get real excited if it had not gone down a couple of times in the last three years, Scott.

I understand. You've got a lot of LTL exposure on the expedited side. Maybe just talk about how that business is developing. Any signs of green shoots there, or is that still more challenging?

Yeah. It is. It is. It has been challenging. That's one of the, to be honest with you, one of the surprises that I would say to me in the last few months, the last five months anyway, as we've seen our LTL customers get softer in the marketplace, trying to figure out exactly what that is and what is happening there. We kind of did a study in the last couple of days of all our LTL companies. I'm talking about verbalizing with them. Out of all of them, we've only found a couple of them that will say our business is up. The rest of them are saying we're feeling pressure on volumes. The LTL side of it is concerning of what's going on there.

I will tell you also, though, that's surprising, good too from a good standpoint, is that the air freight side of our business, the consolidation of air freight, I'm seeing some good things happen there that is exciting me. I mean, I think we all see the focus of the government that Trump and the administration has got on AI, and we're sensing that. I mean, we're hauling a lot of servers right now. I'm starting to see transportation-wise what I've been hearing from people verbally about AI. I'm starting to see some of that taking place in some of these data centers that are building out the United States and the servers that we're starting to haul just in the last 30, 45 days that we're really starting to see some opportunity there.

The LTL down, but the air freight side of our business is really, I don't want to say really starting to pick up, but starting to pick up. That's encouraging.

Yeah, that's interesting about the AI stuff and data center maybe finally starting to trump and trade a little bit. Just last one, if I can. How does the big bill impact your thinking about CapEx and spending on trucks? Are you more likely to be buying trucks or buying more trucks now, anything like that?

Speaker 4

I don't know that it changes our plan, Scott, but it sure does help our cash tax obligations for the remainder of this year and, quite honestly, next year. You got to think, I mean, just in a broader sense of the economy, there are a lot of industries, particularly kind of heavy CapEx. I think it could spur some additional freight. I think it could be a catalyst for some additional demand. I look at it as kind of a stimulus that can help with some of that industrial lightness that David was talking to. We talk about our CapEx for the year was planned a little bit lighter than what we had announced in the release. I think what we've seen, fortunately, is the ability to continue to grow our dedicated.

I think we've got some additional dedicated growth opportunities for the tail end of the year, and there's some growth CapEx in our numbers as well for the rest of the year. Generally, we try to stay pretty disciplined to our CapEx plan and adjust it for growth opportunities.

Thank you, guys. Appreciate the time.

Speaker 6

Thanks, Scott.

Speaker 2

Our next question will come from Daniel Robert Imbro with Stevens.

Speaker 1

Yeah, good morning. Thanks for the question.

Hey, David. Over to you, Daniel.

Professor was one. Maybe I'm going to get that started there. We saw some stronger actual growth in truck count this quarter. It's good to see that, I guess. Can you talk about what drove that? Maybe what part of dedicated business you were able to grow here in the second quarter? Just tie into that, you know, how are you thinking about poultry for the back half of the year? Is there any avian influenza still kind of out there that you're hearing from the field? I just know the back half is important for that poultry business. Would love an update there on that as well.

Speaker 6

Hey, Daniel. Paul. Yeah, the avian influenza is all but gone. You know, that season is generally more mid-fall to mid-winter, and so that's gone. Fingers crossed we don't experience anything like we did last year on that front. Yeah, the growth in the dedicated count was a function of really two things: a small kind of tuck-in acquisition, really small, you know, 60, 70 truck kind of deal on some specialized business, as well as growth in poultry. Yeah. I would say the legacy dedicated business was flattest. We saw a little bit of decline in that in Q1, and that business was flattish for Q2, hence the truck growth in the quarter.

Got it. That's helpful.

As far as maybe you asked about balance of the year, I'd probably say flat to incrementally up. I think we do have some startups that are signed and planned. I also know of a few small reductions. On the balance, I think it'll be flat to slightly up for the balance of the year.

Speaker 1

That's helpful. Appreciate that, Paul. Maybe a true professional kind of follow-up question. Just looking at the model, you know, revenue per miles have done a little bit one Q to two Q, but if I marry that with David's comments earlier, it sounds like things are actually getting better and pricing is still okay. Can you maybe just walk through kind of what happened in the quarter there optically and then how we think about that trajectory into the back half of the year?

Speaker 4

Yeah, I think what you're seeing in revenue per mile, whether you're looking at it sequentially or whether you're looking at it on a year-over-year basis, we have had some rate increases, particularly on our expedited services segment. I think what you're seeing is a significant change in business mix. If you're looking at our total truckload operations and you're reducing 50 trucks out of our expedited fleet, and I'll just use round numbers that are putting 200,000 miles on a truck per year and inherently have a lower rate per total mile, if you will, and then you're adding in these low short-haul mileage trucks in our dedicated fleet and significantly growing that, you're going to see some distortion on the rate per mile. Not to add chaos to confusion, but the dedicated business isn't just pure line haul stuff. It has fixed and variable costs.

It's drilled per load, and there's some weight pieces to it. You just can't really look at the number of miles they ran when you have a changing mix in the fleet, I would say. The other thing I would say, if you're looking at it sequentially, all of the shutdowns and the weather created a little bit of a bump in deadhead, and it created some noise in the first quarter. It's hard to follow from Q1 to Q2. When we were out here talking about some rate increases, it would be particularly in expedited services. There was some out-of-route miles, and it kind of creates some issues where it makes the rate per total mile look a little wonky. I think for the rest of the year, we're probably going to be looking at flat absent some sort of short-term catalyst, which I think the thing is turning.

I just don't know how quick it's turning. I'd be hesitant to make a call.

Speaker 6

If it does turn, it's going up.

Speaker 4

Yeah, we've got some leverage when it does turn. We're just waiting on that day to happen.

Speaker 1

Yeah, all makes sense. I'll focus with you, David. You mentioned you did a small tuck-in this quarter on the dedicated side. Just curious how the M&A backdrop is evolving as we navigate this prolonged downturn, but we're coming off the bottom. Are you seeing the frequency of deals coming across your desk picking up at all, Tripp?

Speaker 4

First of all, the tuck-in acquisition was done on the really back end of last quarter. We mentioned it in the release last quarter. It was a small one. It fit well, and it was a tuck-in and really interesting type of business and interesting type of non-poultry-related freight or non-ag-related freight. I think it's interesting. The deal market ebbs and flows, and I think we're in kind of a situation over the last couple of months where a couple of interesting things have cropped our desk or cropped our paths that have made it to a level where we're talking about them, that fit what we do. I think the key to us is sticking to what we've done historically and just being disciplined in our working our plan and being disciplined with our capital and making sure that we're allocating it appropriately.

It definitely has, it feels like it has picked up with some interesting opportunities. There's always things floating out there, but the last two or three months, I've noticed some things that have been particularly interesting, I'd say.

Speaker 1

Great. Appreciate all the color, and thanks a lot, guys.

Speaker 6

Thanks.

Speaker 4

All right. Thanks, Daniel.

Speaker 2

We'll move next to Jeffrey Asher Kauffman with Vertical Research Partners.

Speaker 3

Hey, good morning, everybody. How are you?

Speaker 4

Hey, good.

Hey.

Speaker 3

There are a lot of questions for us already here, so I've got one detailed question and one big picture question here. Question for Tripp. You bought back 1.5 million shares. The shares sequentially changed by only half a million. What's a good number to think of in terms of third-quarter shares outstanding?

Speaker 4

I mean, remember our average, here's what I would say. The shares that are presented in our financial information are an average. I think you can, the $1.5 and $1.6 million that we repurchased over the course of the quarter, you'll see them be completely out of the Q3 results. You could basically take where we landed in Q1 or at the end of Q1, reduce it by $1.5 or $1.6 million, and then that's probably going to be a close run rate. There's not a lot of vestings or anything like that or diluted share influences that are going to materially impact that number or that math, if you will, on your reconciliation.

Speaker 3

Okay. An overly simple way to think about it is you had 27.2 million shares average for the second quarter. Would something in the 26 to 26.2 range be kind of a fair target in terms of where that third-quarter average is likely to be? That's following any other activity.

Speaker 4

Yeah, I think that's pretty spot on. It may move up and down a little bit, but 26 to is probably a good number.

Speaker 3

Okay, thanks. Question for David and Paul. If I take a couple of steps back and look at the bigger picture of the freight environment and where we think we're probably going over the next year or two, right now we're looking at kind of a 95% OR in expedited. We're kind of around a 96% OR in dedicated. Where do you think these should be in the longer run when the market's stabilized? When I think about the dedicated business, you mentioned the avian flu is gone, but that impact to the franchise still kind of lingers around. As these businesses heal and the market's normalized, where should those margins go?

Speaker 6

Yeah, this is David. Great, great questions. I would sum up a couple of things on this. One, that particular question is in an overall summary that, from the big picture standpoint, I really think that expedited is, depending upon the market, it's an 83 to 93 operation. It's 83 to 93 depending upon the market. I think it's, when it is stinking like it has been the last couple of years. Now, keep in mind, some of us on this call will remember that in points that I'm saying there, that used to be 93 to 103. It used to be a 92 to 102 kind of number back in 2015, 2014, those kind of days. We have probably dropped it by a strong five, six points. I do believe that expedited is 83 to 93 depending upon the market.

I believe that our dedicated is going to, the first goal that we got there is to get back down into the low 90s. I think that is very, very possible. As I think about dedicated, as we all know, our poultry division is in the 80s, to give you an idea. We all know that. It's in the 80s. The flu hurt it into the low 90s, but it's a solid, mid to high 80s kind of number. We want to improve that, and it will improve. We have grown that segment so fast and so rapidly, and I still see continued growth in that. It costs money to go out here and grow these things, even for this repositioning equipment all over the country in order to do that. Internally, I would tell you that you give me 84 to 86 on poultry, and I'm a happy guy.

I think that that's where it's going to be as long as we're going to be growing by, I mean, we have tripled that business. It's a big operation that we've got there. We continue to make good headway on the legacy dedicated side of our business. No doubt, it's operating to equal 95. It's operating in the high 90s in order to operate there. What has happened on that, and it's getting closer, I believe, to maybe it gets to 94 kind of numbers, a lot of two things happen. A lot of commoditized business has left. I still think out of on that legacy, out of 800, 900 trucks in there, I think we still got a couple of hundred trucks that are commoditized that have to be dealt with eventually.

I also think that the business that we lost in that, over the last couple of years in the legacy dedicated, as we all know, two things happen. Commoditized ruins your rate, and that's not what any of us want to be in, is a commoditized, any kind of commoditized business, what we've ran from for so long. Another one is that the ones that are operating extremely well in the last couple of years, the pressure, when that contract's up, that pressure gets there. Let's just say those companies, those businesses that are operating in the low 80s, and they were and they are, those kind of things, an acceptable return, all of a sudden the contract expires and you either lose it or it.

Speaker 4

Goes down to 5.

Speaker 6

It goes to a 95. You got legacy commoditized as well as the good ones. That's the thing on the legacy side that we've been dealing with for the last three years. I think it starts healing itself as we go forward, especially when the market gets a little bit tighter. That's what's going on with expedited. I think expedited is, we still believe it's high 80s to low 90s together, everything together. I think that's where we will end up at. We just may need some help from a strengthening of the economy or less capacity. Hopefully, that gave you a big picture on those two, Dale.

Speaker 3

No, that was really, really helpful. Scott Group kind of hinted at this, but let me come back to it. You know, listen, the one gripe, I think, this industry's had for two to three years is words of volume, right? We've been waiting for that volume catalyst to tighten up the market, you know, because capacity is just not coming out as fast as it needs to. Do you believe that between the consumer, benefits to disposable income, and some of the industrial incentives that are out there on capital investment and manufacturing, could the one big beautiful bill be that volume catalyst the industry's waited for, or do you think it's something else?

Speaker 6

I think there's a couple of things. First of all, the big beautiful bill there, I want that Donald Trump is going to get this economy going nicely. I do believe that. I think he will die before he doesn't get there. I think the entire government's focus is there. I do believe that we're going to start seeing 3% to 4% GDP kind of numbers. I was with housing folks yesterday, in the floor covering business, and they're just basically waiting for interest rates to drop on the housing. They think the backlog is gigantic as soon as people can afford the payment. We see the battle going on in Washington with the Federal Reserve on the interest rates. I think there's a lot of catalysts because he will win.

Whether that's Trump, whether that's in November, October, or next March, he's going to win that battle, and those interest rates are going to go down, and housing is going to improve. I think that those are some of the catalysts that are there, as well as capacity is leaving. It has not left as fast as what all of us would like to see capacity leaving for, it's been very stubborn and those kind of things, but capacity is leaving. You can see it in the Class A truck orders. Nobody is buying a bunch of trucks. It's just a matter of time. I think that whatever number you want to use, 3% to 3.5% GDP with Class A truck orders being down and exits being up, even though maybe not the number I want, that is going to show up in continents of business.

Whether that's three months from now, I believe, and my guess is as good as anybody and yours is as good as mine, I think it's the October kind of timeframe that we will start seeing capacity really start to tighten because we're starting to sense it as we speak right now.

Speaker 3

That was a terrific thought answer. Thank you very much. Those are my questions.

Speaker 2

As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, you may signal by pressing star one at this time. Our next question will come from Elliot Andrew Alper with Covenant Logistics Group Inc.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Colin. Thanks. This is Elliot Andrew Alper for Jason Seidel. Maybe going back to dedicated margins, improving in the back half of the year. You spoke about some additional startups. Is that margin drag quantifiable at all? I guess trying to think about core dedicated trends, maybe some of the expectations into what a modest peak season looks like, especially given some trade policy that might swing what a normalized peak might look like.

Speaker 0

Yeah, let me break it down for you a little bit, Elliot. I think that, yeah, dedicated margin got better from Q1 to Q2. I think dedicated margin could get slightly better from Q2 to Q3. Wherever it gets in Q3, that'll probably be where it'll be because Q4 with the holidays, you know, Thanksgiving and Christmas, it actually always pressures dedicated margins. I think you'll see dedicated get a little better Q2 to Q3, and then, you know, it could be flat at the back a little bit in Q4. On the expedited side, you know, you're talking about the peak season. If some of the things David talks about come to pass and, you know, October things start tightening, you know, we did see a little bit of peak last year.

You could see an uptick in, you know, our rates and tightness in that kind of in that fourth quarter on the expedited side. If we experience that, and nothing tells us that it's going to be looser than it was last year, especially with the tax policy and maybe what GDP might do, you think it'd be better than it was last year, then I think you could see expedited actually get a little better in the fourth quarter.

Speaker 1

Okay, very helpful. Maybe you could follow up on that within dedicated. You spoke to value-added services for customers. Curious to get your thoughts on thinking what that could look like.

Speaker 0

Yeah, I mean, I think we're just getting, we're continuing to try to diversify on the dedicated side, you know, out of those commoditized end markets. That takes time. Here's what you know is that every time, specialty businesses that are harder generally have better margins than stuff that's not specialized. Over time, I think you'll continue to see that margin improve as we work that plan. That's going to kind of be a slow, steady plan, not a not a prickle to switch kind of deal.

Speaker 1

Thank you, guys.

Speaker 3

Elliot, just to add to that, all of this prolonged down cycle, if you will, has, if it's done one thing, it's created a lot of competition within traditional dedicated, drive-in dedicated. There is a lot of capacity flooding into that. Adding to Paul's comments and part of our strategy is to figure out ways basically how to differentiate ourselves, whether it's hauling different things like live haul or feed or using different equipment or doing different things that require driver credentials or that are just difficult, high service requirement type things. Those are the type of areas that we're trying to penetrate.

The more commoditized stuff is the stuff that we're going to have, as we think about capital allocation long term, those are the types of things that are going to be, we're going to have to leave those behind because they may have been considered nifty or kind of dedicated and high margin at one time. I do think it's becoming more and more competitive, and I don't know if it'll ever come back to where it was. We're having to adjust our plan and adjust our sights on some of that more specialized stuff to help us stay ahead of the game.

Speaker 1

Thanks, Tripp.

Speaker 2

Our next question will come from David Floyd with Chattanooga Times.

Hey, thanks for taking my questions. I was hoping you could elaborate on the factors that led to the record revenues you guys saw in the second quarter of this year.

Speaker 4

Yeah, you know, we've been really blessed. I mean, David, this freight economy has been terrible for three years, and we've had the benefit of being able to grow our dedicated freight and our total trucks. You know, unlike any time in company history, we've been able to kind of sustain our margin and sustain our expedited business. Our managed freight, which is an asset-light business, has continued to grow organically. We did have some surge freight in the quarter that helped, whether you're looking at it on a year-over-year or a sequential basis, but that happens in that segment. I think it'll be up again year-over-year in the third quarter. Who knows? It can be impacted by peak in the fourth quarter and additional business adds. We're seeing a lot of opportunities there. Organic growth in warehousing has helped.

The combination of the two big drivers of the growth year-over-year are going to be the dedicated segment and that growth, I would say, of 162 units, net in that segment. Basically, your managed freight, which grew almost $18 million year-over-year. We're excited about it, and we like the direction of the company, especially where we're going, especially in an environment that is really, really tough to grow.

I was curious about what the effects of the English proficiency requirements are on recruitment of drivers. I mean, industry-wide, but also at Covenant Logistics Group Inc.

Speaker 6

That's not been a problem, David, because they had to pass it. We've never been there where we would not allow them to come to work. We've always had to have English-speaking abilities and drivers, so that's not a problem with us. Really, from our standpoint and for the carriers that do not have that issue or do not employ those drivers that can't speak English, anything that comes out is something that we've been talking about on the reduction of capacity that will help the industry.

Gotcha. Last thing I had was, Jeff, and you were talking about how, you know, there's an interest space where the interest rates will come down, which will, I guess, encourage more people to start, you know, buying homes, and that could be good for the industry. I was hoping you could just kind of elaborate on just like the outlook for the freight market going forward under Trump's economy.

The higher the GDP is, the more freight there's going to be. The lower interest rates are, the more it's going to help housing. There's probably 20 truckloads of freight for every house that gets built. To give you an idea, if you get into flatbeds and looks, I think it's probably more than that. It's just a big nucleus of freight for the housing industry. The better the economy, the more freight that's going to be available for all of us. That's really the two things that we look at.

Gotcha. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Speaker 2

If you would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star one at this time. We'll pause for just a moment to allow everyone an opportunity to signal. It appears there are no further questions at this time. Mr. Grant, I'll turn the conference back to you.

Speaker 6

I want to say add on a little bit about the big picture that we were talking about a little while ago. I want to make sure that I look at our company to what we've done. This team, I am so thrilled and so proud of what this team has done. They've done an excellent job, especially when you look at the last three years' environment that the whole trucking industry has been in. We've excelled much better than virtually any peer that we've got out there. They're in the most difficult environment in trucking history, that this team has done great. I look at that, and I look at things that I believe are going to get better. The thing that I love about this, because this has been since 2018, we're on a seven-year journey now of taking our company and transforming our company, tremendously since 2018.

The model that we're sitting here talking about and raising all the various questions around expedited and dedicated and freight management and warehousing, et cetera, that's exactly what we wanted. What we are seeing is taking place is what we've been working on for the last since 2018, so the last eight years. It's exciting to me because I look and I say, you know, when something is up, one of the other ones are coming stronger. When one is down, the other ones are pulling it up. That is something that is happening in our model tremendously. Expedited, I take a freight management. We're all happy about the second quarter on freight management. They did a great job. Let me tell you, a lot of that, some of that, or a percentage of that is because of the overflow from expedited. I look at expedited.

We had a discussion about it. 93 OR in expedited. I think it's 83 to 93 is where expedited can go at. Because of something that 93, the high end of a number that I want, but managed freight did extremely well. They had to give them a lot. I mean, it was a lot of freight because of the network, because expedited is working in a network in this economy that can be up and can be down. The network can be sluggish from one area, strong in another area. They may not have the trucks available in those areas that are strong here. They give it over to the managed freight. That has helped managed freight tremendously in the second quarter. What ends up happening is that expedited, as freight continues to get stronger, we talked about LTL.

As LTL gets stronger, the network for expedited will get better. It will get stricter, and rates will be better. Detail will go down, rates will go up, utilization will go up. Now, expedited will perform better. The worst part of that is that they won't be throwing over as much freight over to managed freight, and therefore, managed freight will go down a little bit. That's what I love about what I'm seeing in our model. I just want to make sure that everybody recognizes that because that's powerful, and it's this team that has done this throughout our company. Another thing that does drive me crazy, and you know our industry has got to get help on this, is the insurance. Don looked for the last four years; this is our fourth year that we're trying to set a record on station.

The last three years, the previous three years have been record. We've beat it every year for the last three years, and we're working on trying to beat it again this year for the fourth year in a row. We're also putting inward-facing cameras. As we speak, we got in about 700 trucks today. We're continuously looking and working, and the results are there on station. I look at our cost on insurance. It has almost doubled since COVID. It's telling you that something's not right. We've got to get tort reform. We got a couple of accidents I'm concerned about. I don't know where it's going to go. We'll figure out where it's going to go, but tort reform has got to happen. The American Trucking Association is working extremely hard on tort reform, but it's got to happen in our industry. I don't know.

As I look at the big picture, I think that we have done a great job. I will question whether we've been rewarded for that great job from Wall Street or not, but that's your questions and your answers. I'm proud of the team. I hope that we gave you all a big overall big picture of how I feel. I think that's it.

Speaker 3

All right. Thank you everyone for joining us today. We look forward to speaking with you again in the third quarter. Thank you.

Speaker 2

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you.