Forward Air - Earnings Call - Q4 2017
February 8, 2018
Transcript
Speaker 0
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining Forward Air Corporation's Fourth Quarter of twenty seventeen Earnings Release Conference Call. Before we begin, I'd like to point out that both the press release and the webcast presentation for this call are accessible on the Investor Relations section of Forward Air's website at www.forwardaircorp.com. With us this morning are Chairman, President and CEO, Bruce Campbell and Senior Vice President and CFO, Mike Morris. By now, you should have received the press release announcing our 2017 results, which were furnished to the SEC on Form eight ks on the wire yesterday after the market close. Please be aware that during this conference call, we will be making forward looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements, among others, regarding company's outlook for the first quarter and 2018.
These statements are based on current information and our current expectations. As such, they are subject to risks and other factors that may cause actual operation and results to differ materially from the results discussed in the forward looking statements. For additional information concerning these risks and factors, please refer to our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission and the press release and webcast presentation relating to this earnings call. The company undertakes no obligation to update any forward looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Today's presentation will include non GAAP financial measures, including adjusted income from operation, adjusted income before taxes, adjusted income taxes, adjusted net income and adjusted diluted earnings per share.
These non GAAP financial measures exclude those items that we believe affect comparability. A reconciliation of these non GAAP financial measures to their respective GAAP measures is set forth in our fourth quarter twenty seventeen earnings press release. Now I'll turn the call to Senior Vice President and CFO of Forward Air, Mike Morris.
Speaker 1
Thank you, Justin, and good morning to everyone on the call. Before we get to Q and A, we would like to update you on a few strategic and other items. On the strategy front, our LTL group is continuing to make investments in drivers and expanded capacity to provide our current customers with dependable, expedient and readily available freight movements. To grow its customer base, our LTL team has also begun serving the expedited segment of the 3PL market, which we believe is a $2,000,000,000 addressable opportunity. It's still very early stages, but we have implemented local pickup and delivery at the terminals that will initially participate in this initiative.
And we have our tariffs loaded in roughly 150 transportation management systems. We're excited about being in a position to provide sustained service to our current customers while penetrating the 3PL market to selectively supplement our existing density with heavier weight shipments. Our Truckload business is implementing the McLeod operating system, which will help us grow by improving our load visibility and real time decision making. The dry van business in our Truckload group has been migrated to McLeod and we've begun to convert the refrigerated business. We are also enhancing our focus on growing our non pharmaceutical refrigerated offerings as we see a strong secular growth trend for this mode.
Our intermodal group has completed the integration of Atlantic and Kansas City Logistics. We are now a top 10 drayage provider with an annualized revenue run rate of $175,000,000 We have a strategic roadmap of organic and inorganic investments, which we believe can grow this business to a $250,000,000 run rate in the next two to four years. Finally, while our pool distribution group continues to strengthen its position in retail where it does all of its business, we are also exploring other verticals where this final mile distribution model makes sense, such as healthcare, hospitality and parts distribution. In total, we believe that these initiatives will broaden and strengthen our premium service footprint and enable us to become a larger, wider reaching asset light freight and logistics company. Regarding capital allocation, we repurchased $50,000,000 of stock in 2017, reducing our fully diluted share count by 1.4% and took our leverage up to a quarter turn of EBITDA.
Over time, we will continue to buy back stock because we believe in our growth initiatives. We will also look to optimize our capital structure by carrying a more permanent level of debt, which we do not expect will exceed one turn of EBITDA. Concerning the new tax law, our fourth quarter tax provision reflects a discrete deferred tax benefit of $15,800,000 related to the Federal Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. This benefit is driven by the remeasurement of our net deferred tax liability, which itself was created by accelerated tax depreciation and amortization on our tangible and intangible assets. Adjusting for this discrete benefit, we estimate that our fourth quarter book tax rate would have otherwise been 31.4%.
For 2018, we currently estimate that our book tax rate will be 25% and that our free cash flow will improve roughly $15,000,000 as a result of the lower rate. While this is a very welcomed improvement, it is not large enough to motivate a specific change in our capital spending and capital allocation plans. As a reference point, in the past, we have seen quarterly working capital swings of this magnitude. As we mentioned on our third quarter call, the standard for revenue recognition has changed 18. We expect a slight impact on our line haul revenue as we are now recognizing this revenue based upon a percent complete concept as opposed to the when delivered approach that we used previously.
Regarding our fuel surcharge revenue, the new standard requires that we report this revenue gross of the fuel cost, whereas previously we largely reported it on a net basis. This change will increase our fuel revenue and our fuel cost by the same amount, which will have no impact on operating income. Our total revenue, however, will increase, which will in turn cause our operating margin to decline. We expect that our margin will be 50 to 100 basis points lower than it would have otherwise been under the previous accounting rules. One final item before we wrap up our prepared remarks.
We're planning to modify the business unit operating statistics that we disclose in our quarterly earnings releases, starting with our first quarter twenty eighteen release in April. These changes will conform our disclosed operating information to the type of operating statistics that are disclosed by other public companies in the comparable sets for each of our business units. Where we don't have a good public company comp, we will include additional operating information to enhance our disclosures. With that, Justin, let's open the line for Q and A.
Speaker 0
Certainly, thank you. And we do ask you to or suggest that you ask as many follow-up questions relevant to your question as you can and that you only queue up once. First, it looks like we have the line of Jack Atkins of Stephens. Your line is open.
Speaker 2
Hey guys, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions.
Speaker 3
Good morning.
Speaker 2
So I guess Bruce, if we can sort of start out and talk about the expedited LTL business. You referenced higher purchase trans costs in the quarter, which I don't think is that surprising given what we've seen in the freight markets. But can you just sort of talk about the percentage of your miles there that are outside versus on your own or operators? And then sort of how we should be thinking about that as we move through the year? Are there any specific initiatives that you guys are going to be sort of going after to help reduce that number?
Speaker 3
Yes. Let me have Mike give you the exact number. Sure.
Speaker 1
Mike. Yes, Jack. So in the fourth quarter, brokered power was 21.8% of miles
Speaker 3
relative to 10.6% in the prior year fourth quarter. And let me kind of run with that. What we look for and what we expect from our team is to get that number between 810%. If you look historically, that's where we've been. Sometimes a little bit better, sometimes a little bit worse, but never quite as high.
The initiative to improve that is unbelievably all encompassing. We have every person in our company working on adding drivers. That's very difficult to do in the fourth quarter, but in the first quarter we've had some reasonable success and we see that momentum building. And every time we add more and more owner operators, then we're able to drive that number down. So as we go forward in the year, we expect that to go back to normal ranges.
Forward Air, especially our Expedite LTL group, is an ideal place for an owner operator. No loading or unloading, etcetera. So we really look forward to a lot of success there.
Speaker 2
Okay. Okay. That's helpful. And then sort of thinking big picture about, Bruce, the freight markets as you're seeing them today. Obviously, you've got a lot of experience in the industry overall.
And certainly, it seems like the last six months have been really unusual in terms of how rapidly the markets have recovered off of what was a pretty soft base overall. And so sort of as you're thinking about spillover truckload into LTL and how that may impact plus the secular growth story of e commerce and demand for expedited transportation overall, how are you thinking sort of bigger picture about demand for your expedited services in expedite LTL services in 2018?
Speaker 3
So if you take forty five years of experience, I've never seen a market flip like this one did in the 2017. I've never seen this type of a market where the carrier is in a position or an advantage is a better way to put it, since the regulation of the Motor Carrier Act back in, what, 1981. It's unbelievable, the change that's going on. All of that having been said, the market's very good now, very frothy. We've had a very strong start to the year.
We're very pleased with it, and we think that continues. And then if you add on to that what Mike said in his opening comments about our entree into the expedited side of 3PLs, we think we're poised for a really good year.
Speaker 2
Okay. That's great to hear. We've seen fuel move up quite a bit, not just year over year, but I guess as you look back over the last six months. I know there's a lot of leverage in your Exped LTL business to fuel both positively and negatively as it moves higher. It's a positive, I think, historically.
How should we think about the fuel surcharge impact to the business today versus a year ago? Is that tailwind to profitability?
Speaker 3
Yes. Yes, the quick answer is yes.
Speaker 2
Got you. Last question, I'll turn it over. I don't want to hog all the time. But when we think about expedited truckload, obviously, a very challenging quarter there. It's been a challenging several quarters there.
What can you do to improve the profitability there? It seems like there's going to be an opportunity to drive higher rates as we go through bid season this year. And what impact do think that could have on the operating income of your expedited truckload business in '20 Well,
Speaker 3
we're hoping it's going to have a very positive impact. We really ran into the same issues a lot of other people have run into. One is you have long term contracts that are very difficult to flip quickly. And then you have the other side of that equation where this is an important customer or customers. We don't want to go in gouging.
We want to have a long term strategic relationship with them. But at some point you've to say, This doesn't work. And so our team has gone out. We are as rapidly as we can repricing. In a few instances, we've had to walk away from business.
So to get truckload expedites really where they need to be, that's number one. Number two is obviously we've got to bring on more of our own power because the purchase power is very expensive. So those are their two initiatives. It's never fun to have to fight back from this type of position, but the other side of that is it's very clear what they have to do, and it's very achievable.
Speaker 2
Okay. And then just following up on that quickly.
Speaker 3
No, you said that was your last one.
Speaker 2
Well, know, I'm a sales analyst, so I've always got to stretch it, Bruce. So just following up on that though, when would you expect to see the contractual rate renewals really start to bear fruit in the P and L? Would it be more like the second quarter? We'll Do you think we see something in the first
see
Speaker 3
it in the first quarter.
Speaker 2
Okay. Thank you again for the time.
Speaker 3
Thank you.
Speaker 0
Next we have the line of Bruce Chan of Stifel. Your line is open.
Speaker 4
Yes. Thank you, operator, and good morning, gentlemen.
Speaker 3
Morning.
Speaker 4
A few questions from me here. First, since this may be our last opportunity to get these stats from you guys on the equipment side, I see that LTL company power followed the trend that it's been following for the last couple of years and declined. But then on the leased equipment side, it looks like you've more than quadrupled there over the last year and nearly doubled sequentially. Can you maybe talk about what's driving the decision versus or to lease versus own? I'm assuming these are operating leases and that you're not getting bonus D benefit there.
And you expect to be shifting the mix towards the leases here?
Speaker 3
The big thing that decision that when we make lease versus owned is not, you know, can we afford a truck because obviously we can. But our concern is the maintenance of that truck. We don't want to go out and invest in 50 maintenance facilities at our existing facilities across The U. S. So as we get more and more into the PU and D side of the business, our decision was the best way to go at this moment, and this could change, is with leased vehicles so that we don't have to be concerned with maintenance.
Speaker 4
I think that makes a lot of sense. And just a follow-up to that, I don't know whether you can disclose whether your provider is Ryder or Penske or someone else there?
Speaker 3
No, I really don't want to do that.
Speaker 4
Fair enough. Then just my final question here. Given how strong the peak season seems to have been in terms of retail and then some of your efforts over the past year or so to focus on operating leverage in pool, I guess I'm a little surprised that the performance wasn't a bit better there. It looks like some of the cost increases were fairly proportional across the board. So was there anything in particular that was maybe driving the costs higher?
Speaker 3
He had one extraordinary expense. Mike touched on it in his notes, where we had an unusual disposal cost of old equipment. And then he had a couple of other unusual things go on in the quarter. So while that's disappointing, the fundamentals of the business remain the same.
Speaker 1
And just to put Bruce, just to put some numbers around that, the equipment disposal charge was about $350,000 And the other unusual item is we had about $300,000 of adverse development for some legacy vehicle liability claims from a prior year. Those are the some numbers around the two things that Bruce is referring to.
Speaker 4
Great. That's very helpful. Thank you both.
Speaker 3
Thank you.
Speaker 0
Next we have the line of Ben Hartford with Baird. Your line is open.
Speaker 5
Hey, good morning guys. Mike, maybe I could come back to your prepared remarks. There was a comment I think you had made about operating margins 50 to 100 basis points lower. Is that specific to expedited LTL? Or is that overall?
What was that in reference to?
Speaker 1
Overall.
Speaker 5
Overall margin. And when we think about this, is it fair to say safe to assume that the impact is going to be well, that 50 to 100 basis points drag, is that applicable to expedited LTL as well?
Speaker 1
Yes. I mean, actually applies to all four segments, obviously in different proportions. With expedited LTL and the nature of its fuel surcharge, that's probably the biggest impact we'll see from a segment perspective, but it does exist in various varying degrees across the other segments.
Speaker 5
Sure. Okay. So just focusing on expedited LTL and operating leverage there, you've got this accounting change, but profit underlying profit assumptions are no different. Can you level set what you think an appropriate margin profile, maybe peak to trough is in that segment now? We've had a number of things change over the past several years with the inclusion of Towne, you've got Complete in there.
So and then you've got this accounting change. It feels like from a decade ago, a lot's changed relative to the high watermarks. How do you think about the margin profile peak to trough in expedited LTL? And maybe envelop some of the initiatives that you had alluded to as well and how we should think about mix there too?
Speaker 1
Well, think the incremental margin profile for expedited LTL is going to be similar to what it's been over the past few years. While there is an accounting change with respect to grossing up fuel, when you see our releases going forward, starting with the first quarter, the prior period will be shown pro form a for the accounting effects. So when you look at the two periods next to each other, you will have an apples to apples. You just don't right now until we get to the conclusion of our first quarter. Expedited LTL is bigger.
It's more exposed to the macros than it was historically. But it still has the potential to put out a 30%, 40% operating margin in a good environment. And especially as we start to make some headway in the 3PL and other initiatives we have that should bring up the weight per shipment, I think you'll continue to see the same potential for incremental profitability quarter on quarter for expedited LTL.
Speaker 5
You said 30% to 40%, I assume that's incrementals?
Speaker 1
Yes. So I mean, you look historically, I'll look at Bruce a little bit. I think the zone of incremental marginality is, call it, 15 to 45%. I mean, it depends on how many things you can get right in a given quarter. But if you look back to the for example, the 2016, the business put up like an 82.8 OR.
I mean, those conditions still exist today. There isn't anything fundamentally different that would prevent the business unit from doing that. It's just a it's a bigger business unit now, and so the macros matter a lot more than they might have five or ten years ago.
Speaker 3
So let me add to that Ben. Really we're looking at two issues within the expedite group. One is recruiting drivers and getting our purchased transportation down, which is really as high as it's ever been. And we're starting to see that occur. So the good news is we don't have a bunch of problems.
We only have one problem, and we're totally focused on that. The further good news is the growth is beyond all expectations. I mean, they're doing a terrific job. And that's going to really bear fruit, especially when you look at the incremental margin it brings on.
Speaker 5
And Bruce, that problem that you alluded to, near term pressure on the PT side, that's a solve, that's a temporary, that's a timing issue problem, right? It's not anything fundamental or structural.
Speaker 3
No, you're absolutely right.
Speaker 5
Yeah. The growth opportunity, Mike, maybe just provide a little bit of context or update in terms of how you expect the cadence of the development of the expedited portion of the more classic LTL market to develop. What's reasonable to expect in 2018? And you alluded to the $2,000,000,000 market size. How will you judge success over a, I don't know, three to five year period?
Speaker 1
I think we'll judge success by seeing our weight per shipment trends increase. We're expecting given the regionalization of supply chain to have our length of shipment decline over time assuming that secular trend continues. So if we have weight per shipment growing from getting selectively bringing in some heavier weight shipments into the network, that should help counter that from a yield perspective and help keep a good margin profile for the business. Internally, we'll be looking at the traction we're getting as we enter this currently largely unaddressed market and seeing that we get the kind of heavier weight shipments that we're looking for.
Speaker 5
Okay. Two more. Bruce, you bought you obviously bought Talon a couple of years ago, but in a difficult environment. The legacy I don't know if that's the appropriate term, I'll use it, the legacy expedited LTL kind of core airport to airport market. I think the dynamics there are well known.
You guys are a market leader, but growth has been relatively constrained. So the question there is, do you feel like that there's untapped potential from the Town acquisition that you can realize now that the underlying industry fundamental backdrop is better, one? And two, what is a reasonable market growth rate for that legacy airport to airport business?
Speaker 3
Well, between you and I, I don't even think about town anymore. It's just not relevant. We've got that behind us. So we look strictly at what you said in the second part of your question, what can we do, what are we able to achieve as we move forward. What was at one time what we considered to be a very slow growing market has changed.
And part of that's obviously due to the macros, part of it's due to kind of the change in the supply chain process. So we're excited about what we can do. That's further supported by what we did in January, which from a weather standpoint was kind of a tough month. So where we kind of dismissed and dismissed is probably the wrong word, where we deemphasized the LTL expedited growth in the past, it's absolutely at the top of our list.
Speaker 5
Good. Last one on the acquisition front, Mike, an update here. You talked about having completed integrated the two deals on the intermodal side. What's the pipeline look like there on the intermodal side specifically?
Speaker 1
We think there's a pipeline of upwards of 3 to $400,000,000 of potential revenue. I mean M and A is a little fickle as you know, hard to predict. But the pipeline is what it was previously minus the two deals we got done.
Speaker 5
So just to finalize that, so 300 to $400,000,000 you talked about kind of adding $75,000,000 in revenue in aggregate over the next two to four years. Obviously, that pipeline far exceeds that. So is that just potential prospects and you feel like the likelihood of being able to drive that incremental $75,000,000 is high, but the addressable set is much bigger? Is that how we should think about that?
Speaker 3
Yes. And remember, once you buy it, you have to integrate it. So that takes a little bit of time. But if things go as we expect, we think we can do better than the $75,000,000 because we have such a good team at Intermodal and they're very capable of doing it. So that's a lowball, a conservative, and we think there's more obviously based on what Mike said in terms of what we've identified.
Speaker 5
Perfect. Thanks for the time guys.
Speaker 3
You're welcome.
Speaker 0
Next we have the line of Kevin Sterling of CP Global Securities. Your line is open.
Speaker 6
Thank you. Good morning Bruce and Mike.
Speaker 3
Hey good morning.
Speaker 6
Just following up on the M and A question. Are you seeing valuations move up as well? Or are they kind of stay where they were maybe a quarter or two ago?
Speaker 3
I haven't seen a noticeable change. Still opportunities and evaluations kind of fluctuate. It depends greatly on the company and the deal. So it's really hard. It's not as bad as it was, what, ten years ago when it was twelve and thirteen times unless you have a really stupid buyer.
So it's reasonable is what where I would put it.
Speaker 1
And Kevin, thing that hasn't changed is our discipline around value. That's unchanged.
Speaker 6
Good, good. No, no, you guys have always kind of stuck to your knitting. So that's good to hear. Bruce, you mentioned you guys walking away from some business just because it wasn't priced right or when you try to raise prices, the customer balked. But kind of given the tight capacity environment and I've heard some instances, I'm just curious if you're seeing this, are you maybe seeing some of these customers come back like, hey, let's talk again because we just can't find capacity?
Are you getting any of those instances of Not business? Walked away
Speaker 3
to overemphasize that point, but the emphasis there was we simply can't continue to haul the freight at this price.
Speaker 5
And
Speaker 3
if you force us, then we will walk away. Obviously, we don't want to do that. And in almost every case, the customers have been very understanding and have been very accommodating. And so we've been able to work through it and avoid that showdown because anytime you get in a showdown, it's not good.
Speaker 6
No, that makes sense. And speaking of price, assume we'll see another GRI this spring. And will it kind of
Speaker 7
be
Speaker 6
typical you've GRI percentage you've implemented in the past? Is that right?
Speaker 3
Yes. You recall, we started recently going with a fall GRI. So that's probably what you'll see again this year. You may see between now and then some, what I call, tweaking of prices. But when that becomes known, we'll let you know.
Speaker 6
Okay. And one last question, guess, to follow-up on that, Bruce. And the market just you said it's as crazy as you've seen in forty five years, and it's probably the craziest I've seen in my fifteen years of covering transports. Maybe now is a way to think about maybe to help offset some of that expensive outside power that you might have to deal with, particularly during peak season and other times you get volume surges. Could we see maybe multiple GRIs?
I know you talked about tweaking, but maybe multiple GRIs throughout the year to kind of help offset some of those higher costs.
Speaker 3
Well, on the truckload side, you're always evaluating price on a daily basis. In the Expedite LTL, we evaluate we talk about pricing every month to make sure that we're priced where we need to be based on what we're experiencing in the market. So our goal is not to run our customer out of business in terms of just putting up huge price increases. Our goal is to respond to the macro conditions. And I think so far we've done that well, especially on the LTL side.
We will continuously watch that. And so the day may come, as you pointed out, where we'll do multiples, but we don't see that today.
Speaker 6
I mean I got to believe your customers, they have a good pulse on the market. They understand what's going on. Is that right? Sure.
Speaker 3
And they're kind of in the same boat that we are on the truckload side where they're locked into contracts.
Speaker 6
Yes, right. Okay. Bruce and Mike, I really appreciate your time this morning. Take care.
Speaker 3
Thank you.
Speaker 0
Next we have the line of Todd Fowler of KeyBanc Capital Markets. Your line is open.
Speaker 7
Good morning Bruce and Mike. This is Connor Sweeney on for Todd this morning. How are you guys? Good, you? Doing well, doing well.
I just kind of want to start with the expedited LTL business here. Can you maybe discuss the decrease in weight per shipment year over year here in 4Q? Maybe it seems a little surprising given the uptick in industrial end markets. Can you speak to that please?
Speaker 3
Well, remember, we're going through a transition in the supply chain, so I think you're going to see more and more. I don't think the shipment size is going to get much lower, but it has changed. The other thing that occurs for us in the fourth quarter is the influx of the Amazon business and that's all minimums. You'll see that every fourth quarter assuming we handle that business, you'll see our shipment size drop. You should see it come up in Q1, Q2 and Q3.
Speaker 7
Okay. No, that explains that. Very helpful. And then maybe moving over to yields. I know in 3Q yields kind of had impacted by mix.
Can you maybe speak to yields in 4Q twenty seventeen maybe ex mix and what underlying yields are?
Speaker 1
So our system yield ex fuel was flat quarter on quarter. We did have the GRI pushing it upwards, but a continuation of a shorter length of haul driving it down from a regionalization of supply chain. Mix so you asked for it ex mix. So that's the answer ex mix. Okay.
Flat ish. But then you do have mix in there, is the growth in our door to door offerings that has varying weight per shipment and length of haul characteristics that are going to work their way through the math. What I will tell you is when we look at things adjusted for these on a revenue per ton per mile basis, it's still attractive business.
Speaker 7
Okay. Okay. That's helpful. And could you maybe just give us the tonnage comps, monthly tonnage comps for LTL?
Speaker 1
Yep. Tonnage per day was up 11.9 in the quarter. October was up 12%. November was up 11.3% and December was up 12.3%. Okay.
Speaker 7
Could you maybe speak to January trends here, how January finished?
Speaker 1
January is looking pretty good. Our tonnage per day was up 10.5.
Speaker 3
Okay.
Speaker 7
And then maybe just switching over to intermodal. I know you talked about the acquisition pipeline and bringing on $75,000,000 of incremental revenue. Now that the two previous acquisitions are kind of closed, do you anticipate what level of margin improvement do you anticipate from 2017 into 2018 here?
Speaker 3
Yes. So we knew when we made the acquisition of Atlantic that we had some work to do on the margin side. Unfortunately, that's not something you can do day one. It just takes time to get it done. They're well on their way.
They have a good program in place, and we'll see that margin improve. We have seen improvement and will continue to improve in 2018.
Speaker 7
Okay. And then just maybe one or two quick questions on modeling. I know with the additional leverage, Mike, maybe can you speak to what you're expecting for interest expense here in 2018?
Speaker 1
Yes. I mean, it's obviously going to be driven by how much extra leverage we put on. But maybe a safe starting point is interest expense up, call it $500,000 from where we were last year. So maybe $1,000,000 $1,700,000 somewhere around there. But we really need to see where we take the leverage based upon our capital needs through the year.
Speaker 7
Okay. All right, guys. That's kind of all I had this morning. Thanks for taking the question. Thank you.
Thank you.
Speaker 0
Next up, have the line of Tyler Brown with Raymond James. Your line is open.
Speaker 8
Hey, good morning, guys.
Speaker 3
Good morning.
Speaker 8
Hey, Mike. So hoping we could talk a little bit more about the 3PL push in LTL. So you mentioned that you've uploaded your tariff into, I think, 150 TMSs. But I'm just curious, do you have any idea how much of the $2,000,000,000 addressable market those 150 clients represent?
Speaker 3
I don't. We don't know an exact. Obviously, we went to the largest ones because of bigger opportunity. But to give you an exact number on that would be misleading.
Speaker 8
Okay. And then on the P and D operations, what percent of the terminals are up and running? And do you expect that to increase or are you kind of good where you are here?
Speaker 1
If I remember correctly, and I'm looking at Bruce here, so there's like 91 dots or 92 dots on that network. I think the number of dots that are up and running now is probably 70.
Speaker 3
Which is basically done because the others just simply, you know, their small towns don't have the density.
Speaker 8
Right, right. Okay. And then but to be clear, from a 3PL door to door perspective, you are effectively open for business?
Speaker 1
Correct. Yes.
Speaker 8
Okay. And so I know it's early, but did that push have any discernible impact on tonnage late in the year? Or is that more of a this next 'nineteen-'twenty story?
Speaker 1
I don't think it would given the volumes that the business unit does right now, I don't think you would see anything discernible as a whole. But I think, you know, you should see it across time as we ramp up.
Speaker 8
Right. Okay. And then can you remind me specifically what the freight characteristic differentials are on 3PL versus traditional airport to airport?
Speaker 1
Well, can tell you what our goals are. Okay. Our goals are the 2,500 pound shipments brought selectively in lanes where, we could use the density. And then you would compare that to what's in our release in terms of, you know, our weight per shipment which reflects everything else.
Speaker 8
Right, okay. But $1,000 to $1,500 would be that kind of traditional 3PL type characteristic?
Speaker 3
If you look at our average shipment size versus a normal LTL, it's been this way forever. We're much smaller. So part of what we're driving here is to get that larger shipment. First of all, it's normal in the business. And second of all, that's what we want to handle to help improve our density, especially in certain lanes across The U.
S.
Speaker 8
Right. Okay. And then I think just turning quickly to intermodal. So I think you're a top 10 dray provider at this point. But I'm just curious if you could talk about what you're seeing in terms of tightness specifically in that market and in particular, the non ELD exempt long haul dray market?
Speaker 3
Well, first of all, we have seen that market tighten up, which we went through the first at least half and three quarters of the year last year where it was a very loose market. Now that's reversed. So put that aside. On the effect of ELDs on the longer haul, I can't sit here and tell you what that is. I'll be happy to talk to some of our people and see if they've seen anything.
I can tell you if it had been dramatic, we would have heard about it. And I would also tell you, as you well know, that if you mandate ELDs and say it's December 18 and then you say, We're not going to enforce until April 1, have not seen any actions yet. Come April 1, you're going to see a lot of action.
Speaker 8
Okay. So how should we think about this a bigger opportunity or is it a headwind? Do you think you'll take share as the market tightens up or do you think it's going to really pinch you on the PT side?
Speaker 3
I think we have a good opportunity to take even more share. I think we have a good opportunity to protect our pricing and raise it because they simply won't be able to get some of it moved. Now that's not across the board, but there's a portion of that business that's going to run into rough times.
Speaker 8
Okay. And it's still specifically international and staying away from the domestic market at this point?
Speaker 7
Yes.
Speaker 8
Okay. And then lastly, Mike, can you give an 18 CapEx unless I missed it?
Speaker 1
It's on Page 12 of the release. We've tried to put some supplemental modeling information in the back.
Speaker 8
Okay.
Speaker 1
Just to let you know in general if you go to the back of the release we got $46,000,000 back there.
Speaker 8
Okay, perfect. Thanks guys.
Speaker 3
Thank you.
Speaker 0
And with no further questions here in queue, that does conclude the Forward Air's fourth quarter of twenty seventeen earnings conference call. Please remember the webcast from today will be available on the Investor Relations section of Forward Air's website at www.forwardaircorp.com shortly after this call. Once again, we do thank you very much for your participation and using our executive teleconference service and you may now disconnect.