Radiant Logistics - Earnings Call - Q2 2025
February 10, 2025
Executive Summary
- Q2 FY2025 revenue rose 31.5% year over year to $264.5M and 29.9% sequentially; adjusted EBITDA increased 55.8% YoY to $12.0M and 26.3% QoQ, with adjusted EBITDA margin up to 19.0% from 16.4% in Q1.
- GAAP diluted EPS was $0.13 (vs. $0.02 YoY, $0.07 QoQ), while adjusted diluted EPS was $0.22 (vs. $0.11 YoY, $0.16 QoQ); management highlighted non-recurring project work (49 charter flights delivering ~8M units of IV fluid) as a key driver.
- Management cautioned about near-term headwinds, including newly introduced tariffs with China, Mexico, and Canada and seasonal softness in March quarter, tempering extrapolation of Q2 results into a run-rate.
- Balance sheet remains strong (~$20M cash, no meaningful debt, untapped $200M credit facility), with continued M&A pipeline and agent conversions to drive margin expansion; buybacks were paused this quarter.
What Went Well and What Went Wrong
What Went Well
- Strong top-line and earnings: Revenue $264.5M (+31.5% YoY, +29.9% QoQ); adjusted EBITDA $12.0M (+55.8% YoY, +26.3% QoQ); adjusted diluted EPS $0.22 (vs. $0.11 YoY).
- Project execution: “Chartering 49 flights to bring approximately 8 million units of IV fluid to the U.S.” supported results in the quarter, demonstrating operational agility in humanitarian logistics.
- Margin expansion and pipeline: Adjusted EBITDA margin improved to 19.0%, aided by agent conversions; management emphasized ongoing conversions and tuck-ins (Foundation, Focus, TCB) to support profitable growth.
What Went Wrong
- Gross margin pressure: GAAP gross profit margin fell to 22.5% (from 26.6% in Q1 and 27.8% in Q4), reflecting mix dynamics despite revenue strength.
- Limited repeatability: Management cautioned that project-driven upside should not be annualized; same-store was “relatively flat,” indicating underlying softness persists.
- Macro headwinds: Newly introduced tariffs and seasonal March-quarter softness are expected to frustrate near-term results; buybacks did not occur in Q2 as focus remained on deals.
Transcript
Operator (participant)
Greetings. Welcome to Radiant Logistics' Financial Discussion for Second Fiscal Quarter Ended December 31st, 2024. This afternoon, Bohn Crain, Radiant Logistics' Founder and CEO, and Radiant's Chief Financial Officer, Todd Macomber, will provide a general business update and discuss financial results for the company's second fiscal quarter and six months ended December 31st, 2024. Following their comments, we will open the call to questions. This conference is scheduled for 30 minutes. This conference call may include forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.
The company has based these forward-looking statements on its current expectations and projections about future events. These forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and assumptions about the company that may cause the company's actual results or achievements to be materially different from the results or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements.
While it is impossible to identify all the factors that may cause the company's actual results or achievements to differ materially from those set forth in our forward-looking statements, such factors include those that have in the past and may in the future be identified in the company's SEC filings and other public announcements which are available on the Radiant website at www.radiantdelivers.com. In addition, past results are not necessarily an indication of future performance. Now I'd like to pass the call over to Radiant's Founder and CEO, Bohn Crain.
Bohn Crain (Founder and CEO)
Thanks, Paul. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining in on today's call. With the benefit of our diverse service offering, we continue to deliver solid financial results and generated $12 million in adjusted EBITDA for our second fiscal quarter ended December 31, 2024. These results are generally ahead of results from the comparable prior year period, as well as our most recent previous quarter ended September 30, 2024. We continue to take great pride in our work to support humanitarian and relief-related projects around the globe. Our results this quarter reflect our support of a number of such projects, including chartering 49 flights to bring approximately 8 million units of IV fluid to the U.S. as a result of the national shortages resulting from Hurricane Milton. Notwithstanding these strong results for the quarter, we do expect our future near-term results to continue to be challenged by market headwinds.
Near-term results could also be further frustrated by the recently introduced tariffs with China, Mexico, and Canada as we head into our slowest seasonal quarter ended March 31. As previously discussed, we believe we are well-positioned with a durable business model, diverse service offering, and strong balance sheet to navigate through these slower freight markets as we find our way back to more normalized market conditions. We continue to enjoy a strong balance sheet with approximately $20 million of cash on hand, no meaningful debt, and an untapped $200 million credit facility. At the same time, we remain focused on delivering profitable growth through a combination of organic and acquisition initiatives and thoughtfully re-levering our balance sheet through a combination of strategic operating partner conversions, synergistic tuck-in acquisitions, and stock buybacks.
Through this approach, we believe over time we will continue to deliver meaningful value for our shareholders, operating partners, and the end customers that we serve. We made good progress in this regard over this last quarter with the acquisition of Texas-based Foundation Logistics, the conversion of our Michigan-based strategic operating partner, Focus Logistics, which is combining with our existing Radiant operations in Detroit, and the acquisition of TCB Transportation in St. Louis, Missouri. We believe these three transactions are representative of our broader pipeline of opportunities, which includes both greenfield acquisitions, those companies not currently part of our network, as well as acquisition opportunities inherent in our agent-based network where we can support our current operating partners in their exit strategies. We look forward to providing further updates as we continue to progress along these lines.
With that said, I'll now turn it over to Todd Macomber, our Chief Financial Officer, to walk us through our detailed financial results, and then we'll open it up for some Q&A.
Todd Macomber (CFO)
Thanks, Paul, and good afternoon, everyone. Today, we will be discussing our financial results, including adjusted net income and adjusted EBITDA for the three and six months ended December 31st, 2024. For the three months ended December 31st, 2024, we reported net income attributable to Radiant Logistics of $6,467,000 on $264.5 million of revenues, or $0.14 per basic and $0.13 per fully diluted share. For the three months ended December 31st, 2023, we reported net income attributable to Radiant Logistics of $985,000 on $201 million of revenues, or $0.02 per basic and fully diluted share. This represents an increase of approximately $5,482,000 of net income over the comparable prior year period, or 556.5%. For adjusted net income, we reported $10,695,000 for the three months ended December 31st, 2024, compared to adjusted net income of $5,496,000 for the three months ended December 31st, 2023.
This represents an increase of approximately $5,199,000, or approximately 94.6%. For adjusted EBITDA, we reported $12,016,000 for the three months ended December 31st, 2024, compared to adjusted EBITDA of $7,708,000 for the three months ended December 31st, 2023. This represents an increase of approximately $4,308,000, or approximately 55.9%. For the six months ended December 31st, 2024, we reported net income attributable to Radiant Logistics of $9,843,000 on $468.1 million of revenues, or $0.21 per basic and $0.20 per fully diluted share. For the six months ended December 31st, 2023, we reported net income attributable to Radiant Logistics of $3,607,000 on $411.9 million of revenues, or $0.08 per basic and $0.07 per fully diluted share. This represents an increase of approximately $6,236,000 over the comparable prior year period, or 172.9%.
For adjusted net income, we reported $18,578,000 for the six months ended December 31st, 2024, compared to adjusted net income of $12,046,000 for the six months ended December 31st, 2023. This represents an increase of approximately $6,532,000, or approximately 54.2%. For adjusted EBITDA, we reported $21,468,000 for the six months ended December 31st, 2024, compared to adjusted EBITDA of $16,874,000 for the six months ended December 31st, 2023. This represents an increase of approximately $4,594,000, or approximately 27.2%. With that, I will turn the call over to our moderator to facilitate any Q&A from our callers.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. At this time, we'll be conducting a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. Once again, that's star one if you wish to ask a question on today's call. One moment, please, while we pull for questions. The first question today is coming from Elliot Alper from TD Cowen. Elliot, your line is live.
Elliot Alper (Analyst)
All right. Yeah, thank you. This is Elliot Alper for Jason Seidl. Maybe just starting off, can you give more detail on maybe the outperformance in the December quarter? Was Milton the primary driver? Maybe anything else you saw unusual about peak season or curious if you saw any pull forward in the market?
Bohn Crain (Founder and CEO)
Sure. I'll take a crack at that. I think the conversation has to start with kind of the diversity of our service offering and the fact that we did have an opportunity to support a number of initiatives in and around Hurricane Milton that was the real driver in the outperformance for the quarter. We're appreciative for that opportunity. We tried to do our best to temper the press release itself because it's still tough going out there. Kind of this project activity is kind of helping us through the trough, but it's still kind of slow going. I do think, as you were alluding to, there was a little bit of pull forward this quarter kind of in anticipation of tariffs. We got a little bit of what I would call a modest bump there.
More broadly, it's pretty tough out there for us and our competitors. We were just fortunate enough to have some pretty meaningful, in terms of human impact and ultimately meaningful in terms of financial performance for us, in and around supporting this IV fluid project.
Elliot Alper (Analyst)
Okay. Great. I wanted to ask about the acquisition of TCB made in December. Can you talk about the strategic rationale of acquiring an intermodal marketing company and maybe a ballpark of how we should think about the size of that business or maybe the margins versus your existing business?
Bohn Crain (Founder and CEO)
Yeah, sure. This is a really—that's a great question. Thank you for that. Just to kind of provide some foundational comments to my response. Back in 2015, we acquired another public company that was called Wheels Group, which we rebranded as Radiant Global Logistics Canada. Wheels itself had done some acquisitions and had acquired a company from ABF kind of back in the day that many people will know as Clipper Exxpress. We ultimately rebranded Clipper Exxpress as Radiant Road and Rail. We often refer to that as our U.S.-based brokerage platform. For us, that means both intermodal and truck brokerage. Anecdotally, Radiant Road and Rail, formerly known as Clipper Exxpress, is quite literally the oldest subsidiary in our consolidated group. It was incorporated in 1938, one of the original intermodal marketing companies.
In any event, their core or principal business was in the 53 ft space. TCB brought an incremental competency to our intermodal offering around 40 ft. Just for context, we've been working hard to build out a true bimodal service offering from our Road and Rail platform in Chicago to have a robust over-the-road and intermodal service offering. We see a lot of potential revenue synergies through the onboarding of TCB and their small but mighty player in the 40 ft space. We're really excited to have them and the team as part of our organization moving forward. I think we've kind of stayed away from a lot of details around the precision of the purchase price and numbers. I think dimensionally, it's in the $2 million-$3 million of incremental EBITDA contribution is what we would anticipate from that business.
Elliot Alper (Analyst)
Okay. Great. Thank you. Maybe just last one. There's been just a lot of news on tariffs changing by the day. Can you talk about your customs brokerage operation, kind of what you're seeing now or how shippers are reacting? How big is that business? Do you charge customers on how much they're speaking with their sales contract contact? Any color there would be helpful. Thank you.
Bohn Crain (Founder and CEO)
Sure. There again, I'll ground the conversation in some of our prior acquisition activities. We had historically been what I would characterize as dabbling in the customs brokerage space. A few years back, we acquired a company called Navegate, which was principally an NVOCC and customs brokerage platform based in Minneapolis. We have since rebranded that business as Radiant World Trade Services. It is relatively small in the scheme of things, but an extraordinarily strong competency in the customs brokerage space, both transactionally and just from an advisory standpoint, trying to help our customers understand and respond to the shifting sands of tariffs and the quickly evolving landscape in which we're all operating.
I would be remiss to not also take the opportunity to talk about the technology that we acquired in connection with our acquisition of Navegate because we are very excited about what I'll call the bundled solution offering that we now enjoy to be able to provide a really robust collaboration platform for PO management, vendor management, customs brokerage, and a really robust holistic way that historically we and most people kind of in our relative size don't kind of play in that way or that dimension. We are very active. We are growing our customs brokerage, and we continue to try to cross-sell our customs brokerage capabilities into our other international clients.
I really am quite hopeful that over time, we'll have more and more to tell, more and more of a story to tell around our technology platform, which we're kind of repositioning our branding as Navegate and the global trade management capabilities, inclusive of customs brokerage that'll set inside that Navegate platform. That was a really broad answer to your customs brokerage question, but we're a meaningful player, and we're definitely punching above our weight these days in and around that offering. It's probably one of the most exciting threads and opportunities as we move forward and catalyst for growth for us.
Elliot Alper (Analyst)
Great. Thanks, Bohn. Appreciate it.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Once again, it is star one on your phone if you wish to ask a question today. The next question is coming from Mark Argento from Lake Street. Mark, your line is live.
Mark Argento (Analyst)
Hey, Bohn, Todd. Just a quick one. If you could just help us think through a little bit. You guys have been pretty active on the M&A side, which is great. Anticipating that will continue just given the environment. Could you help maybe just size up a little bit? You did that with the TCB acquisition. Just help us think about either gross or net revenue and/or adjusted EBITDA contributions from some of these acquisitions. I know it's a little bit tough to probably pin it all down, but is it in this quarter, $12 million, was that same store EBITDA contribution? Did you benefit a couple million bucks from these acquisitions? Is it more? Is it less? Just trying to get a little bit of a feel for kind of organic versus acquisition-type contribution.
Bohn Crain (Founder and CEO)
Yeah, sure. Again, we got to, as you described, we have to paint with a pretty broad brush here for a number of contributing factors. I would start with when we acquire an agency station or convert an agency station, we really do not see any change at the revenue or gross margin line item because that business is already flowing through our financials. We end up reducing commission expense paid out, and kind of that difference, if you will, is what will flow through in terms of incremental EBITDA. That is one of the areas where we talk about margin expansion, margin expansion defined as EBITDA divided by gross margin, and kind of one of the byproducts of those conversion efforts of agency stations.
We've done a number of those recently, and we would anticipate back for those who have been following our story for a long time, the notion of the gray tail and kind of the aging of our strategic operating partners. We think that theme will continue and just continue to accelerate as we move forward. There is not going to be kind of a lot of top-line impact of that particular piece. I would say on kind of a—and so TCB is a little different because that's a greenfield acquisition. Quite literally, we only had one month of those activities in our December quarter. We really haven't seen the flow-through effects of TCB in our financials yet as it relates to the December quarter. Without getting in too much detail, I would say on a same-store basis, we were relatively flat, candidly, best-case flat.
Some of this project opportunity really helped lift the numbers. I'll say it again for emphasis. It's why we were kind of cautioned. As good as this is, and we're really grateful to have it, we don't want people to take this quarterly result and multiply it by four and think that's our go-forward run rate because it's going to be tougher sledding ahead, in particular this March quarter, seasonality and tariffs and everything else going on. Hopefully, that's at least somewhat responsive to your question, Mark.
Mark Argento (Analyst)
Yeah. No, it's not an easy question to answer with a lot of specificity, but that was very helpful. Yeah. I mean, drawing on your past experiences with tariffs, and I know this is kind of a unique and somewhat unprecedented environment right now, so it's hard to handicap with great precision. Obviously, there was some pull forward, which you mentioned, in anticipation of potentially this happening. How does this normally play out? There's a pull forward, and then there's a little bit of a normalization in the market. How do you guys kind of play this situation or at least try to handicap it a little bit?
Bohn Crain (Founder and CEO)
It's a tough one. I will give you kind of my perspective, but I think it's worth what you pay for it here, right? At the end of the day, I think when tariffs get put into place, there will be some short-term disruptions as people try to respond and kind of reconfigure or adjust. Individually, within our own portfolio of customers, there could conceivably be some winners and losers within our own portfolio of customers and kind of what happens to the underlying products that they're making and how they are impacted to the good or the bad relative to the tariffs. At the end of the day, we just simply don't, as a country, we simply don't have the manufacturing capability to support the consumption requirements of the U.S. consumer.
Even though prices may go up, somebody's still going to have to pay for them just by the laws of simple supply and demand. Whether it continues to come from China or gets repositioned and is coming from Vietnam and/or U.S. and Canada, those trade flows are still going to have to happen, albeit likely higher prices for consumers. That is an entirely different conversation and kind of beyond the scope of this call. I can't tell you what will or won't happen and what's posturing or is actually going to come to pass. We and the rest of the industry will digest it and continue to move forward.
Mark Argento (Analyst)
Thanks. Just one last one. I think I ask this question pretty much every time, so I'm just going to do it again. In terms of the environment on the M&A side, it seems like things remain robust. Is this kind of environment of uncertainty, is that what compels some of these conversations to turn into transactions, or what do you foresee there?
Bohn Crain (Founder and CEO)
I think for us, there's a number of things afoot, right? We have our aging agent stations that just kind of biologically are raising their hands because they're aging out and need to think about their own succession planning and exit strategies. We've been playing that as a long game for a very long time. That is just continuing to move forward. That is one thread of it. There are certainly not all, but a good number of folks in our space who were ultimately levered up at peak earnings. As the markets softened, they really found their balance sheets in disarray.
There is a lot of kind of what I would characterize as normal participants in the M&A space are somewhat sidelined right now while they try to figure out how to get their own balance sheets right-sized so that they can become actionable again. That is another piece of it, which has, from my standpoint, we are still the same guys executing the same plan with the same discipline we always have been. It is just the market is kind of coming back to us because of some of these dynamics. Part of the dynamic in the transactional space, and you hear we and others have talked about it is kind of hard to transact on peak earnings and kind of understanding that. Now we are in trough earnings and kind of working our way through some of those dynamics.
That is one of the precise reasons why we use earn-out structures in our deals and that we really try to structure to mitigate risk to make sure we do not ultimately overpay for the businesses that we acquire. We still have a lot of dry powder. We expect to continue to be very disciplined, but we are really executing the same playbook we were when we met 10 years ago, Mark.
Mark Argento (Analyst)
Yep. No, it's true. One final, final. Anything on the buyback in the quarter?
Bohn Crain (Founder and CEO)
No.
Todd Macomber (CFO)
No. Not this quarter.
Bohn Crain (Founder and CEO)
We're too busy doing deals.
Mark Argento (Analyst)
If we could use the capital, it's great. But thanks, guys.
Bohn Crain (Founder and CEO)
All right. Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. The next question is coming from Kevin Gainey from Thompson Davis. Kevin, your line is live.
Kevin Gainey (Analyst)
Hi, Bohn, Todd. Good quarter, guys. Maybe if you could kind of talk about how you're feeling about market conditions currently. I know you've kind of reiterated that they're still slow, but maybe compare it to how you guys felt this time last year.
Bohn Crain (Founder and CEO)
That's a lifetime ago. I would say I'm more bullish today. I mean, again, I'm going to say it again. Business remains soft. It's going to be soft for us, I think, heading into 2025, not just for us, but for our industry. I think it's going to be tough going near term. Having said that, I've never been more bullish about kind of where we are in our relative kind of position or relative place out there in the landscape and that we're actionable and we have the financial flexibility. We've got some, as I alluded to, some really interesting things kind of in the tech stack world that we're bringing to market that we think are going to be a differentiator for us. It's going to be there's still going to be plenty of bumps and bruises as we get through 2025.
Tariffs, to the extent they're brought into place, that's going to, I think, cause some further near-term kind of dislocation and confusion in the marketplace. Notwithstanding all of that, I think, to answer your kind of fundamental question, I'm more bullish about the prospects for Radiant and kind of where we are in the cycle and all of those things that I feel really good.
Kevin Gainey (Analyst)
That's good to hear. Maybe also if we could talk a little bit about the competitive landscape and how you guys have seen your competitors. In comparison to maybe, again, last cycle, has there been more, I guess, risk maturity from some competitors? Is everybody holding strong on pricing, whatever the kind of factors that they may decide on?
Bohn Crain (Founder and CEO)
Yeah. I'm not sure. I mean, I think it certainly remains a very, very tough market out there. The shippers have been kind of more aggressive in their pricing expectations. I think we have, and again, not just us, but I think as an industry, I think we've been kind of bouncing along the bottom here for more than a couple of quarters at this point. I see significantly more upside than downside in terms of where we go from here. There's still probably at the end of the day, this isn't directly related to the non-asset-based 3PL space, but within a broader context, we still need more capacity to come out of the marketplace, right? It's been an ongoing conversation for the last year or so that there's quite a few asset-based transports that are really, really having a tough go.
We need that to kind of further resolve itself to get better alignment between supply and demand of transportation capacity. I think we're slowly getting there, but we still have a little ways to go.
Kevin Gainey (Analyst)
All right. Maybe one more, just on kind of the near-term outlook for Q1. If you could kind of talk about what you guys maybe saw in January or if there is anything that you may think has happened so far and what you think you could do for Q1.
Todd Macomber (CFO)
I mean, seasonally our slowest quarter, and it's, I mean, I think we're starting to see a little uptick, but nothing it's going to play out, we believe, similar to last year. Like Bohn's saying, I'm looking at the numbers of what we posted for the month, and we're seeing some strength in some areas. Ocean is one, for instance. By and large, it's going to be a soft quarter. I think when we get to Q4, I think that's when things are going to hopefully start upticking. The tariffs is really anybody's guess, right? That's the wild card that I don't think we really know at this point. That's what we're seeing. We're seeing it's going to be, like Bohn's saying, we got some headwinds compared to the sequentially.
Bohn Crain (Founder and CEO)
Yeah. I would look to the year-ago March quarter as more indicative of where we're likely to land.
Kevin Gainey (Analyst)
Perfect. Sounds good, guys. I appreciate the color.
Bohn Crain (Founder and CEO)
Yeah, you bet.
Operator (participant)
We did have another question come in from Jeff Kauffman from Vertical Research Partners. Jeff, your line is live.
Jeff Kauffman (Analyst)
Thank you. Thanks. Hey, Bohn. Hey, Todd.
Bohn Crain (Founder and CEO)
Greetings.
Jeff Kauffman (Analyst)
First of all, congratulations. Greetings. I apologize. I got on a little bit late, but did you talk at all about currency and how currency may or may not be impacting your market? I know you got a big Canadian operation. How is that affecting as we think about first-quarter comparison or first quarter, third-quarter comparisons, fourth-quarter comparisons? Because we have had a lot of companies flag currency having a bigger impact, I think, than people expected.
Todd Macomber (CFO)
Yeah. It did not have a huge impact. I mean, it did impact, do not get me wrong. But I ran the numbers, and it was not meaningful in regards to our when we retranslated it to U.S. dollars and the EBITDA. Last, I am just talking about this last quarter. The numbers were reported. It was not anything, it had a small impact is what I would say.
Jeff Kauffman (Analyst)
Okay. That was my one. Thank you.
Bohn Crain (Founder and CEO)
You bet.
Todd Macomber (CFO)
Thanks, Jeff.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. That does conclude today's Q&A session. I would now like to hand the call back to Bohn Crain for closing remarks.
Bohn Crain (Founder and CEO)
All right. Let me close by saying that we remain optimistic about our prospects and opportunities to continue to leverage our best-in-class technology, robust North American footprint, and extensive global network of service partners to continue to build on the great platform we've created here at Radiant. At the same time, we intend to thoughtfully re-lever our balance sheet and through a combination of agent station conversions, synergistic tuck-in acquisitions, and stock buybacks. Through our multi-pronged approach, we believe we will continue to create meaningful value for our shareholders, operating partners, and the end customers that we serve. Thanks for listening and your support of Radiant Logistics.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. This does conclude today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.