Schneider National - Earnings Call - Q1 2025

Executive Summary

• Q1 2025 delivered year-over-year improvement across segments, with operating revenues at $1.40B (+6% YoY) and adjusted diluted EPS at $0.16; management reduced full-year EPS guidance to $0.75–$1.00 and net capex to $325–$375M amid tariff-driven and macro uncertainty.
• Versus Wall Street: Q1 EPS modestly beat consensus ($0.16 vs $0.139*), while revenue slightly missed ($1.402B vs $1.410B*); adjusted EBITDA outperformed ($154.8M vs $145.8M*) — driven by Cowan accretion, pricing discipline, and intermodal cost actions.
• Segment performance: Truckload OR improved 130 bps YoY (95.9%) with Dedicated trucks up 27% YoY; Intermodal OR improved 250 bps to 94.7%; Logistics OR improved 70 bps to 97.6%.
• Guidance reset and tariff uncertainty are key stock catalysts near term; management still expects YoY improvement in 2025 but at a tempered pace, highlighting cost containment, asset efficiency and mini-bid dynamics as levers.
• Dividend maintained at $0.095 per share; balance sheet supports opportunistic M&A though not embedded in guidance.

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

What Went Well

• Intermodal margin expansion: OR improved 250 bps YoY to 94.7% on 4% volume growth and lower rail-related costs from optimization and cost containment; operating income nearly doubled to $13.8M (+97% YoY).
• Dedicated scale and accretion: Average Dedicated trucks rose 27% YoY (8,543), with Truckload OR improving 130 bps YoY to 95.9%; management cited Cowan’s immediately accretive contribution and $20–$30M synergy potential at maturity.
• Pricing discipline and productivity: Q1 adjusted OR improved 90 bps YoY to 96.5%, supported by contract renewals, cost containment, and productivity actions across segments.

Quotes:

• “We are following a framework… optimize capital allocation… Dedicated, Intermodal and Brokerage & Logistics… Cowan contributions were immediately accretive, and we expect $20–$30M of synergies at maturity.”
• “Intermodal operating income was $14M, +97% YoY… enhanced operating leverage from network optimization… internal cost reduction actions.”

What Went Wrong

• Guidance cut on macro/trade policy: FY25 adjusted EPS lowered to $0.75–$1.00 (from $0.90–$1.20) and net capex to $325–$375M (from $400–$450M) due to tariff uncertainty, moderating price/volume, and tempered seasonality.
• Network headwinds: Truckload Network volumes declined; owner-operator capacity stress slowed the shift to a more variable cost model; management expects more moderate pricing improvements and lower capacity growth than prior outlook.
• Revenue slightly below consensus: Operating revenues of $1.402B trailed consensus $1.410B*; spot price moderation and mini-bid dynamics pressured near-term revenue trajectories.

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Thank yoo. I'd now like to turn the call over to Steve Bindas, Director of Investor Relations. You may begin.

Steve Bindas (Director of Investor Relations)

Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. Joining me on the call today are Mark Rourke, President and Chief Executive Officer; Darrell Campbell, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; and Jim Filter, Executive Vice President and Group President of Transportation and Logistics. Earlier today, the company issued an earnings press release. This release and an investor presentation are available on the Investor Relations section of our website at schneider.com. Our call will include remarks about future expectations, forecasts, plans, and prospects for Schneider. These constitute forward-looking statements for the purposes of the Safe Harbor provisions under applicable federal securities laws. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from current expectations.

The company urges investors to review the risks and uncertainties discussed in our SEC filings, including, but not limited to, our most recent annual report on Form 10-K and those risks identified in today's earnings release. All forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this call, and Schneider disclaims any duty to update such statements except as required by law. In addition, pursuant to Regulation G, a reconciliation of any non-GAAP financial measures referenced during today's call can be found in our earnings release and investor presentation, which includes reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP measures. Now I'd like to turn the call over to our CEO, Mark Rourke.

Mark Rourke (President and CEO)

Thank you, Steve, and hello, everyone. Thank you for joining the Schneider call today. For our prepared remarks, I will start by providing an update on our commitment to drive ongoing structural changes in our business to restore margins, improve freight cycle resiliency, enable growth, and enhance financial returns for our shareholders. Within that context, I will share my perspective on the freight market and positioning and performance across our multimodal platform of Truckload, Intermodal, and Logistics. Darrell will then provide a financial overview of the first quarter results and share our updated 2025 earnings per share and net capital expenditures guidance. We will take your questions. Let me start by outlining our actions to structurally improve the business. We are following a framework based on four equally important tenets.

The first tenet is to optimize capital allocation across our strategic growth drivers of Dedicated Truck, Intermodal, and brokerage and Logistics. In December last year, we acquired Cowan Systems, a Dedicated services carrier. The first quarter of 2025 was our first full quarter with Cowan included in our results. Their contributions were immediately accretive, and we expect to achieve between $20 million and $30 million of synergies at maturity. Dedicated averaged over 8,500 trucks in service in the quarter, up 27% from over a year ago. Dedicated represents 70% of Truckload segment trucks and 71% of revenue. Truckload earnings improved nearly 70% year-over-year and 27% sequentially from the fourth quarter of 2024. Looking forward, we have line of sight in the second and third quarters to elevated churn because of select Dedicated operations moving to network-based solutions in the current environment in a more competitive landscape.

Overall, our Dedicated retention rate remains in the low 90%. We will also be taking out trucks as a result of our asset efficiency actions to lower our truck-to-driver ratio even further. Our Dedicated new business pipeline is trending to more than replace the churn, but net truck growth is projected to be lower than originally expected. The second tenet is to manage the customer freight allocation process with purpose and discipline. By carefully selecting and managing our freight pool, we can ensure we are serving our customers effectively and profitably. As the quarter concluded, we are about 1/3 through the contractual renewal period in both truck network and intermodal. The market remains highly competitive, with truck network achieving low to mid-single-digit percentage increases. To maintain price discipline, we are foregoing volume with some shippers.

We are seeing an increase in the number of shipper mini-allocation events to address carrier turnbacks or performance issues arising from the initial event outcomes, which gives us confidence in our strategy. The improvement in revenue per truck per week in both truck network and Dedicated was 2%, which is more than 100% price-driven as asset productivity was impacted by first quarter weather events. Turning to intermodal contract renewals, we are pleased with the current trend of increased volume allocations, primarily in geographies where we have positive differentiation that fits well within our network. Overall, intermodal rates remain largely flat year-over-year. The third tenet is delivering an effortless experience by making it easy for customers to work with us by providing optionality and value across our multimodal platform. We have gained market share with new customer awards by combining elements of our portfolio to sole-source facilities and/or geographies.

This is particularly effective for industry-leading value retail customers as well as those in the food and beverage industry. These sole-source awards dramatically lower operational complexity for shippers while bolstering our network operations through increased freight density. Looking forward, there is a bull case based upon generally resilient macroeconomic numbers to date, with stable demand and capacity continuing to exit the market. We do note that forward sentiment for customer freight demand and consumer health is less clear, particularly as tariff-driven uncertainty builds. As a result, the continued rising momentum on price recovery is also less certain. The last tenet is containing costs across all expense categories. Cost containment is critical to our overall business strategy as it enables us to reinvest in growth initiatives and enhance our competitive position and margins. We have established targets of more than $40 million of additional cost reductions across the enterprise.

The cost savings mandate encompasses ongoing investments in AI-based digital assistant technologies and the more transformative digital employee models. These advancements enable us to automate routine tasks, freeing up associates to focus on more meaningful work higher in the value chain. Beyond identified cost savings opportunities, we are evaluating the potentially meaningful impacts of tariffs on the original equipment costing, repair parts availability and cost, as well as overall equipment maintenance expense. Switching now to perspectives on the freight market and on positioning and performance of our multimodal platform. Our first quarter results were in line with our expectations despite weather impacts and growing economic uncertainty. Each of our primary segments grew revenue, earnings, and margins year-over-year.

In Truckload, both network and Dedicated delivered improved earnings year-over-year and sequentially, driven by cost containment actions and improved freight pricing from second half of 2024 through first quarter of 2025 contractual renewals. We aim to transition to a more variable cost model and network by expanding owner-operator relationships to supplement our company driver fleet. This shift is taking longer than expected as operating and financial conditions are prompting more owner-operators to exit the industry. Turning to intermodal, we nearly doubled earnings compared to a year ago on 4% order growth, driven by increasing shipping activity in the west of Mexico. We have visibility to a portion of our customers taking freight pull-ahead actions in the face of tariff uncertainty. Our year-to-date success in new business awards is expected to reduce the overall future volume variability due to trade policy.

Logistics improved earnings 50% year-over-year as our FreightPower for shipper and carrier digital technology allows us to remain nimble to changing market dynamics across both less-than-Truckload and Truckload modes. Overall, Brokerage freight volumes are challenged as shippers continue to favor asset-based solutions. Power-Only grew volumes in mid-single digits compared to a year ago as shippers and carriers value the simplicity and access of matching qualified small carriers to large trailer pull shippers. In summary, we are focused on the areas we control while maximizing our strategic differentiators. Within our locus of control is containing cost, maintaining price discipline, and outperforming our competition commercially. Our strategic differentiators are unique across our four Dedicated brands of Schneider, Midwest Logistics Systems, M&M Transport, and now the lightweight equipment solution powerhouse Cowan Systems.

Our asset-based company DRAY, chassis and container intermodal offering, combined with our strong rail relationships with CSX, Union Pacific, and CPKC, creates reliable and valued solutions for intermodal shippers. Plus, our consistently profitable logistics offering, enabled by our FreightPower platform and market-leading Power-Only capability, remains a meaningful asset-light strategic contributor to the enterprise. Let me now turn it over to Darrell for his insights on the first quarter and our 2025 guidance. Darrell?

Darrell Campbell (EVP and CFO)

Thank you, Mark, and good morning, everyone. I'll review our enterprise and segment financial results for the first quarter and provide insights in our updated full-year 2025 EPS and net CapEx guidance. Summaries of our financial results and guidance can be found on pages 24 to 30 of our investor presentation, available on the Investor Relations section of our website. Starting with the first quarter results, enterprise revenues, excluding fuel surcharge, were $1.26 billion, up 8% compared to a year ago. Adjusted income from operations was $44 million, a 47% increase year-over-year. Enterprise adjusted operating ratio improved 90 basis points compared to the first quarter of 2024. Adjusted diluted earnings per share for the first quarter was $0.16 compared to $0.11 last year.

Through a combination of our discipline actions that we've taken on revenue management, cost containment, and productivity, we delivered year-over-year improvement in our enterprise results and across all our reportable segments. From a segment perspective, Truckload revenues, excluding fuel surcharge, were $614 million in the first quarter, 14% above the same period last year. This increase was primarily due to the acquisition of Cowan and higher Dedicated and network revenue per truck per week, partially offset by lower network volumes. Truckload operating income was $25 million, up nearly 70% year-over-year due to the same factors that shape revenues. Operating ratio was 95.9%, an improvement of 130 basis points compared to first quarter 2024. Truckload network margins improved year-over-year for the first time since the first quarter of 2022 due to continued improvements in price and ongoing actions to reduce variable input costs.

Intermodal revenues, excluding fuel surcharge, were $260 million for the first quarter, 5% above the first quarter of 2024 due to volume growth and increased revenue per order. Intermodal has grown volumes year-over-year for four consecutive quarters. Intermodal operating income was $14 million, an increase of 97% compared to the same period last year due to the same factors driving revenues in addition to enhanced operating leverage from network optimization, great productivity, and internal cost reduction actions. Operating ratio was 94.7%, an improvement of 250 basis points compared to first quarter 2024. Logistics revenues, excluding fuel surcharge, were $332 million in the first quarter, 2% above the same period a year ago due to our acquisition of Cowan, partially offset by lower revenue per order. Logistics' trend of profitability continued with operating income of $8 million, up 50% compared to first quarter 2024.

This was primarily due to effective net revenue management and the continued strength of our power-only offering. Operating ratio was 97.6%, an improvement of 70 basis points compared to first quarter 2024. As of March 31st, 2025, we had $577 million in total debt and financed lease obligations outstanding and cash and cash equivalents of $106 million. During the quarter, we used the remaining availability under our delayed draw term loan facility executed in November 2024 to repay current debt maturities. Our net debt leverage was 0.8 times at the end of the quarter. Turning to capital allocation, in the first quarter, we paid $17 million in dividends and opportunistically repurchased $8.3 million of shares. We have $46 million remaining on our $150 million share repurchase program that was established in February 2023.

Net CapEx was $97 million compared to $112 million last year due to reduced purchases of transportation equipment and other property and equipment. Free cash flow increased approximately $9 million compared to the same period in 2024. We continue to manage our fleet age within our targeted ranges and invest in technology to drive business insights and associate productivity. Moving to our updated full-year 2025 guidance, our adjusted earnings per share guidance for the full year 2025 is $0.75-$1, which assumes an effective tax rate of 23%-24%. We also updated our net CapEx to be in the range of $325 million-$375 million for the full year, from $400 million-$450 million previously. In constructing our revised outlook for the full year, we considered the current trade policy and increased economic uncertainty and the resulting moderating impact on both price and volume.

In addition, we considered our continuous efforts across all our segments to restore margins through contract renewal improvements, asset efficiency efforts, ongoing cost containment measures offset by volume and price trends by segment as the quarter progressed. The combination of these factors has tempered our expectations regarding the level of earnings improvement for the remainder of the year. Although lower, we expect continued year-over-year improvement in results through 2025. For our Truckload network business, we continue to deliver year-over-year pricing improvements as spot price declined through the first quarter. Due to the current environment, we now expect more moderate pricing improvements for the remainder of the year and lower volumes and capacity growth compared to our expectations in our previous guidance.

We anticipate continued resilience of our Dedicated business, prices in line with our previous guidance, and while we expect positive net capacity additions in 2025, we have lowered our expectations for fleet growth due to the churn that Mark mentioned. Also, as a reminder, our focus on asset efficiency will remove tractors and be reflected in our 2025 net tractor growth. For our intermodal segment, we expect continued volume growth and moderate pricing improvement for the remainder of the year. Our guidance also factors in recent new business wins, which are expected to offset the near-term impact of trade policy on freight volume. Our logistics segment outlook incorporates continued year-over-year improvements in net revenue per order, and similar to our Truckload network business, we expect the improvements to be less pronounced for the remainder of the year as spot pricing continues to moderate.

We also expect lower volumes and more muted seasonality. Turning to net CapEx, our guidance assumes continued allocation of capital to organic growth in Dedicated and intermodal tractors and also reflects alignment of growth CapEx with current business and economic expectations. In addition to the volume effect on our CapEx expectations, the cost of equipment is also impacted by current trade policy. Currently known cost increases are included within our CapEx guidance, with a partial offset resulting from improved equipment sale proceeds. While not contemplated in our guidance, the strength of our balance sheet also positions us to act opportunistically as we continue to explore inorganic growth opportunities. In closing, we've continued to execute against our plan to structurally position our business to demonstrate resiliency and growth in all cycles through our commercial, cost, asset efficiency, and capital allocation actions.

These efforts have allowed us to deliver through uncertainty and to be in a position to capitalize on our enhanced operating leverage. With that, we'll open the call for your questions.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad to raise your hand and join the queue. If you would like to withdraw your question, simply press star one again. We ask that you please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. Your first question comes from the line of Brian Ossenbeck from JPMorgan. Your line is open.

Brian Ossenbeck (Analyst)

Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking the question. Brian, I guess maybe if you guys could give us a little bit of context considering your unique position in the market, what are you seeing when it comes to the expected deceleration of imports? Obviously, you don't move international boxes, but that stuff is all connected. Maybe what are you seeing and hearing from customers, and what is sort of contemplated in the updated guidance? Thanks.

Jim Filter (EVP and Group President of Transportation and Logistics)

Yeah, Brian, this is Jim. Thanks for the question this morning. It's really important that we're staying close to our customers as we go through this and that we're remaining nimble and offering broad solutions. As we look at across our business segments, we look at Truckload and logistics sectors. It's primarily North America-orientated, so difficult to quantify the impact there. When we look at intermodal, it's approximately 15%-25% of our business is tied to imports, and that's from a variety of different origins, so it's not all related to China. We do expect that there is going to be some drop-off in volume in the intermodal business, but we expect that our new business wins in intermodal that Mark spoke of will largely offset what we're anticipating from imports declining.

We'd also say that we do believe that the conditions are ripe for a bullwhip. It appears that imports may be dropping faster than consumer demand, and a lull in shipping could be the catalyst that removes additional capacity from the market. If there were new trade agreements, there could be an abrupt restart to imports with less capacity than there is today. That is not our forecast, but that could be the bull case that Mark spoke of. We are going to stay focused on two priorities: staying close to our customers, being nimble, offering those broad solutions. The second is focusing on what we control within each one of our sectors, the four tenets that Mark spoke of.

Darrell Campbell (EVP and CFO)

Yeah, this is Darrell. I guess I'll just add some perspective on the outlook specifically as it relates to intermodal. We did look at various scenarios similar to what Jim was referring to regarding the duration of the trade policy impacts and also the magnitude of what happens during that uncertainty and also when the uncertainty clears. From an intermodal perspective specifically, there was some impact of the tariff policy on the volumes that we saw, but we have continued to see strength and improvement in volume year-over-year for the past four quarters now. Even though there is some impact of tariffs and we've contemplated that within our guidance, the new business wins that we've had are expected to offset any potential impact in the near term. That's built into our guidance.

As a matter of pricing, we think pricing is going to moderate some, at least in the near term, and that's factored into our guidance, even though we expect year-over-year improvement across the board.

Brian Ossenbeck (Analyst)

All right. Thanks for that. Maybe this is a follow-up on the new business wins within intermodal. Jim or Mark, can you kind of characterize where those are, what type of volume, when they ramp up? Is this something with the cross-border with CPKC that seems to be taking off pretty well? I guess a similar question on the Dedicated, where maybe it's a little bit more competitive. Where is some of that pressure coming from, and sort of what are you doing to offset that to the extent that you can? Thank you.

Mark Rourke (President and CEO)

Brian, I think that's four questions maybe and I woukd get my mind.First, we think we had a very good first quarter from our view on our commercial success in the market relative to what we call our differentiation in intermodal, where our strengths really are and fit our network really well. Now, of course, awards do not mean freight just yet. The customer has to have the freight, and the market has to deliver the volume from those awards, and that's still yet in front of us. We don't have many of those implemented yet, but we would expect to start implementing here in the second quarter in a more meaningful way. It's really across the board, Brian. Certainly, Mexico has been a strength for us, and Jim will give maybe some just additional color relative to what's covered with the tariffs and what's not. How durable could that volume be?

We're pleased across the board. Again, that gives us some confidence that we can withstand perhaps some of the trade policies. It will all come down to magnitude, duration, and timing, which is uncertain for us going forward, but we've tried to give our best assessment and best insight into the market based upon what we see today. That would be the intermodal. Jim, maybe just some comment relative to tariff in Mexico instead of the strength we're seeing there.

Jim Filter (EVP and Group President of Transportation and Logistics)

Two areas where we in particular have seen nice growth in intermodal, Mexico being one of those, and we feel very good about the wins that we've had. Virtually all the goods that we're shipping cross-border are compliant with USMCA, which are currently exempt from tariffs. We have a lot of differentiation in that product.

We're aligned to the only railroad that is a single-line railroad that brings you up to both the Midwest and to the Southeast US. That's all asset-based and our really excellent execution within Mexico. That has been a big differentiator for us. The second one is really providing broad solutions to customers. Mark spoke of that in the opening, to be able to combine what we do in our intermodal business along with our Truckload business, Dedicated and logistics, to provide a broad solution because customers understand that there's some variability here, and you need to have some different outlets, and that's really where we've had a lot of strength.

Going to your second or fourth part of your question related to Dedicated, where we've seen the most competitive environment would be in more of the standard type of equipment where customers may be taking a little bit more of a short-term view. We are really focused on where we have the greatest differentiation, which would be areas like private fleet conversions, specialty equipment, refrigerated, and we see all three of those pipelines very strong.

Mark Rourke (President and CEO)

Yeah, 53 standard trailer, most competitive

Brian Ossenbeck (Analyst)

Great. Thanks, Mark and Jim. I appreciate it.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from a line of Chris Wetherbee from Wells Fargo. Your line is open.

Chris Wetherbee (Analyst)

Hey, hey. Thanks. Good morning, guys. Darrell, you noted that I think I caught on the guidance conversation you mentioned growth over the course of the year. I don't know if that's each one of the quarters and then specific to 2Q. Do you think that you can get EPS growth on a year-over-year basis for the entire year, quarter-by-quarter?

Darrell Campbell (EVP and CFO)

We typically don't give guidance by quarter. The comments that I made were in the context of the remainder of the year. As it relates to the remainder of the year, we expect to have year-over-year growth in price and in margin, but we don't get to that level in terms of giving quarterly guidance.

Chris Wetherbee (Analyst)

Okay. That's helpful. I just want to make sure I understood and clarified what you said there. I guess when you think about the Dedicated churn, what you guys were just noting there, obviously some parts of the market are a little bit more competitive. You said it might slow down kind of the fleet growth. Can you give us a sense maybe of what you expect over the course of the next several quarters in terms of that net fleet growth, kind of the net of the churns as well as some of these new business wins that you guys are going after?

Mark Rourke (President and CEO)

Yeah, Chris, really we got a few things that are perhaps moderated from our initial discussion for the full-year guidance that we did originally. First of that is the insight to some of the churn. We still have a very good pipeline. We expect to fully cover the churn, but we also now with Cowan, with the first full quarter and some of the other actions that we've been able to take within our Dedicated portfolio or expected to take, that we can drive more efficiency into our various account structures there by have more slip seating, more tractor sharing, a number of things that we think we can drive more efficiency. That'll come out of the net tractor, but it'll come out because of efficiency, not because of any negative commercial fallout.

The combination of those two things we believe will be accretive to growth in off our first quarter numbers as it relates to total tractor count in Dedicated, but it won't be as pronounced as our original guidance.

Chris Wetherbee (Analyst)

Okay. That's very helpful. Thanks very much. Appreciate it.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from a line of Jason Seidl from TD Cowen. Your line is open.

Jason Seidl (Analyst)

Thanks, operator. Morning, gentlemen. Can you talk a little bit on the Dedicated side about how we should look at margins? I mean, obviously there's some churn going on. You're bringing on some new business. Is this new business that you're bringing on at better margins than the churn?

Mark Rourke (President and CEO)

Yeah, we have a profile for returns in Dedicated, and so we're not necessarily compromising on our expected margin returns there. As we've talked in Truckload, more than 100% of our earnings are coming out of Dedicated in the Truckload segment in the short term as we are working to restore profitability in the network side, Jason. Very comparable. We have a very consistent methodology that we use relative to the solutions that we bring on behalf of our customers in Dedicated. We wouldn't consider them necessarily margin eroding or materially margin enhancing. It's consistent with our profile.

Jason Seidl (Analyst)

Okay. That makes sense. As a follow-up on the pricing side, I mean, obviously the expectation is to see pricing moderate. You said before you were getting sort of low to mid-single on the Truckload side. If that moderates, I'm assuming we're looking at sort of flat to low single digits somewhere. I guess my next question is, to get to a more normalized state in Truckload pricing, how many bid cycles will it take now that we're seeing sort of pricing erode and your costs still aren't sort of falling off a cliff? You're still seeing some increased cost whether you look at drivers or whether you look at insurance or anything like that.

Mark Rourke (President and CEO)

Sure, Jason. This is Mark. I'll offer some initial thoughts. Certainly as it relates to cost, we've been very diligent in virtually every one of our expense pools looking for opportunity. We've made solid progress, and we have the teams fully aligned on how we can continue to get after improved cost position because it enhances both our margin profile, but also our competitive positioning. We've also seen, and I believe we have been through the bottom of the pricing market and have shown consistent improvement even in our network business now for several quarters. The uncertainty going forward, I think one of the things about tariffs not only is there some volume uncertainty, but does that start to impact pricing in the short term? It looks like it may impact spot pricing initially, and we'll see what transpires from there.

I still think we have pricing opportunity. We're going to remain disciplined. We showed it in the first quarter. I still think we'll continue to have progress as we go through the year. Commercially, that's what we're focused on.

Jim Filter (EVP and Group President of Transportation and Logistics)

Yeah. This is Jim, just want to add on. We are seeing additional mini allocation events occur shortly after we close out other allocations. It just reinforces the strategy that we're taking, as well as we've found that bottom of the market, and it's just not sustainable at rates that are below where we are today.

Jason Seidl (Analyst)

Are you guys seeing more carriers come out of the marketplace in any increased capacity?

Mark Rourke (President and CEO)

I think it's been a steady drumbeat, and we see it both in the small owner operator, but we also see it through our Brokerage business and our channel checks relative to the stress of those who are granting credit in this arena. Jason, if there could be one positive, I don't know if there can be a positive. With all the uncertainty, does that drive and accelerate the exit? Yeah, we haven't seen any signs of stabilization. It's been a slow trend downwards.

Jason Seidl (Analyst)

Appreciate it. Sorry for sneaking an extra one there on you.

Mark Rourke (President and CEO)

We're off our game this morning on that. Please do get that. Yeah.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from a line of Ravi Shanker from Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.

Ravi Shanker (Equity Research Analyst)

Great. Thanks, Martin. I hope the question enforcement does not start now. Maybe just to follow up on the pricing commentary there, how do you even have pricing conversations in an environment like this where we are looking at polar opposite outcomes of a cliff versus a bullwhip in the next few quarters? I mean, do you need to pull out a pandemic playbook here and maybe even push out bid season or talk about short-term contracts? Kind of, yeah, how do both sides of the table kind of even come together?

Jim Filter (EVP and Group President of Transportation and Logistics)

Hey, Ravi, this is Jim. Thanks for the question. It's really important times like this that we're stating our assumptions with our customers as we're going through an allocation event that we're sharing. This is the way that we're looking at the market. This is our assumptions. If we happen to be wrong, we're positioned well to come back and have a further discussion in terms of how we're positioning our organization, as well as the customer is able to turn back to their organization and explain the actions that they're taking.

Ravi Shanker (Equity Research Analyst)

Got it. Understood. Maybe the lack of near-term clarity potentially could make you look longer-term as well. We had Aurora announce this morning that they have started commercial revenue generation with autonomous trucks on public roads in Texas. Is that something that will you take another look at? Kind of, is that an important catalyst? Kind of, how do you think about potentially taking advantage of this? Maybe kind of a little bit of air pocket coming to think about long-term opportunities here.

Mark Rourke (President and CEO)

Sure, Ravi. This is Mark. Yeah, we have a great deal of respect for the leadership and the capability that Aurora has built. We've been engaged with them for a number of years now and are currently hauling a series of lanes in Texas presently with safety driver in. Yeah, that's something that we've continued to stay close to be clear what we believe our use cases can be there as that technology continues to develop. Congratulations to them. We're a fine organization, and we'll continue to look for those opportunities that make sense for us and our customers.

Ravi Shanker (Equity Research Analyst)

Wonderful. Thanks, guys.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from a line of Tom Wadewitz from UBS. Your line is open.

Tom Wadewitz (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Yeah. Good morning.

Steve Bindas (Director of Investor Relations)

Morning, Tom.

Tom Wetherbee (Analyst)

Mark. Yeah, hi. I wanted to get some thoughts. I think when you were talking about, I'm not sure if it was Dedicated. I think it was. We were talking about increasing use of owner operators to make it more asset-light. I guess, I mean, it makes sense, and I think my understanding is you guys have a very strong system for building the owner operator base and attracting owner operators. I just wonder, is that a stable enough source of capacity? It seems to me like when you see the downturn, the owner operator capacity is a bit less stable than what you get with the kind of company trucks or company drivers. I don't know. I guess just thoughts on that. Is that something that you over time really want to swing it in a big way to owner operator capacity?

Just thought that was a topic to drill down on a little bit.

Mark Rourke (President and CEO)

Sure. Sure. Tom, the question really, the response there was more on the network side of our business is where we deploy a series of capacity types. First, we have a very core company driver capacity that sits at the core of our network offering. As we look at the current returns and the ability to where we want to put our strategic investments, we are looking to use more asset-light supplement to our core drivers, which are core company drivers, which is not only owner operators, but it is also where our power-only offering adds great value to the customer as well, which is small companies coming in support of the network business. We have the levers to pull across all three of those.

As mentioned in my opening comments, the owner operator difficulty today, I think, just represents where the market is and the difficulty they have presently based upon the demand, pricing environment, etc. One of the advantages coming to a company that has quality customers, has quality demand, has the trailer fleet, and the ability to help with cost mitigation around fuel, cost mitigation around insurance and other Bobtail Insurance and some other items. We think we do have a value proposition, although that part of the market is under a good deal of stress. It is not all in one category or another. It is the complementary nature of company owner operator and power-only to serve our network needs.

Tom Wadewitz (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. Yeah, that makes more sense than Dedicated. Okay. Thank you. When we think about capacity attrition and I look at some of the results of the big carriers, big really well-run carriers like yourself that are not running profitably in network, and there are some other big players in the same situation and maybe tougher, it's surprising some of the resilience of small carriers or broader industry capacity. Do you think that the big carrier versus small carrier dynamic has changed, that maybe small carriers have reasons they can hang in better than you would think? Because you normally think big carriers have advantages, technology, obviously, driver recruiting, various things, but it just seems like given all the pressure on the big carriers, wouldn't you see a lot more capacity attrition with the small guys? Any thoughts on that question? Thank you.

Mark Rourke (President and CEO)

Yeah. I think certainly the correction in capacity has been a bit more stubborn this time, but it's occurring, and it's occurring just at a slower rate than we have typically seen, Tom. I do believe still the big carrier has the advantages that you mentioned there, particularly with the trailer pool networks and the things that we do on behalf of our customer community. There is also more technology available, more price discovery. There is just more information available to all participants across the supply chain. I think that might be one of the changing dynamics. The fundamentals of having enough revenue to cover your cost base is still paramount, and I think that's why we continue to see the downward trend in capacity.

Tom Wadewitz (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Right. Okay. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from Scott Group from Wolfe Research. Your line is open.

Scott Group (Managing Directorand Senior Analyst)

Hey, thanks. Good morning.

Mark Rourke (President and CEO)

Morning, Scott.

Scott Group (Managing Directorand Senior Analyst)

Just one more on price. I think you're saying low to mid-single digit on Truckload and flattish on intermodal. I guess, why do you think we're seeing that kind of spread? What has to change to get the two more aligned? Maybe it's too early because bids aren't really in effect yet. Given a better outcome, at least for shippers with intermodal, are you seeing or do you expect to see better compliance with intermodal bids than Truckload bids?

Jim Filter (EVP and Group President of Transportation and Logistics)

Yeah. Scott, this is Jim. I think the reason why you're seeing a little bit of deviation there is probably what we've seen over the last few years, that the network bids had dropped faster than intermodal. Intermodal was more resilient through the downturn than what we had seen in one-way network rates. Now they're coming back into a little bit more of alignment there, making intermodal a little bit more attractive going forward.

Scott Group (Managing Directorand Senior Analyst)

Okay. Can you just talk about the CapEx cut? Is this just what you're planning to do with the fleet and tractors? Is there any consideration of redoing anything with the trailer fleet as well, and the intermodal stock fleet as well?

Darrell Campbell (EVP and CFO)

Yeah. This is Darrell. I'll start. Mark will add some color. The strategy that we're implementing for the first quarter and the rest of the year is really consistent with what we've been doing for the past several quarters, I would say. We're dedicating our capital to the areas of strategic growth, right? Intermodal tractors and Dedicated tractors, that's not going to change throughout the cycle. Some of the commentary Mark made around network and the fact that it's not investable given current returns, we're just affirming that our capital allocation reflects that. As volumes have moderated or are expected to moderate, our CapEx plan reflects that. It also reflects the fact that the cost per equipment or unit of equipment has gone up in some cases as it relates to tractors because of the tariffs.

There is a flip side to that, which is that used equipment values are expected to improve, and we've seen some of that. Our CapEx guidance does contemplate increased proceeds, which we also see coming through in our gain on sale assumptions. As it relates to our strategy, our strategy is still clear. Our strategic areas of growth will continue to get capital. We're going to continue to invest in technology. To the extent that there's not a commensurate return, we will not invest in growth.

Mark Rourke (President and CEO)

Scott, as it relates to the trailing equipment, we're largely in the replacement cycle there. We don't, outside specialty equipment and Dedicated that comes with some new business awards, it'll be mostly on the trailing side replenishment. We believe we're well-positioned on the intermodal front, although as we continue to grow in Mexico, there could be needs over time to invest further in intermodal container growth. We think 2025 will be largely stable with replacement.

Scott Group (Managing Directorand Senior Analyst)

Darrell, can you just very quickly, how much you've changed your gains on sale assumption?

Darrell Campbell (EVP and CFO)

Not material. I'd say a couple pennies, a few pennies, not a couple. Few pennies.

Scott Group (Managing Directorand Senior Analyst)

Thank you, guys. Appreciate it.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from a line of David Hicks from Raymond James. Your line is open.

David Hicks (Analyst)

Great. Good morning. Thanks for the question. Just wanted to ask about the Dedicated growth, kind of runway. It's now 70% of the Truckload fleet post the Cowan deal. I know one of your peers is targeting that 70% range. Is that mix approaching kind of a natural ceiling given kind of the competitiveness in that market, current customer demand, and kind of network constraints? Is there still meaningful kind of room for expansion on the mix side of things for Dedicated?

Mark Rourke (President and CEO)

Great. Yeah. Thank you for the question. As it relates to mix, we've said we don't really have any magic number relative to mix of Dedicated versus network. We really look at this from a return hurdle standpoint and what adds value to the customer and the durability that we see long-term and the attractiveness of deeper relations with our customer and Dedicated. What I would note is that there is value of network helping support Dedicated with ebbs and flows of demand across various account structures and verticals that occur within your Dedicated portfolio. There is some synergies that we gain back and forth through that alignment. I would also say that our focus in our Schneider Dedicated, our legacy Dedicated, increasingly is in that specialty equipment space, private fleet replacement.

As you look at the recent Cowan, very much a lightweight model that attracts shippers that are looking to have additional payload based upon their approach to their equipment spec. We have a multi-stop with M&M and very demanding service requirements. MLS has this terrific relay network that fits so well within the automotive sector. We have some specialty capability within each of these that have broadened our reach in the various markets that we serve. We would consider all of those growth potentials and do not feel that we are sitting here because of a competitive situation that we cannot continue to take advantage of those various platforms.

Jim Filter (EVP and Group President of Transportation and Logistics)

David, just a couple other comments. This is Jim. There is a long runway still in Dedicated. This is a $400 billion market. We are a very small percentage of that. We went back just a handful of years ago. About 50% of this market was private fleets. That has grown to 57%. As we're talking to all of our customers that have private fleets, really none of them have any intention of growing their private fleets at this point. We have seen a number of them really start to change course and pivot to common carriers here and outsourcing. We see a lot of opportunities to continue to grow Dedicated over the coming years.

David Hicks (Analyst)

Great. Thanks, Mark and Jim. Just as a follow-up, you kind of outlined $40 million targeted cost reductions from digital tools, automation, etc. How much of that has kind of been realized at this point? Should that be kind of a linear progression throughout the year, or is it more back halfway?

Darrell Campbell (EVP and CFO)

Yeah. Yeah, I think you outlined some of the things that we're looking at, but we're looking at essentially every cost category. I think in Mark's remarks, he just highlighted a few of the things that we're seeing. Just to reiterate, for the past several quarters, actually four quarters in a row, we've been able to manage our variable costs within a very tight band. That is just a manifestation of all the actions that we've taken. Kind of hard to give guidance in terms of linear versus not, but the $40 million is the full year annualized impact. Given the seasonality trends of our business, the cost would not be exactly linear. Again, we don't give quarterly guidance, but the $40 million we think is achievable, including some of the productivity actions that we have taken.

The addition of Cowan, the synergistic effects there of bringing that into the portfolio. Those are all the things that are in the mix. Come up with the $40 million, but we're not going to break it down by quarter.

David Hicks (Analyst)

Great. Thanks, Darrell. I appreciate the time.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from a line of Ken Hoexter from Bank of America. Your line is open.

Ken Hoexter (Senior Analyst)

Hey, good morning. That's a new one. It's Ken Hoelter. Good morning, Mark and Darrell. Just if I could follow up on. Yeah. We're not going to make that one stick. Maybe to follow up on Chris's timing question, and I get it, Darrell, you're not going to give us quarterly guidance, but to understand near-term, maybe talk to seasonality into Q given timing of it sounds like you got some timing of lost contracts. You've got startups that offset that. Do they balance each other? Talk about taking trucks out to improve utilization. There's the normal seasonality versus the air pocket of this huge air pocket of tariff volumes coming. Maybe if you step back from I'd love some guidance on the 2Q, but if you could frame the bull bear case of the $0.75-$1 outlook. Thanks.

Mark Rourke (President and CEO)

Yeah. I don't know, Ken, we're going to satisfy your request on various quarterly guidance. Again, we recognize there's uncertainty. We recognize that there's a lot, obviously, in a business of our size and the services that we provide across those segments that there are various moving parts. We've tried to be thoughtful relative to various scenarios. We've tried to take into account those scenarios on magnitude, the timings, when they could occur. We've looked at our allocation season to date here now that we're three, almost four months into the year. You see the guidance of the range being a little bit wider to recognize, I think, some of that uncertainty. We've done a number of things on the structural front relative to our costs, where we sit with renewals, our asset efficiency efforts, all the things that we've kind of just talked about.

We have tried to be thoughtful to give our best insight to what we can see and know today and recognize that that could change based upon the macro, the things that are most in our control. We have obviously the most confidence in that and the things that kind of sit outside that, whether that be trade policy, consumer health, things that could ultimately end up driving the demand and supply and pricing equation is a bit more cloudy. That is the timing, magnitude, and duration depth gets us on the lower end of that. Things that are, as Jim mentioned, things can change rapidly that could give us a little bit of a bathtub effect of those who stop and start supply chains and have to restart generally puts chaos into the market. That could be a more favorable scenario.

As we sit here today, we tried to take all of that into account in providing that range. Knowing that in the near term, there will be an air pocket possibly here, particularly in the intermodal import area. Could happen, absolutely, based upon what you see sailings. The question is, how does our new business timing and magnitude of new business startups help cover some of that volatility? That was our approach, and that is what we tried to do with that guidance range.

Ken Hoexter (Senior Analyst)

Awesome. Thanks for the insight. How do you think about the, a lot of this is about supply demand, right? Trying to find that balance over long-term. JB Hunt was talking about having 30% excess capacity on intermodal. How do you sit there and look at your fleet and the ability or desire to keep the fleet, shrink the fleet? What do you think on intermodal to drive improved performance, profitability, utilization?

Jim Filter (EVP and Group President of Transportation and Logistics)

Yeah. Ken, this is Jim. As we look at our trailing fleet there, we're able to adjust and make some adjustments by stacking equipment. Right now, there's a little less than 10% that we have on stack. We would say that easily we could grow 25% without adding any trailing equipment. If I look back to our previous high points in terms of container turns, we'd be able to grow up to 35%. There are still plenty of opportunities there. As we're looking at growth, we're staying disciplined and growing where we have areas of differentiation, locations that we can take cost out of our network and just continue to improve that business.

Ken Hoexter (Senior Analyst)

I mean, with 40, just to put that math together, right? 25% excess capacity, grow 35% in turns, I don't know, 50% excess capacity. Do you get rid of boxes? I mean, doesn't that extend the downturn and constrain ability to get pricing?

Mark Rourke (President and CEO)

Yeah. They have very long life. Obviously, Ken, there's a mixed implication there, whether where you're growing on length of haul. We feel that the work that we've done to put together our capability relative to how we execute on the street, but also the partners that we've chosen have chosen us, but between the UP, the CSX, and the CPKC gives us differentiation in a very difficult place at times to get differentiation. We're going to exploit those strengths. I don't think we need to eliminate boxes to get margins. We have to lean into our differentiation. On trend, I think we're still very, very favorably positioned to perform very well in this market over time. Obviously, we're in some difficult periods presently, but it doesn't shake our confidence going forward.

Ken Hoexter (Senior Analyst)

Great. Thanks, Mark. Thanks, Jim. Darrell, appreciate it.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from a line of Jon Chappell from Evercore ISI. Your line is open.

Jon Chappell (Analyst)

Thank you. Good afternoon. Oh, I'm sorry. Good morning. Mark, correct me if I'm wrong, but did you insinuate that maybe there's some business you're walking away from now during this mini-bid process and some of the price pressure? And if that's the case, are you doing more maybe partial Truckload, which plays a role in the efficiency of the network fleet?

Mark Rourke (President and CEO)

Great, Jonathan. Thank you for the question. I think in my prepared remarks, I mentioned that staying disciplined on price means in certain situations that we will take less volume under those circumstances with an individual shipper. What is reinforcing that strategy across the network is that we are seeing on a regular basis more and more mini-allocation events that come back out after the fact because of something not working right on behalf of the customer or new business or whatever is going on relative to the customer's network. By not committing our capacity at rates that we believe do not recognize the value we are providing or what is a commensurate return, it allows us then to say yes to these newer opportunities that are more attractive.

That's the discipline that I was referencing, and that was mostly in the network business and mostly in the truck network business, even more so than intermodal.

Jon Chappell (Analyst)

Okay. Got it. As a follow-up to try to simplify Hoder's question, partially because I just want this Hoder thing to stick. You're at the tail end. Yeah. I'm just in the thread. You're at the tail end of earning season. I think we've seen a bunch of guidance revisions for obvious reasons. I think some have implemented tempered seasonality, which is May's better than April, June's better than May, but not at the typical magnitude. I think some have incorporated kind of flat bridges from a weak March to the second half and the uncertainty that's incorporated in the second half. Would you consider yours more of the former, the tempered seasonality, or just kind of almost writing off the second quarter at this flat line, March, April, and then the second half is kind of up for our interpretation?

Mark Rourke (President and CEO)

I think if I understand your question correctly, Jonathan, I think what Darrell laid out is recognizing kind of where we came out of the first quarter, and there was a tempering, certainly seasonality-wise at the end of the quarter, and taking into account some more tempered expectations on price and volume going forward. These are prior guidance. However that is defined in the way you describe those two conditions is what we tried to communicate there.

Jon Chappell (Analyst)

Okay. Thanks, Mark.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from a line of Daniel Imbro from Stephens. Your line is open.

Darrell Campbell (EVP and CFO)

Yeah. Hey, good morning, guys. Thanks for taking the question. Maybe to follow up on an earlier conversation around intermodal and just intermodal pricing. Just curious, I think rates on a per-load basis were up a little bit year-over-year. I'm guessing that's maybe positive mix coming out of Mexico. Can you talk about where you're seeing that strength on intermodal pricing? Can you talk about how you are seeing price develop through bid season? We've heard others say bid season's getting a little more competitive. Just curious how bid season's progressed on the pricing side.

Jim Filter (EVP and Group President of Transportation and Logistics)

Yeah. Daniel, this is Jim. As we have gone through and what Mark shared, obviously, it has been flattish is the way we would describe it as we have gone through the bid season. That is really just the core renewals. As you are looking at rate per order, you are correct. It has been three quarters in a row that we have seen improvement in our revenue per order. Just as we are looking going forward, though, do anticipate that there are going to be some mixed changes here as we go through the remainder of the year. It is difficult to just align what we are seeing in our core renewals to actually into rate per order.

Daniel Imbro (Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. That's helpful. Then.

Mark Rourke (President and CEO)

That was the intermodal truck side. We loaded mid-single digits have been our experience through the first part of the allocation season this year. Again, building upon those increases that we've had really since the second half of 2024.

Daniel Imbro (Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst)

Got it. Helpful. Maybe a follow-up on the previous discussion around intermodal capacity. I think you said, net of that, try 40-50% excess capacity in the network. I guess if we're at a 5.3% margin now, your long-term target 10-14%, are we really just multiple pricing cycles away? I'm just kind of trying to figure out what needs to happen other than obviously the industry tightening from the demand side to actually get back towards high singles or into your long-term margin range. Just curious kind of what the actual building blocks are to get there.

Mark Rourke (President and CEO)

Yeah. Okay. Jim and I are fighting for clarity here. If we take everything again, mix dependent, longer length of haul, all have more box consumption depending upon your mix.We have stated and still believe that we have that 20-25% ability through our efficiency actions relative to our duration, how well the railroads are performing, our customers are unloading the container. Again, there are lots of inputs to that that we could grow our order volume in that 20-25% without investing in additional boxes and chassis. To get back to what we target our long-term range is all the things I have just said there, but certainly price is part of that equation. The truck alternative, as that becomes more favorable, brings more pricing capability back into the intermodal arena as well. It is kind of an all of the above, and not one single thing will drive that.

The underlying execution of our capability and the railroad's capability gives us confidence that we can get back to that, particularly through the asset efficiency of our boxes.

Jim Filter (EVP and Group President of Transportation and Logistics)

Yeah. This is Jim. Just to clarify that we're talking about we see 25% as the opportunity to grow. It wasn't additive in terms of what I was discussing getting back to long-term container turns. That was from our current point to our long-term would be 35%. Then just one other key point, I think, on restoring profitability. It's growing. It's growing in areas where we have differentiation and then our dray capacity. We did use a little bit more third-party capacity here in the quarter than what we typically do. We have an opportunity through these bids to optimize our dray capacity, and that'll be a big part of getting ourselves back to our long-term margin.

Daniel Imbro (Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst)

Got it. No change in where you think the margin can get to, even with this excess capacity in the industry?

Jim Filter (EVP and Group President of Transportation and Logistics)

That's correct.

Darrell Campbell (EVP and CFO)

Great. Thanks so much.

Daniel Imbro (Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Due to time constraints, we ask that you please limit yourselves to one question only. Your next question comes from a line of Bruce Chan from Stifel. Your line is open.

Bruce Chan (Analyst)

All right. Good morning, gents. I hate to kind of flout that right off the bat here, but I've got kind of a two-parter on intermodal versus Truckload. Just on the shorter term, you talked about the volume strength and resiliency in intermodal. Wondering if it's fair to say that there's been maybe less of an inventory pause there versus Truckload due to, I don't know, less elasticity or maybe more consumer non-discretionary exposure there in the end markets. Then kind of big picture, and maybe asking what's been discussed in a different way. The past five years since the pandemic have been very, let's call it dynamic.

If I think about the original road-to-rail conversion thesis and what's happened with relative pricing and service disruption and maybe less of a mandate from ESG, do you still feel as confident in that conversion thesis as you did in maybe, say, 2018 or 2019? Thanks.

Jim Filter (EVP and Group President of Transportation and Logistics)

Yeah. This is Jim Filter. Thanks for the question. To answer that, yes, we do. We're still confident of that thesis of conversion from over-the-road to intermodal. Really, what's really changed over the last couple of years that has driven more conversions from the rail to over-the-road has been the pricing dynamic that we were speaking about. As we were talking about just what we're seeing going through this bid season, our over-the-road rates that we're seeing that way with us in the industry have been rising a little bit faster than intermodal. That's really what it's going to take to get back to that long-term mix between over-the-road and intermodal.

Mark Rourke (President and CEO)

Bruce, I hate to say, but I think I forgot the first part of your question.

Bruce Chan (Analyst)

Yeah. It was just trying to identify where the relative volume strength in intermodal is coming from, and maybe that's just been less of an inventory pause.

Mark Rourke (President and CEO)

Yeah. I think overall sentiment going forward is moderated. If you look at the current, the freight environment we've experienced from the fourth quarter through the first quarter, I think we would characterize that as being more stable. It's been the forward-looking sentiment, whether that be because of tariffs or consumer or the forward-looking that hasn't really felt yet is where the concern or the uncertainty lies. Maybe that's what you're referencing there is that overall, the consumer has been fairly resilient to this date. Supply chains have been fairly stable to this date, and the business has been stable as a result. We'll have to see what the future quarters unfold. We wouldn't say we felt a great deal. We did see a little bit of tempering, certainly at the end of March, but not dramatic.

We haven't seen any of these dramatic shifts that feel like in some quarters or some experts feel is ahead of us.

Operator (participant)

We have reached the end of our question and answer period. This does conclude today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.