Knight Transportation Scales Back 3Q Earning Expectations
Citing a weak rate environment and squeezed productivity, Knight Transportation Inc. joined two large truckload carriers in scaling back third-quarter earnings expectations.
Knight lowered its profit estimate more than 15% to a range of 18 cents per share to 20 cents per share from 22 cents per share to 24 cents per share. The Phoenix-based company is ranked No. 31 on the Transport Topics Top 100 list of for-hire carriers in the United States and Canada.
Last month, Werner Enterprises Inc. and Swift Transportation Co. announced that their results would be less than the average estimates of Wall Street analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News.
In a related development, Hub Group Inc., an intermodal and logistics operator, announced a third-quarter profit range between 48 cents per share to 51 cents per share, below the average 55 cents per share estimate of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.
“We experienced lower miles per tractor year-over-year, despite having 3.6% less trucks in the third quarter of 2013 than in the third quarter of 2012, revenue per mile improvement fell short of our targeted level, and increased driver recruiting, training and payroll costs,” Knight’s statement said.
“Soft freight demand, particularly in the first half of the quarter, challenges related to recruiting qualified driving associates and the new industry-wide regulations governing hours of service that went into effect in July 2013 were among the factors affecting the quarter,” the statement said.
CEO Kevin Knight also said the driver-recruiting environment has improved along with freight demand in recent weeks.
