USA Truck of Van Buren narrowed its net losses in the year’s first quarter to $2.5 million, or 24 cents per share on improved revenue, according to the company’s earnings statement issued Monday.
The performance improved on last year’s first-quarter loss of $4.9 million, or 47 cents per share, and beat analysts’ average estimate. Two analysts had expected, on average, a loss of 28 cents per share, according to Yahoo Finance.
The company’s stock rose about 13 percent in early trading Monday on the NASDAQ , after results were announced, and finished the day up 10.9 percent.
USA Truck, ranked the nation’s 49th-largest for-hire-trucking firm nationally, saw revenue climb 7.2 percent to $104.9 million for this year’s first quarter. That compares with $97.8 million in last year’s first quarter. Revenue fell below an analyst’s estimate of $134.72 million.
In a conference call Monday morning, the carrier’s new president and chief executive officer, John Simone, said he has “been very encouraged” by what he’s learned since he joined the company in mid-February.
“I believe there is a strong foundation and, as this earnings report points out, positive momentum,” he said.
In the first quarter, Simone said, the company had to overcome “difficult weather conditions across our operating areas and fewer business days due to leap year and an early Easter.”
Issues cited in the conference call by Simone and Chief Financial Officer Cliff Beckham and in the company’s earnings statement included:
Operating results for trucking jumped 50 percent, including revenue growth of 5.1 percent while expenses grew 1 percent.
Length of haul rose 11.8 percent and rate per total mile climbed 2.7 percent. Miles per seated truck went up 2.7 percent.
The freight brokerage segment, called strategic capacity solutions, reported $1.28 million in operating income, down from $1.5 million in the first quarter last year.
Intermodal transport, which moves freight through at least two modes of travel such as highway, rail or water, showed an operating loss of $131,000 for the first quarter, an improvement over a $224,000 loss in first quarter 2012.
Simone, whose management experience includes UPS, Ryder and Greatwide Logistics, said the company will focus on cost controls in three major areas: equipment operating costs, fuel consumption and safety.
USA Truck has about 3,000 employees and transports general commodities throughout the United States and parts of Canada and Mexico, according to Transport Topics newspaper, a trade weekly.
The company has reported a string of losing quarters, including a record $6.1 million in 2012’s third quarter, and a total net loss for 2012 of $17.5 million, higher than 2011’s $10.8 million.
On Monday, Beckham said the trucking firm’s balance sheet and financing sources “remain adequate to support our operating needs for the foreseeable future.” As of March 31, outstanding debt, less cash, represented 57.5 percent of total capitalization. That was higher than in March 31, 2012, when outstanding debt made up 48.9 percent of total capitalization.
At the end of the first quarter, the company was “in compliance with our five-year $125 million revolving credit facility,” Beckham said, and had about $15.2 million available borrowing capacity.
USA Truck stock closed Monday at $5.95 per share, up 58 cents. The stock has traded in the past year between $2.65 and $6.98.
Business, Pages 23 on 05/07/2013