Trucker Werner Profit Slips 15 Percent

Truckload carrier Werner Enterprises earned a profit of $18.99 million on revenue of $429.3 million in the third quarter. Revenue was down 27 percent, and profit fell 15 percent compared with third quarter of 2008.

The freight market was challenging for everyone in the trucking sector in the third quarter, but Werner said they saw some encouraging seasonal improvement in volume as the quarter progressed.

“Shipper destocking of inventory that occurred earlier this year has slowed and stabilized inventory levels, which had a sequentially positive impact on freight shipments,” said the company in a statement. Werner also said they were taking some business away from “heavily leveraged” competitors.

“Freight shipment trends in fourth quarter 2009 will depend on the strength of consumer demand during the holiday season. Pricing remains extremely competitive, due principally to the high level of customer bid programs that occurred in the first half of 2009,” Werner said.

Trucking revenue, excluding fuel surcharges, declined 13 percent to $319.3 million. Werner’s brokerage business revenue declined 22 percent to $57.7 million in the third quarter compared with a year ago but increased 14 percent from second quarter 2009.

Werner adapted to the softer freight market conditions by reducing its average fleet size by 10 percent year over year. Based on current market conditions, though, the company said it does not plan to make further reductions to its fleet, unless there is a significant decline in the freight market or a loss of customer business. The company’s specialized services division, primarily dedicated, increased its fleet in a difficult market to over 3,350 trucks.

Contact Thomas L. Gallagher at tgallagher@joc.com.