Fleet Management News & Business Info | Commercial Carrier Journal
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CCJ Top 250 breakdown by segment Estimated Power revenue change Segment Carriers % of total units % of total 2011 to 2012 Dedicated contract carriage 15 6.0% 21,1723.5% Flatbed, specialized and heavy haul 25 10.0% 26,9954.4% General freight 126 50.4% 262,42243.3% Household goods 9 3.6% 17,8712.9% Intermodal7 2.8% 8,1991.3% Motor vehicles 10 4.0% 10,045 1.7% Packages/small shipments 3 1.2% 200,974 33.1% Refrigerated22 8.8% 30,649 5.0% Tank/bulk commodities 33 13.2% 29,471 4.8% 3.3% 10.2% 6.2% 4.1% 2.2% 18.3% 3.9% 10.2% 10.3% Revenue per power unit* Revenue per driver* $200,950 $223,462 $285,499 $234,161 $163,849 $262,473 $247,796 $249,781 $244,042 $167,499 $218,306 $243,186 $229,525 $163,072 $265,389 $224,183 $207,645 $223,111 *Excludes outlying operations that likely would skew a segment's figures for various reasons, such as their unusual scope or operating profile or the inclusion of revenues that is beyond either North America or transportation by truck. the beginning of this year, however, President Barry Smith announced that he had reacquired U.S. Xpress' minority share and now owned 100 percent of Smith Transport, which is ranked No. 151 in this year's CCJ Top 250. Another carrier, Abilene Motor Express (No. 239), last fall bought back from U.S. Xpress a final small share that U.S. Xpress had owned. The deals just keep coming, including two transactions announced on the same day last month. In one, XPO Logistics, which owns Express-1 (No. 231), plans to buy nonasset last-mile transportation provider 3PD (No. 71). Meanwhile, Duff Brothers Capital Corp. announced an agreement to acquire publicly traded Frozen Food Express Industries (No. 62). Thomas and James Duff, owners of Duff Brothers Capital, also own refrigerated carrier KLLM Transport Services LLC (No. 67). Since neither transaction is final as of late July, these pending deals do not affect the CCJ Top 250. These are just transactions where all parties are or were in the CCJ Top 250. There were quite a few others where Top 250 carriers acquired smaller operations. 2012: Solid but unexciting Among the factors driving mergers and acquisitions in trucking are the continued economic recovery, the challenges and opportunities afforded by tighter regulations and the aging of post-deregulation entrepreneurs. On its face, the industry's 2012 performance wouldn't seem to be a major driver, but in context, revenue growth was fairly strong. The for-hire carriers in the 2013 CCJ Top 250 that reported revenue posted a 5.7 percent increase in revenue in 2012 compared to 2011. While that's a solid increase, it lags behind the 2011 and 2010 year-over-year revenue increases of 11.6 percent and 10.5 percent, respectively. Of course, those years represented a recovery from one of the worst years ever in trucking, so perhaps it would be too much to expect the double-digit growth to continue. Also, the 5.7 percent revenue growth outpaced capacity growth. Isolating just those carriers that reported figures for both the 2013 and 2012 rankings, the driver force increased 2.2 percent, while the number of power units operated was up 1.5 percent. This reaffirms comments made by carriers that they are being conservative as the recovery matures. Reflecting the economy Digging deeper into the numbers, 2012 wasn't as uniformly good from a revenue growth standpoint as 2011. Of the 190 carriers that reported revenue for both 2012 and 2011, 26 reported lower revenues in 2012. While that isn't high, it's significantly more than the nine carriers that reported lower revenues in 2011 than in 2010. But that's not too surprising since growth from 2010 was easier than growth from 2011. As in last year's ranking, none of the industry segments saw lower revenues in 2012 than in 2011, although some segments were much stronger than others. The strongest revenue growth, 18.3 percent, was among carriers that transport motor vehicles, reflecting the continued rebound in automobile sales. This was down from the 22.8 percent growth for this segment the previous year, but that's not surprising given the hit that car sales took during the recession. The increase for this group had been 22 percent in 2010, but in 2009 the segment's revenues had plummeted 29 percent. Other segments posting double-digit revenue growth in 2012 were 10.3 percent for tank and bulk carriers and 10.2 percent each for flatbed/specialized and refrigerated. In all three cases, however, the rate of growth lagged behind 2011. Continued strong improvement in flatbed and tank likely reflects growth in housing construction and domestic energy production, respectively. Growth in refrigerated carrier revenues likely reflects, at least in part, the continued recovery in the job markets. With the economic recovery still slow, chances are that the yearover-year comparisons in 2013 will be even tighter, but so far it doesn't seem that any segments are turning negative. Turn the page for the CCJ Top 250® foldout