Saia Third Quarter EPS Hit By Lower Shipment Weights, Facility Expansion Costs; Revenue Stayed Strong

Less-than-truckload (LTL) carrier Saia, Inc. SAIA reported today a modest miss on third quarter diluted earnings per share (EPS) as the expense of terminal openings and lower shipment weights impacted results.

Diluted EPS came in at $1.25 per share, compared to $1.07 per share in the 2018 quarter. EPS was projected at $1.29 a share by analysts polled by Barchart. Revenue rose 10.2% to $468.9 million, making Saia an outlier among almost other LTL carriers reporting flat to down revenues in a long-running weak market for industrial traffic.

Operating income rose 17% to $45.4 million, while operating ratio – the ratio of revenues to expenses – improved slightly to 90.3% from 90.9%, Saia said. Revenue per each 100 pounds shipped, a key metric of profitability, rose 5.3%.

Shipment count rose 7.3% while tonnage rose a bit more than 3%, indicating a more than 4% reduction in weight per shipment.

The company opened three terminals and relocated a fourth in the third quarter. In October, it opened two terminals in the Northeast and one in Long Beach, California, its fourteenth in the state. Much of the terminal expansion in the past two years has been focused in the Northeast, where the company entered in 2017 and, by all accounts, has been successful.

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