Saia Q4 2024 Earnings Report

AerCap EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $2.84
• Consensus EPS: $2.87
• Beat/Miss: Missed by -$0.03
• One Year Ago EPS: $3.33

AerCap Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $789.00 million
• Expected Revenue: $794.69 million
• Beat/Miss: Missed by -$5.69 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: +5.00%

AerCap Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q4 2024
• Date: 2/7/2025
• Time: Before Market Opens
• Conference Call Date: Monday, February 3, 2025
• Conference Call Time: 10:00AM ET

AerCap (NYSE:AER) N.V. engages in the lease, financing, sale, and management of commercial flight equipment in China, Hong Kong, Macau, the United States, Ireland, and internationally. The company offers aircraft asset management services, such as remarketing aircraft and engines; collecting rental and maintenance rent payments, monitoring aircraft maintenance, monitoring and enforcing contract compliance, and accepting delivery and redelivery of aircraft and engines; and conducting ongoing lessee financial performance reviews. Its aircraft asset management services also include periodically inspecting the leased aircraft and engines; coordinating technical modifications to aircraft to meet new lessee requirements; conducting restructuring negotiations in connection with lease defaults; repossessing aircraft and engines; arranging and monitoring insurance coverage; registering and de-registering aircraft; arranging for aircraft and engine valuations; and providing market research services. In addition, the company provides cash management services, including treasury services, such as the financing, refinancing, hedging, and ongoing cash management of vehicles; and administrative services comprising accounting and corporate secretarial services consisting of the preparation of budgets and financial statements. Further, it offers airframe and engine parts and supply chain solutions to airlines; maintenance, repair, and overhaul service providers; and aircraft parts distributors. The company had a portfolio of owned, managed, or on order aircraft. AerCap Holdings N.V. was founded in 1995 and is headquartered in Dublin, Ireland.

Saia Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Presentation

[Operator]

Good morning, and welcome to the Saia Incorporated Fourth Quarter twenty twenty four Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in listen only mode. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Matt Pate, Saia's Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.

[Operator]

Please go ahead.

[Matthew Batteh, Executive VP, CFO & Secretary at Saia]

Thank you, Gary. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Cy's fourth quarter twenty twenty four conference call. With me for today's call is Cy's President and Chief Executive Officer, Fritz Holzgre. Before we begin, you should know that during this call, we may make some forward looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.

[Matthew Batteh, Executive VP, CFO & Secretary at Saia]

These forward looking statements and all other statements that might be made on this call that are not historical facts are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties and actual results may differ materially. We refer you to our press release and our SEC filings for more information on the exact risk factors that could cause actual results to differ. I will now turn the call over to Fritz for some opening comments.

[Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO at Saia]

Good morning.

[Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO at Saia]

Thank you for joining us to discuss Cy's fourth quarter and full year results. I'd like to start by thanking all of our team members for all the hard work they put in, in 2024. We wrapped up our one hundredth year crossing $3,000,000,000 in revenue, a record for the company delivering nearly 9000000 shipments. Our one hundredth year marked a record year of investment for the company. We opened 21 terminals in 2024, which is by far a record and we relocated an additional nine terminals.

[Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO at Saia]

We ended the year with two fourteen terminals and now have a national footprint enabling us to provide direct service to our customers in the 48 contiguous states. The record level of real estate investments we made in 2024 officially positioned Saia as a leading national carrier, allowing us to better service our existing customers and grow with new customers. In addition to investments in real estate, 2024 was also a record year for equipment as we in service over 6000 trailers. This investment in our fleet allows us to better service our customers and provide unique solutions for their needs. In addition to record capital investments, 2024 represented notable growth in our most important asset, our people.

[Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO at Saia]

As we onboarded over 1300 new team members, each new team member goes through a training program that's focused on our core values starting with customer first. Our record level of investment in 2024 represents our commitment to putting the customer first and ensuring that we're instilling our great Saia culture in each of our new locations. While underlying macro trends remain uncertain, our year over year results continue to reflect the growth experienced since Our revenue of $7.89,000,000 dollars increased from last year's by 5% and is a record for any in our company's history. Shipments per workday increased 4.5% and revenue per shipment excluding fuel surcharge increased 1.3%. Weight per shipment increased 3.7% in the quarter while length of haul was up modestly.

[Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO at Saia]

Yield or revenue per hundredweight excluding fuel surcharge decreased 2.3 and was impacted by the increased weight per shipment and reflects our continued mix optimization efforts. Compared to yield excluding fuel surcharge improved 1% as we continue to seek markets and customers that value our differentiated service. Our operating ratio of 87.1 deteriorated seasonally by two ten basis points compared to our operating ratio of 85 posted in the We remain intently focused on our pricing and mix optimization initiatives. We're encouraged to see wafer shipment trend in a positive direction sequentially. While we don't view this as an indicator of the macro backdrop or an industrial customer is turning positive, the increased wafer shipment reflects our continued efforts around mix management through the GRI and contractual renewals.

[Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO at Saia]

As is typical, we did see some volume shift in the weeks after the GRI was implemented in but we remain focused on ensuring that we're compensated appropriately for the quality and service that we provide to customers. Similarly, contractual renewals remain strong in the quarter, averaging 7.9%. We're very pleased with the progress of our new terminal openings throughout the year. Each of our 21 new openings presented us with the opportunity to grow new and existing customers. Establishing the site culture in each of these terminals has been critical and as we've discussed previously opening these new terminals required extensive recruiting, onboarding and training which are costs that are incurred ahead of opening.

[Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO at Saia]

While these new openings in total remain a drag on the company OR, we're starting to see the new terminals operate more efficiently and we're very pleased with our execution. As discussed last quarter, the investments in our network are not for the current year or current quarter

[Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO at Saia]

or year, but rather long term investments that help us continue to support our customers. I'll now turn the call over to Matt for more details from our and full year results.

[Matthew Batteh, Executive VP, CFO & Secretary at Saia]

Thanks, Fritz. As Fritz mentioned, revenue increased by $3,780,000,0.0 to $7.89,000,000 dollars a record for any in the company's history. Yield excluding fuel surcharge declined by 2.3% and yield decreased by 5.4% including fuel surcharge.

[Matthew Batteh, Executive VP, CFO & Secretary at Saia]

Our mix optimization efforts remain ongoing and we were pleased to see the increasing wait for shipment trends which lead to increased revenue per shipment despite negatively impacting the reported yield metrics. As a reminder, there is an inverse relationship between weight per shipment and yield as heavier weighted shipments typically drives a lower yield. Fuel surcharge revenue decreased by 12.5% and was 14.1% of total revenue compared to 17% a year ago. Revenue per shipment ex fuel surcharge increased 1.3% to $299,.17 compared to $295,.22 in the and increased 2% sequentially from the This sequential improvement represents the partial quarter impact of the GRI as well as our ongoing pricing and mix efforts. Tonnage increased 10.1% attributable to a 6.2% shipment increase and a 3.7% increase in our average weight per shipment.

[Matthew Batteh, Executive VP, CFO & Secretary at Saia]

Length of haul increased 0.3% to eight ninety eight miles. Shifting to the expense side for a few key items to note in the quarter. Salaries, wages and benefits increased 8.7%, which is primarily driven by a combination of our employee headcount growth of approximately 9.3% year over year and the result of our July 2024 wage increase, which averaged approximately 4.1%. The growth in headcount is related to the increase in volume compared to prior year, as well as the opening of 21 new facilities in the past twelve months. In addition, costs related to self insurance increased in the quarter.

[Matthew Batteh, Executive VP, CFO & Secretary at Saia]

Purchase transportation expense including both non asset truckload volume and LTL purchased transportation miles decreased by 11.1% compared to the last year and was 7.4% of total revenue compared to 8.7% in the Truck and rail PT miles combined were 13.1% of our total line haul miles in the quarter. Fuel expense decreased by 2.9% in the quarter, while company line haul miles increased 11.3%. The decrease in fuel expense was primarily the result of national average diesel prices decreasing by over 17% on a year over year basis. Claims and insurance expense increased by 16.6% year over year. The increase compared to the was primarily due to increased claims activity during the quarter as well as unfavorable development of open cases.

[Matthew Batteh, Executive VP, CFO & Secretary at Saia]

Depreciation expense of $5,410,000,0.0 in the quarter was 18.3% higher year over year, primarily due to ongoing investments in revenue equipment, real estate and technology. Compared to the cost per shipment increased 1.4%, impacted by the wage increase in the costs associated with new terminal openings. Total expenses increased by 7.7% in the quarter and with the year over year revenue increase of 5%, our operating ratio deteriorated to 87.1 compared to 85 a year ago. Our tax rate for the was 23% compared to 22.8% in the last year and our diluted earnings per share were $2,.84 compared to $3,.33 in the ago. Moving on to the financial highlights of our full year 2024 results.

[Matthew Batteh, Executive VP, CFO & Secretary at Saia]

Revenue was a record $320,000,000,0.0 and operating income was $48,220,000,0.0 Our operating ratio deteriorated by 100 basis points to an 85. Despite the impact from underlying inflation, increased employee count and costs associated with new openings, cost per shipment remained relatively flat, increasing by 0.2% from 2023. I was very pleased with the execution and operating efficiencies achieved by the team. The cost per shipment trends in 2024 show the impact of leveraging the fixed cost structure through expansion and we remain committed to investing in the business for the long term. We finished the year with just shy of $20,000,000 of cash on hand and about $94,000,000 drawn on the revolving credit facility to bring us to approximately $200,000,000 in total debt outstanding at the end of the year.

[Matthew Batteh, Executive VP, CFO & Secretary at Saia]

The reduction of cash is driven by capital expenditures in 2024, which were in excess of $1,000,000,000 The record level of capital deployed in 2024 reflects our ongoing commitment to our long term strategy and our strong balance sheet supports these investments. In Dec. 0, we successfully completed the upsize and extension of our revolving credit facility and the increased capacity gives us flexibility with planned capital expenditures for 2025 and beyond. Our diluted earnings per share for the full year were $13,.51 versus $13,.26 in 2023. I will now turn the call back over to Fritz for some closing comments.

[Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO at Saia]

Thanks, Matt. As we completed our

[Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO at Saia]

one hundred year business, I'm pleased with the execution of our growth strategy and our ability to demonstrate our customer first approach during this record year of expansion. While new terminals are a drag on margins in the near term, these investments in capacity are critical to creating long term value for both our customers and shareholders. As we execute our long term strategy, we constantly analyze the impact of new openings from a margin and customer acceptance standpoint. While the costs associated with new openings are more pronounced in some of the smaller terminals and less dense markets, having a comparable footprint to our peers is critical to our value proposition for customers. Every new opening is an opportunity for us to discuss solutions to our current customer base as well as attract new customers.

[Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO at Saia]

While the macroeconomic backdrop remains uncertain, the investments made in 2024 set us up to take advantage of the industrial recovery whenever that may come. 2024 was a landmark year for the company on many levels. We're able to implement a significant portion of our long term investment strategy in a comparatively short period of time. The next stage in development of our strategy will be focused entirely on supporting our customer success. Our national network provides a complete LTL solution for many of our customers and successful execution is defined by meeting and exceeding expectations, while at the same time realizing an appropriate return on these significant investments.

[Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO at Saia]

As we have shown with the success of our organic expansion, which started with four facilities in we are creating value over time through an intense focus on keeping customer first. We expect to realize significant value not only the 21 openings from 2024, but also the other 48 openings dating back to 2017. We believe the high performing national network provides the framework for further long term success. We're committed to ongoing investments that support the customer experience as we continue to invest in our network and expand our footprint to better service our customers. We anticipate capital expenditures for 2025 to be in excess of $700,000,000 which would include additional relocations, upgrades and openings of up to five to six facilities from our real estate investment pipeline.

[Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO at Saia]

As we have shown over our last 69 openings and 28 relocations, we've developed a repeatable competency in our organic expansion. As a reminder or for those that may be new to the story, new markets and relocations are open with a long term focus in mind. Incremental initial volumes come from customers familiar with Saia and then further development of the local market. They're not about generating volume for this week or next quarter rather they've been and will remain focused on creating long term value for our customers and returns for our shareholders. We remain focused on our performance for our customers and reinforcing our great culture as we can continue to execute our growth strategy.

[Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO at Saia]

We're now ready to open the line for questions, operator.

[Operator]

We will now begin the question and answer session. Our first question today is from Jon Chappell with Evercore ISI. Please go ahead.

[Jonathan Chappell, Senior Managing Director at Evercore ISI]

Thank you. Good morning. I'm just going to put a couple in one, if that's okay. So, first of all, I think we can back into Dec. 0 tonnage and shipments, Matt, but if you want to just give that for clarity also what you can give for Jan.

[Jonathan Chappell, Senior Managing Director at Evercore ISI]

0 in those two categories. And then finally, if you can just remind us what the normal seasonal trend is for OR to and how you see yourself setting up for that based on what you've seen in Jan. 0 plus some of the maturation of the terminals you have in last year? Thanks.

[Matthew Batteh, Executive VP, CFO & Secretary at Saia]

Sure. John, I'll give I'll start with the shipments and tonnage. So I'll do the full quarter just for to recap. But Oct. 0 shipments per day up 4.4%, tonnage per day up 6.9%, November shipments up 2.3%, tonnage up 5.7% December shipments up 7.2% tonnage up 13.5% and Jan.

[Matthew Batteh, Executive VP, CFO & Secretary at Saia]

0 to date shipments up about 6.5% tonnage up about 13.5% And in terms of the sequential, I mean, look, if you go back in history, some years are better, some years are worse. And I think if you were to dive into that, it's probably really weather dependent if you look at all those. So we don't love to talk about weather, but obviously Jan. 0 was pretty challenging from a weather standpoint that moved across. So I think for us where we stand right now, maybe we look at sort of a 30 to 50 basis points deterioration from range.

[Matthew Batteh, Executive VP, CFO & Secretary at Saia]

Jan. 0 is behind us, but we still have Feb. 0 and March 0 is really the make or break month for the quarter. So that's how we see it right now. But I think importantly, two things.

[Matthew Batteh, Executive VP, CFO & Secretary at Saia]

First, if you look at the shipment growth that we just gave for Jan. 0, about three quarters of that is from terminals that were opened in 2024, which is great. We're seeing a lot of customer acceptance in those. But keep in mind, those don't operate at company average. And like Fritz said, those were a drag on margin.

[Matthew Batteh, Executive VP, CFO & Secretary at Saia]

So good to see from a volume standpoint, but those aren't fully mature markets yet. But also really I think we're anchoring on the full year. When we look at the full year, we're still thinking in that 80 to 100 basis point range of improvement. And we stand here on Feb. 3 and feel like that's well within our range.

[Matthew Batteh, Executive VP, CFO & Secretary at Saia]

So hopefully deals with some better weather here in the next couple of months, but we're really anchored on the full year as we look at it.

[Jonathan Chappell, Senior Managing Director at Evercore ISI]

Great. Super helpful. Thanks, Matt.

[Matthew Batteh, Executive VP, CFO & Secretary at Saia]

Sure.

[Operator]

The next question is from Tom Wadewitz with UBS. Please go ahead.

[Tom Wadewitz, Senior Equity Research Analyst at UBS Securities LLC]

Yes. I just wanted to see if

[Tom Wadewitz, Senior Equity Research Analyst at UBS Securities LLC]

you could talk a little bit about more about the OR. I think if we look back at your comments in the call last year, you said normal seasonality is like 50 to 75 basis points of improvement 1Q versus 4Q. And then I guess I'm so you're pointing to you think you're doing worse than that like the I guess the seasonality you'd say is a little different or you're factoring weather. I just want to understand a little bit more about kind of the commentary on OR. And then I guess as you lap some of the terminal, as you think about going into do you start doing better than normal seasonality?

[Tom Wadewitz, Senior Equity Research Analyst at UBS Securities LLC]

You're just thinking about the kind of what's in the OR and how do we think about the look forward on that and the kind of the timing when that may change? Thanks.

[Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO at Saia]

Yes. Thanks, Tom. So we opened 21 facilities starting in the through the the year. So comparability of the past really there isn't a whole lot there. Certainly there's some trends to consider.

[Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO at Saia]

When we give you the thoughts around to we're contemplating what we've just saw live through in Jan. 0. We've got the growth as Matt pointed out, three quarters of it is coming from terminals that have been open less than a year. So those the operating ratio for those facilities is improving, but it's certainly not at the company average. So that's a bit of a headwind, but we're thinking about this as sort of not only a 2025 investment, but a multi year investment.

[Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO at Saia]

So that makes sense. And I think as we consider that and you look at history, at different times in history, we've had different weather events that we've dealt with in the That's usually a pretty complicated quarter. And as we know, the is made usually in March 0. And so trending it off of what we see right now is pretty tough. And what we see most importantly is the longer term view of this really we think is pretty attractive.

[Matthew Batteh, Executive VP, CFO & Secretary at Saia]

Just one last add, Tom. Okay.

[Tom Wadewitz, Senior Equity Research Analyst at UBS Securities LLC]

Thanks.

[Matthew Batteh, Executive VP, CFO & Secretary at Saia]

We've got another thing to factor. I mean, we're getting equipment in at a more elevated pace than what we would typically.

[Matthew Batteh, Executive VP, CFO & Secretary at Saia]

The OEMs are more on time, which is good from a supply chain standpoint. So depreciation is also a little bit more of a step up than from to than what we would typically see in history as well. So that's playing into it as well.

[Tom Wadewitz, Senior Equity Research Analyst at UBS Securities LLC]

So would is it appropriate to think as

[Tom Wadewitz, Senior Equity Research Analyst at UBS Securities LLC]

you hit the easier comps and you lap against the terminals? And I understand you're making that wise long term investments, right, and that has an effect as you build utilization. But do you think it's reasonable to look at the comps and say, okay, when you get to then you start to see improvement? Or is that something where you say, okay, we need a little bit of help on the freight market in order to see the year over year improvement?

[Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO at Saia]

Tom, we're looking to see improvement on as we go through in the year. As these facilities reach higher levels of maturity that certainly is going to be an add and we'll be lapping periods in which we had startup cost. And so I would expect through the year that we would see continued improvement to get to that full year sort of 80 to 100 basis points of our improvement. I mean if we back up a little bit in the that the implication is to get to that full year number, we're going to see improvements in the other quarters.

[Tom Wadewitz, Senior Equity Research Analyst at UBS Securities LLC]

Right. Okay. Thanks for the time.

[Operator]

The next question is from Chris Wetherbee with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

[Chris Wetherbee, Senior Analyst at Wells Fargo]

Yes. Hey, thanks guys. I guess maybe just for

[Chris Wetherbee, Senior Analyst at Wells Fargo]

the full year, so 80 to 100 basis points of OR. I guess I think you've talked in the past about maybe 100 to 150. So just want to get a sense kind of roughly how you think about some of the moving pieces? And then I guess maybe just a follow-up question on sort of what you're seeing from a volume standpoint because obviously we're getting good shipments but significantly better than that tonnage growth, so weight per shipments kind of moving up. So kind of curious about those two factors kind of the full year from an OR perspective, the puts and takes relative to maybe what you had thought about in the past and then what you're seeing from a wafer shipment perspective?

[Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO at Saia]

So good question. I mean, we're intensely focused on continuing to find customers in markets that really appreciate and value Cyus service. So you're seeing us kind of do the playbook right now as continue to focus on developing those sort of customers that sort of freight profile that we think is positive for Saia and then competing and providing very high levels of service which we feel like is differentiated and that's giving us an opportunity to grow maybe a little bit better than the competition. So we're seeing that, we're seeing the value of our network investments coming into play now, which is important. I got to be honest with you, we're not assuming any step up in the macro environment.

[Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO at Saia]

We're competing in the environment that we're in right now. So if the macro environment improves, we see domestic manufacturing maybe step up. I think that's a tailwind for Saia. But I think right now we're assuming that we're going to operate in the environment that we're in. We're going to compete intensely on service and we're going to make sure we get paid for this for what we provide customers.

[Chris Wetherbee, Senior Analyst at Wells Fargo]

And just thoughts on the operating ratio for the full year relative to maybe how you thought about that in the past?

[Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO at Saia]

Yes. I think we're the 80 to 100 right now is look we've got to be reasonable around we've got 21 facilities that we've added that we are going to continue to push to maturity. And that's and the assumption we're making is that the environment stays as it is. Now, I think if the environment were to step up or improve, I think could we beat that and get into more of that traditional range that we've talked about sort of that $100,000,000 to $150,000,000 Yes, is that possible? Absolutely.

[Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO at Saia]

It's higher than that possible. It sure is. But I think we're just focused on playing the hand we've been dealt right now and that's kind of where we get to the numbers that we have.

[Chris Wetherbee, Senior Analyst at Wells Fargo]

Got it. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

[Operator]

The next question is from Brian Ossenbeck with JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

[Brian Ossenbeck, MD - Senior Analyst, Transportation at JP Morgan]

Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking the questions. Excuse me. So I just wanted to see if you could comment a little bit more on the pricing trends, how they progressed through the quarter? Obviously, as you mentioned, mixes impacting the yield per hundredweight, but rev per shipment moving up.

[Brian Ossenbeck, MD - Senior Analyst, Transportation at JP Morgan]

So maybe you can talk a little bit more about that and then the acceptance of the 7.9% GRI?

[Matthew Batteh, Executive VP, CFO & Secretary at Saia]

Sure.

[Matthew Batteh, Executive VP, CFO & Secretary at Saia]

I think from our standpoint, I'll start with just general pricing trends. You see it in our GRI percent in our contractual renewals where our focus is and that's the same as it has been and always is our focus. We're intently focused on that, especially from that mix front. And we talked a lot about that last year about handling freight for customers that we hadn't seen before and that we needed some time to work through that. So we're encouraged to see the weight per shipment trending upward, but we've got to remain committed to that and keep our foot on the pedal ensuring we get compensated fairly for that.

[Matthew Batteh, Executive VP, CFO & Secretary at Saia]

So that impacts the yield. But as you know, Brian, we focus everything internally on revenue per shipment. Our cost come to us in per shipment basis. So that's where our focus is. And all else equal, we prefer those heavier weighted shipments because generally you get paid more for them.

[Matthew Batteh, Executive VP, CFO & Secretary at Saia]

So our focus is the same and we're pleased to see that. We're seeing some good mix trends from customers and we track that very frequently and we'll go have conversations in advance of the contract if we need to. In terms of GRI acceptance, their volume always moves around a little bit. It may have moved around a little bit more just based on the magnitude of what we took and the timing of when we took it, just the slower periods of the year. But we're making sure that we get paid for what we do and if it moves away for a short period of time, that's something we manage through on our side.

[Matthew Batteh, Executive VP, CFO & Secretary at Saia]

But acceptance has been good. It's always a little bit of movement at the beginning. So it gets settled out in the months that follow typically.

[Brian Ossenbeck, MD - Senior Analyst, Transportation at JP Morgan]

Thanks, A quick follow-up, can you just talk about the other expense line? I don't know, it was up a good amount. I think we've really seen that in the past. And I'm assuming insurance just at the end of the year is the normal stuff, but some color on that would be appreciated. Thank you.

[Matthew Batteh, Executive VP, CFO & Secretary at Saia]

I assume you're referencing that other operating line. That's Yes. Okay. That's equipment and real estate disposals is all that is.

[Brian Ossenbeck, MD - Senior Analyst, Transportation at JP Morgan]

Okay. Thank you.

[Operator]

The next question is from Jordan Allager with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

[Jordan Alliger, VP & Equity Research Analyst at Goldman Sachs]

Yes. Hi. I was just wondering, can you talk a little bit more about the mix optimization? Is it like a specific program? Is it just try to get a little more color on that?

[Jordan Alliger, VP & Equity Research Analyst at Goldman Sachs]

And do we get to a point of normalization at some point where weight per shipment and yields both can go up? I mean, I think historically that's been the case, but I don't know if there's a balance point. And, but in the meantime, would one expect yield ex fuel to stay down year over year? Thanks.

[Matthew Batteh, Executive VP, CFO & Secretary at Saia]

Well, I don't I'd have to go back and look. I don't know that we've seen a time where our weight per shipment was that different in of the prior year versus I mean, it was up pretty significantly. So part of that is what we were handling in that back part of 2023 after a competitor went out of business. But in terms of our mix optimization efforts, every time we're speaking with a customer, we're looking at the freight profile and trying to identify what would work best for us and going after that. And one of the key points about this national network is that we have a better opportunity now than we ever have to have conversations with customers about handling everything for them and doing a great job for them in markets and places that we may not have had access to because we didn't handle that direct in the past.

[Matthew Batteh, Executive VP, CFO & Secretary at Saia]

So in certain instances, that's a mixed discussion because we may not have had access to a customer's book of business that we're going to Great Plains as an example. So it's mix around that, but it's also identifying the various commodities they ship and ensuring that we're doing a great job for them and charging appropriately for them. So the weight per shipment divergence is really where that yield number is coming from. But we're focused on pricing and when we look at it internally, that's on a revenue per shipment basis is how we track it.

[Jordan Alliger, VP & Equity Research Analyst at Goldman Sachs]

Okay. Thank you.

[Operator]

The next question is from Scott Group with Wolfe Research. Please go ahead.

[Scott Group, MD & Senior Analyst at Wolfe Research]

Hey, thanks. Good morning, guys. So any way you can give some directional color on how to think about maybe sequentially the yield and revenue per shipment? We've seen sequential increases the last two quarters. Would you expect that to continue again in And or maybe if maybe differently like within that OR guidance sort of what's like the range of revenue assumption you've got within there?

[Scott Group, MD & Senior Analyst at Wolfe Research]

Maybe that could be helpful as well.

[Matthew Batteh, Executive VP, CFO & Secretary at Saia]

Well, we don't give intra quarter yield or revenue per shipment updates. But from our standpoint, we're continuing to focus on the exact same thing. We're focused on pricing and having conversations with customers. You've seen where our contractual renewals numbers have trended. But right now with the environment loose and everyone has capacity, there are certainly instances where customers have options and they decide to try a lower priced option for a period of time and we're willing to let that go.

[Matthew Batteh, Executive VP, CFO & Secretary at Saia]

And when it comes back, we're going to be ready at our rate. So we're focused on price and these conversations with customers not only on price, but about our expanded footprint and a national footprint that we can do more and more for them. And that's a discussion that we have the benefit of having at a better rate than we ever have. So from a pricing standpoint, our expectation is that the industrial customer is not turned yet, but our mix efforts seem to be paying dividends. But it's only been a couple of quarters.

[Matthew Batteh, Executive VP, CFO & Secretary at Saia]

We've got to keep our foot on the gas here.

[Scott Group, MD & Senior Analyst at Wolfe Research]

And then just secondly, how many terminals are you planning to open this year? And just because it's topical, any way to sort of frame how much, if any, cross border Canada and Mexico exposure? I don't think it's much at all, but just any color there?

[Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO at Saia]

Yes, no problem, Scott. So we'll open up to five or six facilities kind of scattered through the back half of the year that really are not going to have a meaningful impact on the business plus or minus. They're all great investments, but when you get to two fourteen or so facilities, five or six doesn't have that meaningful of an impact. And certainly the ones that we'll add will be more of the, call it, in market or markets that just moving closer to the customer. So I think potential drag would be pretty low.

[Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO at Saia]

When you think about cross border for us, the actual business that we hand off, it's two ish percent of the total. If you think about maybe manufacturers that have got sort of on their side of the fence sort of their manufacturing is cross border. I don't really have a breakout there. But in terms of what we deal with directly, it's two ish percent in total for the whole company, both North and South, so Mexico and Canada.

[Scott Group, MD & Senior Analyst at Wolfe Research]

Two Percent each or 2% total for the

[Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO at Saia]

Total.

[Scott Group, MD & Senior Analyst at Wolfe Research]

Okay.

[Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO at Saia]

Two ish percent.

[Matthew Batteh, Executive VP, CFO & Secretary at Saia]

Thank you.

[Scott Group, MD & Senior Analyst at Wolfe Research]

Thank you, guys.

[Operator]

The next question is from Daniel Imbro with Stephens. Please go ahead.

[Daniel Imbro, Managing Director at Stephens Inc]

Hey, good morning, guys. Thanks for taking the questions.

[Daniel Imbro, Managing Director at Stephens Inc]

Fritz, last quarter we talked about service opportunities in parts of

[Daniel Imbro, Managing Director at Stephens Inc]

your network where you've grown quickly. That showed up in the Mastio survey. I guess, how have your initiatives trended here to end the year? Is that supporting kind of underlying pricing? Are you seeing service been in the right direction?

[Daniel Imbro, Managing Director at Stephens Inc]

And kind of any progress here to start 2025? Thanks.

[Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO at Saia]

Hey, we're really excited about what we're seeing. It's showing up in our volume numbers. So that's positive. Those new facilities are probably estimated probably three quarters of the increase year over year are related to those facilities. And I think customers typically vote with their feet.

[Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO at Saia]

So that's a good thing. I'm pleased to see where that is. And the incentive plan structures that we have in place are all focused on customer metrics. And that's important because quite frankly the company understands that that's how we differentiate in the marketplace. So I'm pleased to see with how that's going.

[Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO at Saia]

I think when you get in an environment where you're back to opening maybe five or six and now it's more about stabilizing and maturing the 21 that we've opened. And frankly the ones that we've opened in the last two or three years, those are ones there's opportunities in all those. So I think we're making great progress.

[Daniel Imbro, Managing Director at Stephens Inc]

Great. And then just one quick follow-up. If CapEx does moderate, I think you said $700,000,000 this year, I guess,

[Daniel Imbro, Managing Director at Stephens Inc]

Matt, how should we think about

[Daniel Imbro, Managing Director at Stephens Inc]

you guys deploying that free cash as terminal openings low?

[Matthew Batteh, Executive VP, CFO & Secretary at Saia]

Well, I mean, we've proven that return that investing capital back in the business has been the right use of that so far. If you look at the openings that Fritz talked about, we've really been able to pull forward a lot of our real estate investment pipeline in 21 terminals is no easy task for the group. So as we look out, I mean, we'll make that call as we get there. We still got some investments to be made in footprint and this year is a bigger tractor buy than years in the past. But we'll figure out the right use for that as we go.

[Matthew Batteh, Executive VP, CFO & Secretary at Saia]

And just on that comment too, Daniel, I mean, we're in our revolving credit facilities as we stand right now and we look at our projections in terms of CapEx and obviously this is subject to timing. But on the interest line, we estimate that to be around $1 or so EPS impact when we look at the full year. So we're in our credit facilities a little bit more than we used to. And as we continue to generate operating cash flow, we'll figure out the right way to deploy that back after we get through some of these bigger years of CapEx.

[Daniel Imbro, Managing Director at Stephens Inc]

Great. Appreciate all the color. Best of luck.

[Operator]

The next question is from Ken Hoexter with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

[Ken Hoexter, Managing Director at Bank of America]

Hey, great. Good morning. You just give a couple of updates on on time performance or claims ratio through the quarter? And then there was a spike in other revenue went up to $27,000,000 up from about $19,000,000 20 million dollars

[Ken Hoexter, Managing Director at Bank of America]

for the last few

[Ken Hoexter, Managing Director at Bank of America]

quarters. Maybe thoughts on what that's from?

[Matthew Batteh, Executive VP, CFO & Secretary at Saia]

Yes. In terms of I'll let Fritz talk about on time and how we're looking at that with the new facilities and everything. But in terms of the claims ratio, it was 0.59% for the quarter and 0.58% for the full year. And that revenue line, Ken, I mean that's got a bunch of stuff in it. That's our asset light business, GAAP adjustment.

[Matthew Batteh, Executive VP, CFO & Secretary at Saia]

So there's a number of things that are in that line.

[Ken Hoexter, Managing Director at Bank of America]

Okay. I'm sorry, did you say Fritz wanted to add on or

[Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO at Saia]

Yes. And just on the on time sort of focus, I mean, we measure it in a number of different ways from pickup completion raw service for our customers and we're pleased with the trends that are there. I would say that everything that we see, we're very comparable to all of our best in class peers around on time service, if you code and all those sorts of things, we're in the 98% and above as well.

[Ken Hoexter, Managing Director at Bank of America]

Okay. And then just you mentioned in the opening comments rail and truck PT as a percent of line haul at 13%. I guess that's down from about 15% a year ago or 15.4% maybe down from 14% last quarter. Any thoughts on long term targets? Do you trend that toward the mid single digits?

[Ken Hoexter, Managing Director at Bank of America]

Any thoughts on how we should think about that going forward?

[Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO at Saia]

Ken, we really haven't changed our philosophy around that. Our singular objective is to get the OR in this business into the and whatever that takes. PT is an important part of our portfolio. So that's a we view that as the lowest cost sort of in some cases the lowest cost line haul option. So we'll use it when it makes sense.

[Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO at Saia]

Most importantly, the customer has to meet we have to meet all the customers' expectations. We do that then we look for a low cost option while not conceding anything for the customer. So I don't have a target there other than to say that we've got to continue to drive the operating costs of the business and the growth of this business such that we can get the OR into the 70s.

[Ken Hoexter, Managing Director at Bank of America]

Fritz, if I could just throw in

[Ken Hoexter, Managing Director at Bank of America]

one last one. Just you mentioned getting maybe better than your target, the OR target. Maybe just throw in maybe some thoughts on what gets you there? Is it just economic or is there anything else in the next few months quarters that we should look for to get you back to that above $100,000,000 1 hundred and 50 million dollars target?

[Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO at Saia]

I think we've got the potential. We've got a highly successful team that we execute. I don't think there is a limit on what we can do. I think we're just trying to take a balanced view of this in an environment that maybe is a little bit more favorable, maybe we accelerate, but I wouldn't underestimate our team either. I'm just when we give you those sort of full year guides, we're trying to balance that with all the possible outcomes.

[Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO at Saia]

This national footprint is a really big deal. I just underscore that. I'm not sure that we fully comprehend the what the potential of it is. We think it's we're pretty excited about it though. And I think that that's one that we keep that execution going.

[Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO at Saia]

We have the opportunity to outperform.

[Operator]

The next question is from Ravi Shanker with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

[Ravi Shanker, Managing Director at Morgan Stanley]

Great. Thanks. Just a couple here. Just given the volatility in tonnage, obviously, some of that is macro driven, but also can you talk about LTLPL spillover? Are you seeing some of that potentially go back already?

[Ravi Shanker, Managing Director at Morgan Stanley]

Or what are your customers

[Ravi Shanker, Managing Director at Morgan Stanley]

telling you as you

[Ravi Shanker, Managing Director at Morgan Stanley]

Maybe as a follow-up, I think a question on the other revenues. Did you say what the ongoing run rate there might be? Thank you.

[Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO at Saia]

Yes. So on the first part there, so I was just going to point to the tonnage comments we made earlier. Three quarters of it has come from markets that we opened last year. So I don't think it has anything to do with truckload coming back that's got everything to do with Cy executing and customers being pleased with what they've gotten from us. To the extent that there is spillover volume that may be coming back into the LTL business, I think it's on the margin.

[Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO at Saia]

I don't think it's really been a catalyst one way or the other for us. So those comments, I think the over time the other revenue just to add to that, I mean those are what that sort of gap to adjustment or that revenue line other revenue line includes a whole range of things from deferred revenue that happens at the end of the quarter, the timing of receipt of deliveries, it includes things like bad debt expense, all sorts of things. So the run rate is a multi year sort of view of that and I would think about it in terms of kind of a percentage of revenue. I don't know that there's a metric the calendar drives as much as anything else.

[Ravi Shanker, Managing Director at Morgan Stanley]

Great. Thank you.

[Operator]

The next question is from Eric Morgan with Barclays. Please go ahead.

[Eric Morgan, Analyst at Barclays Capital]

Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. I wanted to follow-up on the volume discussion. You called out shipments up to 6.5 tonnage up 13.5 I believe for Jan. 0.

[Eric Morgan, Analyst at Barclays Capital]

I know you had called out some weather last year and then again this year as well. So just wondering if you could provide any more context on that comp. And if we see normal seasonality in and March 0, maybe is there any way to think about what that implies for the full quarter?

[Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO at Saia]

Yes. Listen, regrettably, the LTL business, we can account we see weather every year. I have I've been in the business for a decade and there's always something in the numbers. So I don't I think this is the first time that we saw weather across the Highway 10 Corridor which had an impact on us. Tonnage is still up 13.8%.

[Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO at Saia]

So the nice thing about it is when you got a national network, you've got weather diversification too I guess. So we benefited from having facilities in markets that didn't have snow. So that was good. I don't really have any insight as to what Feb. 0 weather will be.

[Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO at Saia]

I just know that March 0 we'll execute through March 0. I think that's the most important month in the quarter for us and always has been and that will be the real indicator of kind of where the market is.

[Eric Morgan, Analyst at Barclays Capital]

Appreciate that. And maybe just a quick follow-up on yield as well. Just given what's happening with mix and the contract renewals, the new terminals, I know you mentioned focusing on revenue per shipment. Do you think you start seeing that kind of tick up from the 1% it's been trending at the last few quarters? Maybe, I mean, can you get to mid single digits this year or how should we be kind of calibrating that line?

[Matthew Batteh, Executive VP, CFO & Secretary at Saia]

Yes. I mean, I think part of it is there are, like I said earlier, some instances certainly where a shipper is moving away to try a lower cost option right now and we're not going to go chase that. But we're taking the rate increases that we need to and hopefully when the environment comes back or the other carrier struggles that we're going to get an opportunity to handle that business back at our rates. So we continue to be focused on pricing each book of business and each shippers freight mix as we need to. If you were to go back and look, I mean, our weight per shipment is down pre yellow.

[Matthew Batteh, Executive VP, CFO & Secretary at Saia]

So it's from where it was before yellow went out to where it is now, it's still below and revenue per bill ex fuel is up. So I think that that's our view of where we're taking the pricing and how we're having conversations with our customers. And like Chris said, the national network is a big deal. We get the opportunity to price business that we haven't had an opportunity to look at for customers before because we may not have served those markets. So that's a component of it as well.

[Matthew Batteh, Executive VP, CFO & Secretary at Saia]

But we remain focused on it and we'll see what we get in terms of freight mix from customers.

[Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO at Saia]

Eric, just to add, I mean, I think the biggest thing to keep an eye on with Saia is that our focus, intent focus is on closing the revenue per bill but gap with our peers, national peers. We have a national network now. We think what that does is it eliminates that as an impediment to that. But driving that mix of business and making sure they're paid appropriately for those capital investments are critically important and that's part of the thesis investing in Saia. I think that's we are intently focused on that and finding that freight that pays the bills with a customer that we can create a tremendous amount of value for that's where we went.

[Eric Morgan, Analyst at Barclays Capital]

Great. Thank you.

[Operator]

The next question is from Bruce Chan with Stifel. Please go ahead.

[Bruce Chan, Director at Stifel Financial]

Yes. Thanks, operator, and morning, gents. Almost a 10% increase in the workforce last year. You mentioned that you're not anticipating any improvement in the underlying market. So I guess, do you feel like you're fully staffed at this point?

[Bruce Chan, Director at Stifel Financial]

Or are there maybe more driver additions to make given the fleet investments this year? And then just in terms of bringing the wage costs to market have things kind of stabilized there? Thank you.

[Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO at Saia]

Yes. We always are matching our labor force with what the demand environment is. So we'll probably have to if we open those five to six facilities, we'll add a complement of employees to go along with that. To the extent that the business scales through the year, we'll probably continue to add, but it won't be at the same level. But it's all part of the equation of making sure that you have the appropriate staffing that balances what the customer needs from Saia and at the same time that makes economic sense for us.

[Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO at Saia]

Certainly, the 1300 that we added last year was all about staffing 21 new facilities and sort of across the network. I mean if you open a facility in Montana in all likelihood you're growing volume in a market somewhere else in the company which is going to require us to add people in those markets as well. So I would attribute the 1300 to the network expansion and the volume growth that came along with that and we'll add as we need to. I don't think it'll be anywhere near the numbers that you saw in '24. But we have the appropriate staffing for the volume we're dealing with this week.

[Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO at Saia]

I know that. And to the extent that we seasonally increase into the we probably add a few people there as well.

[Bruce Chan, Director at Stifel Financial]

Okay, great. Thanks. And then just a quick follow-up on the weight per shipment, Matt. You mentioned there was still some residual shakeout post yellow in last quarter's numbers. I guess it looks like in Jan.

[Bruce Chan, Director at Stifel Financial]

0, you're still seeing a nice positive trend. Is there any reason to think that that weight per shipment number starts

[Bruce Chan, Director at Stifel Financial]

to slow as we move through the quarter?

[Matthew Batteh, Executive VP, CFO & Secretary at Saia]

Well, I mean, we're still below where weight per shipment was pre YOLO, right? So there was certainly more pronounced mix impacts earlier this year when in the peak season of freight we are handling freight for customers that we just hadn't historically seen. Customers that we'd worked with, but maybe books of business in that portfolio that we had not seen before. So, we've worked through that, but it's only been a couple of quarters and we still have to make sure that we have got a really clean and intent eye on that. But we're hoping that it's stabilized, but we don't have a crystal ball.

[Matthew Batteh, Executive VP, CFO & Secretary at Saia]

And I think part of that too is just the industrial customers still not really there. So what we view this as is more of our intentional efforts around mix and targeted conversations with customers. And inevitably, hopefully, when the backdrop gets better, we'll see a little bit of that as well. But we're really like Chris talked about, we're just making sure that we get paid for what we do and each customer is a bit different in that too.

[Bruce Chan, Director at Stifel Financial]

Great. Thank you.

[Operator]

The next question is from Bascome Majors with Susquehanna. Please go ahead.

[Bascome Majors, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Susquehanna]

Matt, I know it's a little early to talk 2Q margins, but just from a full year shaping to get to your 80 to 100 bps of expansion, should we think about the sort of typical cadence where 2Q LTL margins are the best of the year and the second half show some deterioration from that? And Fritz, just high level with the big slowdown in openings this year, I mean, is it a two to three year runway where we really kind of grow into this opportunistic pull forward investment for Saia? Or could we see as the cycle turns, the pace of openings start to turn with the cycle? Thank you.

[Matthew Batteh, Executive VP, CFO & Secretary at Saia]

I'll start first Bascome on the sequential comments. I mean, look, it says that for us to get to the 80 to 100, we've got to improve off of this So certainly, I mean generally is the best operating environment operating ratio quarter of the year. We've got our wage increase that we typically do in July 0. That's usually part of why the OR typically goes backwards a little bit. But yes, I mean typically the best freight quarter and our best operating quarter.

[Matthew Batteh, Executive VP, CFO & Secretary at Saia]

But for us to achieve our targets this year, we've got to improve off of what we're projecting from a basis.

[Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO at Saia]

Yes. And I think it's important to think about the catalyst for us this year is to building maturity in the '21 we just opened. I think that it certainly having the opportunity to find those facilities and put them into our real estate pipeline as well as others. I mean it wasn't the terminal openings weren't just facilities that we got out of the bankruptcy, right? These were facilities that we had identified as part of our normal real estate pipeline.

[Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO at Saia]

And we know that although we are very proud of the two fourteen facility network, there's probably growth around expanding facilities that we currently are in as the business scales. But I think the potential in the business is we're at an extraordinary time for Sai to be able to have that national network, a focused and engaged workforce that is intently focused on taking care of the customer. Is there a multi year runway here? Absolutely. And I think that we get a little back help in the background.

[Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO at Saia]

I think it goes even faster. But I think that there is right now focusing on the things that we can control. I think there's a lot of growth even this year. I think they go from a which is could potentially be a bit of an investment quarter from an OR perspective to sort of that full year improvement means that we're expecting improvements from here during the year. So and that's really tied to maturity around the facilities we've opened.

[Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO at Saia]

So I think there's a lot of optimism for us, at least that's how we think about it at Saia.

[Bascome Majors, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Susquehanna]

Thank you.

[Operator]

The next question is from Ari Rosa with Citigroup. Please go ahead.

[Ari Rosa, Senior Analyst at Citigroup]

Hi, good morning. So I wanted to ask about the target to get to the sub-80OR and just kind of how you see the timeline for that developing out? How much of that is dependent on an improving macro environment? And maybe if you could I know people have asked this in the past, but just quantify the extent to which those new terminal openings have kind of been a drag on OR? That would be really helpful for us.

[Ari Rosa, Senior Analyst at Citigroup]

Thank you.

[Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO at Saia]

Yes, I mean, let's just focus, we'll break that apart. The first part about it, I mean, I think that I think I'd point to our experience over time around when there is a favorable backdrop you've seen Saia outperform on the OR improvement over time. I think what is a little bit different about where we are as a company right now is that it's a little bit unusual in our one hundred year history to open 21 facilities in one twelve month period of time. That regrettably requires investment, right? And when you have a long term focus, you're going to make the investment.

[Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO at Saia]

And then as you mature out of those or in those facilities, you would expect to see OR improve. You have those facilities for a purpose and certainly in a stronger environment, you probably approach that 200 OR point improvement a year or better. In a more challenged market, you're at the lower end of the range. That's just kind of life in the big city in a long term with a long term focus. I would tell you that I think that the opportunity for our team to compete with a very high level service and you look at what the opportunity is versus the market around getting the appropriate compensation for the service that people are getting and the right mix of business.

[Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO at Saia]

I think they're to close the gap to market around pricing. I mean I think it's a huge opportunity. So if we get more of that coming from mix and price, I think we accelerate this pace at which we can improve the OR in the business. So I'm we're excited about the prospects. And then on the other part of your question, Matt's got that.

[Matthew Batteh, Executive VP, CFO & Secretary at Saia]

Yes. If we look at the all the openings for the year and seasonally to the OR deteriorates, those seasonally in total the 21 operated right around breakeven for the quarter and that's a drag on the company. But like Fritz said, these are investments that we're not making for the short term. One of the things that really excites us about what the potential of the business is, if we look at the ones that we opened in so we did six in those got better into and then they didn't go back as far as the base business did in And that really goes to show us what the potential is as they grow and take market share, but also as the cost structure matures. They're eight months in, they're not at a mature cost structure yet.

[Matthew Batteh, Executive VP, CFO & Secretary at Saia]

So that's really where we get excited about the potential in the business, not only to do a great job for our customers in new and existing markets, but also to really make sure that we're operating efficiently as each month goes on. We take market share, but we also operate more and more efficiently in our field operations business as well. So that's something that we get excited about. But in the near term, there are drag as we would expect them to be.

[Ari Rosa, Senior Analyst at Citigroup]

Got it. That's really helpful, Fritz and Matt. Maybe if I could ask just a follow-up. It seems like there are some better volume trends here and better weight per shipment trends in Dec. 0 and Jan.

[Ari Rosa, Senior Analyst at Citigroup]

0. And I hear your point about a lot of that is kind of company specific initiatives and focus on revenue mix. But maybe you could break out how much of that is kind of those idiosyncratic efforts that are Saia specific versus maybe a little bit of a turn in terms of market improvement versus maybe a comp a function of what the comps look like?

[Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO at Saia]

Well, I think I'd point to a couple of data points that we'll kind of pull together we've highlighted, right. So we've said that three quarters of the growth in the business has come from terminals that were opened last year, right? So I think we would conclude then that the wafer shipment improvement and the freight characteristics in the markets that we've gone into, it seems like that was a good idea to make that investment. So that has been a contributor to that as well as the overall performance of the company. I mean we have said from the beginning of when we took on a lot of the disrupted freight, we said we've got to continue

[Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO at Saia]

to work

[Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO at Saia]

at pricing and mix of business and we've done that. And you're starting to see the result of that. So I think the combination yet I wish I could tell you that there were some macro indicator out there. I prefer to focus on maybe things that we can control and the things that we can control are the openings and good markets identifying the freight that makes sense for us thus way per shipment improvement and then also focusing on making sure we find those customers that value that and I think that shows as shown up in the operating results. Throughout all this keeping the cost in line despite all these openings.

[Matthew Batteh, Executive VP, CFO & Secretary at Saia]

I

[Matthew Batteh, Executive VP, CFO & Secretary at Saia]

mean we got it.

[Ari Rosa, Senior Analyst at Citigroup]

Okay. Sorry about that. Sorry.

[Matthew Batteh, Executive VP, CFO & Secretary at Saia]

No, we've mentioned it in the script part, but essentially flat cost per shipment year over year, up 0.2%. But if you think about all the investments made, the costs associated with new terminal openings, everything that went on this year, we were really pleased with that for the cost per shipment to be essentially flat year over year. So I think to Fritz's point that goes to show what the value is of these openings and where we feel like the potential is.

[Ari Rosa, Senior Analyst at Citigroup]

Okay, great. Thank you for the time.

[Operator]

The next question is from Stephanie Moore with Jefferies. Please go ahead.

[Joseph Hafling, VP - Equity Research at Jefferies Financial Group]

Great. Thank you. This is Joe Halfling on for Stephanie Moore. Congrats on the good results. I wanted to speak a little bit about the competitive environment and what you guys are seeing and particularly how you guys are viewing the potential change at FedEx Freight?

[Joseph Hafling, VP - Equity Research at Jefferies Financial Group]

They're obviously hiring a lot of their internal sales force to maybe be a little bit more aggressive on growing their market share. So curious how you guys kind of think about the puts and takes of that?

[Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO at Saia]

Yes, I mean it just listen at the end of the day what happens at a competitor, we've got to pay attention to that, but fundamentally we got to take care of our customers and identify customers that need consistent, undisrupted sort of service from their provider. I mean, you think about the challenging macro environment that some of our customers are having to deal with, they probably don't want to deal with a lot of change from an LTL provider. So the opportunity for Cy there is provide sort of a high level of service limited disruption to the customer in a tough environment. So that's kind of how we think about it. And then we think about providing a great place to work, great career opportunities, keep a very high level of engagement in our workforce.

[Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO at Saia]

That's the team that wants to be part of a growing company. And to the extent that others are trying to build their own case, I mean, I think that's we'll let them worry about that. We'll worry about our sort of business.

[Joseph Hafling, VP - Equity Research at Jefferies Financial Group]

Great. Thanks so much. And then I mean maybe you guys are clearly winning a lot of business. Could you maybe give us an insight into sort of the sales force morning meeting, what they're focused on attacking, what they're going after, if they're looking at SMB growth, curious what your sales force is really looking at over the next year?

[Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO at Saia]

Yes. So our sales force, we spend a lot of time coming data around what the sales opportunities are in markets that we're currently in or markets that are we're developing. And we arm our sales force with data that tells them where the opportunities might be. So you got to give them that sort of the top line view of, hey, here's what the potential is, here's the data, here's who we need to call on, these are the industries, these are the places that we can provide very competitive service both from a service time and transit time which are all important to customers. You arm them with that.

[Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO at Saia]

And then you give them a product that is very, very high level of service, low claims on time, we do what we say we're going to do. You do that over and over again. That gives something for our salespeople to sell. So it starts with the data that they're armed with to go attack the markets in which they operate or where they where we position them to compete and then you provide a great service behind it. And I think if you look at the results that we've had here for the last few months, I think that sort of works.

[Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO at Saia]

And that's kind of our focus from here. And I think that's been a winning proposition. We're excited about what the potential of that is.

[Joseph Hafling, VP - Equity Research at Jefferies Financial Group]

Perfect. Thanks so much.

[Operator]

The next question is from Christopher Coon with Benchmark. Please go ahead.

[Christopher Kuhn, Senior Analyst at The Benchmark Company LLC]

Yes. Hi. Good morning, guys. Thanks for the question. Maybe just can you talk a little bit about you've added almost 10% to the workforce.

[Christopher Kuhn, Senior Analyst at The Benchmark Company LLC]

I mean, how do you keep the service and quality and culture with that addition? And then what's the timeframe that those new employees get to kind of full productivity that matches what your existing employees are?

[Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO at Saia]

Yes, that's a great question, Chris. It's something that we're very, very focused on making sure that you have the appropriate training in place, onboarding. I mean, we were in the height of opening the 21 facilities. I mean, we had a very disciplined timeline around making sure that we had training and hiring in place, hopefully positioning a Saia leader from another facility into a new facility to help bring that culture to the facility, training that. But still as you point out, it takes a number of months to kind of get to the peak efficiency of where you'd like to be.

[Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO at Saia]

And so it depends. Sometimes it happens pretty quickly and sometimes maybe it takes a year to get that sort of cultural sort of at a par where we are in the rest of the company. But you don't you treat every individual, every location differently and you keep that focus intently around, hey, this is a great place to work. The only place the reason why it's a great place to work is we take great care of the customer. And that theme kind of goes over and over again.

[Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO at Saia]

And we do that and we find that we'll get people in a shorter order around operating kind of the way we'd like to.

[Christopher Kuhn, Senior Analyst at The Benchmark Company LLC]

I mean, does that benefit the OR a

[Christopher Kuhn, Senior Analyst at The Benchmark Company LLC]

bit more in the Oh, absolutely.

[Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO at Saia]

You see it in all kinds of places, right? So the more you get an experienced workforce in place, you get better service metrics, your productivity goes up, safety issues come down or mitigated, right? So you have fully trained employees understanding how we do things. You see claims or injury rates decline, which is great to see.

[Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO at Saia]

When you see that, you also often see improvement on the claims line in terms of damaged freight, those things those decline over time. All those things come together and you see sort of peak efficiency and at the same time you have a sales force that's out calling on customers with that data and that's a winning proposition. So it kind of turns into a kind of virtuous cycle if you will there, but it usually takes some time.

[Christopher Kuhn, Senior Analyst at The Benchmark Company LLC]

Great, Chris. Thank you.

[Operator]

The next question is from Tyler Brown with Raymond James. Please go ahead.

[Tyler Brown, Financial Advisor at Raymond James Financial]

Hey, good morning guys.

[Matthew Batteh, Executive VP, CFO & Secretary at Saia]

Good morning.

[Tyler Brown, Financial Advisor at Raymond James Financial]

Hey, I know the 10 K is going to be out soon, but do you guys have an update on what your door ownership position looks like today? I assume that stepped up quite a bit. And then longer term, do you know or kind of think about where you want that to be? Is that a part of that journey into the

[Matthew Batteh, Executive VP, CFO & Secretary at Saia]

So to your question, Tyler, door growth, we finished the year right around in total just north of 9900 doors. We own about 70 ish percent of those doors. So 60% of the terminals, 70% of the doors. So we do our best to own our strategic larger assets to the extent that we can. I mean, look, we've in certain instances to be in the market, you may have to lease for a period.

[Matthew Batteh, Executive VP, CFO & Secretary at Saia]

So it's important to the extent that we can, but we don't view that as a we can't get into the unless we own more of them. We try to, but there's also a cost to not being in the market at certain points too.

[Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO at Saia]

I think, Tyler, too, on the lease piece, I think that there's plenty of data out there around some of the lease opportunities that are out in the market or have been. We're continuing to lease them because it's a very, very competitive sort of lease structure. As Matt pointed out, it's candidly more important to be in the market. If your cost structure is what it is, you got to make sure you get compensated for it. So that becomes part of the business case around whether or not it makes sense to lease a property.

[Tyler Brown, Financial Advisor at Raymond James Financial]

Okay. Yes. No, that's extremely helpful. Thank you for the update, Matt. Fritz, I think you said five to six new terminals this year, but it sounds like those are more saturation terminals, let's call them.

[Tyler Brown, Financial Advisor at Raymond James Financial]

What about the relos? Does that slate still look pretty good in 'twenty five? And basically, will door count exceed terminal count again?

[Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO at Saia]

Well, once you consider both relos as well as some sort of terminal expansions that we've had, I mean we're adding Harrisburg and Dallas. I mean, the good news problem we have is that there's been a lot of growth. Those are big breaks up operations for us. So you need to expand that. So I would expect to see I don't have the exact door count increase projected, but we'll see between relos and expansions, we'll see additional door count adds this year.

[Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO at Saia]

Certainly the five to six that we'll open are hey listen, every market we're in is important, but there's no Harrisburg, there's no Dallas, no Memphis in there. They tend to be smaller, the ones that are that we're open.

[Tyler Brown, Financial Advisor at Raymond James Financial]

Okay, perfect. And my last one here, if we can come back to your revenue per bill comments, can you guys just update us on where you sit on, let's call it, this accessorial journey? Maybe we can use a baseball analogy, Fritz, we'll try to stay away from football, college analogies. Thank you.

[Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO at Saia]

The football analogies aren't too bad though. But anyway, go ahead, Matt.

[Matthew Batteh, Executive VP, CFO & Secretary at Saia]

Yes, I mean, we still feel like we have got work to do and then we feel pretty early. For us, the way that we look at it, we compare ourselves to the public carriers and the available metrics that are out there and we look and across the board we're cheaper than everybody else. And our footprint expansion and our ability to do a great job for customers in every market is an opportunity for us to do a great job for them, take share, but also charge appropriately for it. And we view that in the base rates and accessorials. And one of the things that we're really excited about is we have more data than we've ever had available to us for our teams when we sit in front of a customer to show them exactly what we're doing for them and where we're going for them and how that compares to our assumptions and a number of things that help drive those discussions.

[Matthew Batteh, Executive VP, CFO & Secretary at Saia]

So, in terms of the baseball analogy, I'd say we're still in the relatively early innings because the way we look at it is we're still cheaper on the total revenue per bill basis.

[Tyler Brown, Financial Advisor at Raymond James Financial]

Excellent. Thank you, guys.

[Operator]

This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Fritz Halsgraf for any closing remarks.

[Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO at Saia]

Thanks everyone that called in for your time and attention and learning about the Saia story and where we are in our journey. Looking forward to giving you update next quarter. Thank you.

[Operator]

The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.

Participants

Executives

• Matthew Batteh, Executive VP, CFO & Secretary
• Frederick Holzgrefe, President & CEO

Analysts

• Jonathan Chappell, Senior Managing Director at Evercore ISI
• Tom Wadewitz, Senior Equity Research Analyst at UBS Securities LLC
• Chris Wetherbee, Senior Analyst at Wells Fargo
• Brian Ossenbeck, MD - Senior Analyst, Transportation at JP Morgan
• Jordan Alliger, VP & Equity Research Analyst at Goldman Sachs
• Scott Group, MD & Senior Analyst at Wolfe Research
• Daniel Imbro, Managing Director at Stephens Inc
• Ken Hoexter, Managing Director at Bank of America
• Ravi Shanker, Managing Director at Morgan Stanley
• Eric Morgan, Analyst at Barclays Capital
• Bruce Chan, Director at Stifel Financial
• Bascome Majors, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Susquehanna
• Ari Rosa, Senior Analyst at Citigroup
• Joseph Hafling, VP - Equity Research at Jefferies Financial Group
• Christopher Kuhn, Senior Analyst at The Benchmark Company LLC
• Tyler Brown, Financial Advisor at Raymond James Financial