CH Robinson Worldwide Inc Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

The following is excerpted from the question-and-answer section of the transcript.

Question: Chris Wetherbee - Wells Fargo Securities, LLC - Analyst : Yeah. Hey, great, thanks. Good afternoon guys. I guess I wanted to kind of just make sure that I understood sort of the approach that you're taking to the market as it stands today. So at the Investor Day, you outlined gross margin opportunities, also some productivity opportunities on operating margin expansion. And I think while you outperformed sort of the market from a volume standpoint in NAST, I guess, TL was down sort of in that 6.5% range. REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. JANUARY 29, 2025 / 10:00PM, CHRW.OQ - Q4 2024 CH Robinson Worldwide Inc Earnings Call So I guess I just want to make sure I kind of get some clarity on how do you think about those separate opportunities of the gross profit margins and then ultimately, the operating margins as we're in this type of market. So I guess, how should we expect you to try to balance those priorities, particularly as we turn over into 1Q and 2Q where maybe we're seeing some recovery, maybe we're not. It's still a little bit unclear.

Question: Chris Wetherbee - Wells Fargo Securities, LLC - Analyst : Appreciate it. Thank you.

Question: Bascome Majors - Susquehanna International Group - Analyst : Thanks for taking my questions. We're a couple of months removed from when you put the plan together to share with us in December. Just curious if you could walk through some of the cyclical puts and takes on the path to '26 as you feel today? And if there's any other leanings in either direction on any of your businesses compared to what we heard in early December. Thank you. REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. JANUARY 29, 2025 / 10:00PM, CHRW.OQ - Q4 2024 CH Robinson Worldwide Inc Earnings Call

Question: Bascome Majors - Susquehanna International Group - Analyst : Thank you.

Question: Ben Moore - Citi - Analyst : This is Ben Moore on for Ariel. Great to See you guys at the Investor Day. On your two key areas for revenue growth, you mentioned enterprise versus SMB markets. What would you say you're in, in terms of inning for both of those? Is it more like seventh inning for enterprise, but a whole lot more like third inning for SMB? And then on your cross-selling opportunity as your second area, you noted 20% of Global Forwarding AGP growth comes from relationships that began at NAST and there could be more runway. How much opportunity is left from this cross-selling across your segments, would you say you're in the third inning there. I'd like to hear your thoughts on both these areas of growth.

Question: Ben Moore - Citi - Analyst : Technical difficulties. They're, coming back --

Question: Ben Moore - Citi - Analyst : Great, Thank you so much for the color.

Question: Brian Ossenbeck - JPMorgan - Analyst : Good afternoon. Thanks for taking the question. So I guess maybe for Michael, can you just give us some color, if you can, about maybe demand or indications of demand across any particular verticals and customers that you're speaking with? And then also along with lines, where you think we're sort of starting off the year within the bid season as things start to get ramped up here? Thank you.

Question: Brian Ossenbeck - JPMorgan - Analyst : Okay. Appreciate that. Thanks.

Question: Tom Wadewitz - UBS - Analyst : Yeah, great. Good afternoon. I wanted to see if you could offer some thoughts about and I apologize if I missed this earlier, but how do you think about truckload volume growth in '25? Do you think that's something that you transition to in second half. I guess you have to have under maybe your underlying view on how the market progresses. But do you think we should be optimistic that you get into that? And then I guess another component of that would be, you did have some weakness in truckload volume in 4Q focused on kind of the right loads and everything. When the market starts to tighten, do you think you get a bigger swing, a significant swing in the truckload volumes? Or do you think that's going to tend to be gradual? Thank you.

Question: Tom Wadewitz - UBS - Analyst : What about when you see the swing? Do you think that the way you're set up, you might have kind of a big step-up in volume? Or do you think it ends up being just more gradual? REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. JANUARY 29, 2025 / 10:00PM, CHRW.OQ - Q4 2024 CH Robinson Worldwide Inc Earnings Call

Question: Tom Wadewitz - UBS - Analyst : Okay, great make sense. Thank you.

Question: Ken Hoexter - Bank of America Global Research - Analyst : Hey, great, good afternoon. Maybe just a little bit on the Forwarding side. Can you talk about given how far, I guess, maybe the squeeze we've already seen on rates, and then what, I guess, could happen as maybe shipping starts to return to some normal shipping patterns, how that impacts the forwarding side. And then any side thoughts on headcount as well? Thanks.

Question: Ken Hoexter - Bank of America Global Research - Analyst : So just to clarify your comment on the rates going back to normalization on Investor Day, I totally remember the slides. But do you think that's kind of where we're settling out as things get back to normal historical? Or do you think given the amount of capacity added on, we start seeing maybe additional pressure on those -- on the shipping rates? REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. JANUARY 29, 2025 / 10:00PM, CHRW.OQ - Q4 2024 CH Robinson Worldwide Inc Earnings Call

Question: Ken Hoexter - Bank of America Global Research - Analyst : Okay. Appreciate that. Thanks.

Question: Jonathan Chappell - Evercore ISI Institutional Equities - Analyst : Thank you. Good afternoon. I know we touched on a lot here, but just kind of a bigger picture question, thinking about the path forward. You're obviously very focused on profitability thresholds that you want to hit. You've done a great job on the cost side. At a certain point, the market will come back and you're going to want to get your share or better at volume. So how do you think about balancing this desire to win back the Robinson share or, again, better while still keeping some of these profitability threshold that you set for yourself over the last year?

Question: David Hicks - Raymond James - Analyst : Hi guys. Thanks for taking the question. I also just wanted to kind of hit back on the Global Forwarding segment kind of just given the development in the Middle East. What are you hearing from the ocean liners on a return to the Red Sea/Suez route? And how does that kind of change the pace or timing of AGP per shipment and forwarding coming back to those second half '23 bubbles that you mentioned?