On its fiscal third quarter earnings call last week, Memphis-based global freight transportation and logistics services provider FedEx provided commentary about its pending June 1 spin-off of its less-than-truckload (LTL) subsidiary, FedEx Freight, into a separately traded public company, in advance of the company’s investor day next month.
As previously reported by LM, in December 2024, the company’s Board of Directors, following a review of the role FedEx Freight, in its portfolio, elected to make a push to fully separate the unit into a new publicly-traded company. FedEx officials said at the time that this separation is expected to be completed within the next 18 months [from December 2024] and achieved in what the company called a tax-efficient manner for FedEx stockholders. Upon completion of the separation, FedEx Freight will be listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol FDXF.
The development did not come as a surprise, considering that in its fiscal fourth quarter earnings announcement in June 2024, FedEx said it was “conducting an assessment of the role of FedEx Freight in the company’s portfolio structure and potential steps to further unlock sustainable shareholder value.”
FedEx Freight was created in in 2001, when FedEx Corp. acquired and merged the assets of American Freightways, Viking Freight and Watkins Motor Lines. It has since become the largest carrier in the LTL space. In 2024, it posted $9.1 billion in revenue to lead the market, according to figures compiled by SJ Consulting.
“Our plans to spin off FedEx Freight on June1, remain on track,” said FedEx CEO Raj Subramanian on last week’s earnings call. “We are confident that the separation will unlock meaningful long-term value for our stockholders.
Fiscal third quarter revenue for FedEx Freight, at $1.991 billion, was down 5% annually. FedEx said that the unit’s operating costs were down, due to increased costs related to the company’s planned spin-off, as well as lower shipments, and higher wage rates—offset by increased yield.
On its earnings call, Subramanian said the current market represents a challenging LTL freight environment, adding that FedEx Freight’s results remain pressured as a result of ongoing LTL industry trends, along with increased separation-related expenses.
“Importantly, we are laser-focused on revenue quality,” he said. “As a result, higher weight and revenue per shipment at FedEx Freight helped mitigate lower shipment volumes,” he said.
And Brie Carere, FedEx Executive VP & Chief Commercial Officer, said on the call that FedEx Freight’s performance is in line with what she called challenging LTL industry trends, echoing Subramanian’s sentiment.
What’s more, she said that with nearly all of the planned dedicated LTL sales force now hired, the company is confident FedEx Freight is well-positioned to grow as the market recovers.
“Our pricing strategy is growing yield growth,” she said. “These trends are a direct result of our focus on high-value shipments and industry-leading service, supported by an improving pricing environment. We have seen strong capture rate on the 5.9% general rate increase we implemented in January. We also enhanced our dimensional pricing models, both in package and express freight, supported by machine learning tools that improve accuracy. Additionally, the adjustment to fuel surcharge we put in place in December supported our Q3 results.”
To that end, Marshall Witt, FedEx Freight Senior Vice President and CFO, said that, at a high level, the overall LTL market is broader overall, adding that there is nothing necessarily unique about FedEx Freight’s volumes and what it is seeing in the various attributes of revenue—while also noting FedEx Freight certainly recognizes it needs to continue to improve yield growth.
FedEx Freight’s pending spin-off comes at a time when many industry stakeholders maintain that LTL pricing, in some cases, has become irrational, according to Mike Regan, Chief Relationship Officer, at TranzAct Technologies.
“When you subtract out FedEx Freight and have it operating on a standalone basis, how does that impact its network, when it is no longer tied to Ground, in terms of plusses and minuses?” said Regan. “But in terms of where FedEx Freight wants to go, other LTL carriers are not as receptive. An LTL carrier CEO explained to me that if his company has trucks running at 27,000-to-28,000 pounds leaving a terminal, it is a good thing, with 22,000-to-23,000 pounds OK, because you are not losing money. But if trucks are running at 17,000-to-19,000 pounds, that is not a good picture.”
Regan observed that if a shipper is running in lanes where LTL carriers need freight, then the pricing will be very good, but if it is in freight lanes that are already well-established—and demand exceeds the supply—the pricing will not be as good.
