Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the TFI International second quarter 2022 results conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. Callers will be limited to one question and a follow-up. Again, that's one question and a follow-up so that we can get to as many callers as possible. Further instructions for entering the queue will be provided at that time. Please be advised that this conference call will contain statements that are forward-looking in nature and subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. Also, I would like to remind everyone that this conference call is being recorded on Friday, July 29, 2022. I will now turn the call over to Mr.
Alain Bédard, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer of TFI International. Please go ahead, sir.
[audio distortion] Our remarkable performance so far this year reflects our long-standing adherence to our principal operating philosophies as well as the many internal or self-help opportunities that we see regardless of economic condition, not the least of which is the continuing successful integration of TForce Freight acquired just a year ago. In addition, our favorable quarterly results reflect strong execution across our diversified business, driven by the many dedicated individuals at TFI International. We look forward to having you meet some of our many talented leaders at our upcoming Investor Day on November 10, with more details to follow.
For the second quarter of 2022, we reported a 76% increase in our adjusted net income over the prior year and an 81% increase in our adjusted diluted EPS, along with more than $300 million in quarterly free cash flow for the first time in our company's history. All four of our business segments contributed to this strong outcome by producing very strong returns on invested capital, and today we are again raising our outlook for the full year. The economic headwinds, as I'm sure you're all aware, include rising interest rates along with inflationary pressure at multi-decade highs, continued elevated energy prices, unprecedented labor shortage, resurfacing regional pandemic outbreaks, and of course, the ongoing global supply chain challenges.
Especially during uncertain times, this is when we resharpen our focus on our long-held operating principle, which bear repeating as they are so instrumental to our strong performance. We have a relentless detailed focus on getting the fundamentals of our business right in our quest to maximize efficiencies. Everything is with an eye toward optimizing our free cash flow, generating strong returns on invested capital, and growing our earnings per share. Why do we do this? Well, because it facilitates achievement of our ultimate goal, which is to create long-term shareholder value. Especially our strong cash flow and solid balance sheet permits the strategic identification of accretive acquisition opportunities while returning excess capital to shareholders whenever possible, which we did aggressively during the second quarter. Given the choppy economic environment, we are especially fortunate to have many self-help levers to pull, as I referenced earlier.
Just one example of this, during the second quarter, we sold a Southern California LTL terminal. This facility with 78 doors on approximately 14 acres, not only did we realize proceeds of $83 million on the sale, but our existing usage of the terminal will be easily absorbed by our other nearby facility. This is just one example of our internal opportunity to drive efficiencies. Before turning to our segment by segment results on a consolidated basis, TFI International total quarterly revenue were $ 2.4 billion, up 32% over the prior year quarter.
Given our focus on profitability rather than growth for growth sake, we are very pleased to report, as I mentioned earlier, a 76% increase in our adjusted net income and an 81% increase in our adjusted diluted EPS and also a 16% increase in our free cash flow to $310 million. It's important to note that in the year ago quarter, we had a large bargain purchase price gain of $284 million, which impact the year-over-year comparison on a non-adjusted basis for our reported results, not only on a consolidated basis, but for our LTL and logistics segments specifically. This year ago one-time gain is reflected in our reported operating income, which was down 17% as a result.
In addition, our net cash from operating activity came in at $248 million relative to $299 million a year earlier due to another quarter of elevated working capital needs associated with higher fuel surcharge. I also wanted to note that our deferred share units or DSUs provide a favorable $13 million variance to our reported earnings this quarter, given the decline in our stock price. Let's now turn to our core business segment, all of which generated an impressive returns on invested capital that helped drive our overall strong performance. Our P&C segment represents 7% of our total revenue before fuel surcharge. Despite a 14% decline in revenue before fuel surcharge related to a slower e-commerce activity, P&C benefited from better B2B density and our increasing diversity that allowed us to benefit from strong industrial activity for our specialized operation.
P&C is a good example of self-help nature of our opportunities. We produce a 25% increase in our operating income to $37 million, with the operating margin up a noteworthy 910 basis points and our return on invested capital came in at 27.6%, up 460 basis points. This much improved profitability reflects our own internal focus on driving density and productivity, which in part is part of our active management style. Turning to our LTL segment, which is 45% of segment revenue before fuel surcharge, we generated $870 million of revenue before fuel surcharge, up 39% over the prior year quarter, which include just under two months worth of contribution from TForce Freight acquired in early May last year.
LTL operating income of $187 million includes a gain of $55 million associated with the aforementioned Southern California terminal estate. This compared to the year ago figure of $351 million that included a $272 million worth of the bargain purchase gain. Drilling down further into our LTL business, our Canadian operations continued to benefit from solid onshore industrial activity, and we're able to grow revenue before fuel surcharge just slightly over the past year. More importantly, given our focus, Canadian LTL produced a noteworthy operating ratio of 69.1, an improvement of 880 basis points over the past year. Equally impressive, our return on invested capital came in at 20.4, up 410 basis points. Our U.S. LTL business was created just a year ago with the acquisition of UPS Freight.
We see opportunities similar to the Canadian LTL within the U.S. business, and we are very pleased with our continuing integration progress. Revenue before fuel surcharge for U.S. LTL was $725 million with an OR of 88, a more than 200 basis point improvement over the year-ago quarter. Meanwhile, our return on invested capital was 24.5, which is already quite strong after just one year as part of TFI family of businesses. Let's move along to our truckload segment, which is 29% of our segment revenue before fuel surcharge. For the second quarter, our truckload revenue before fuel surcharge was $557 million, which was up 16% year-over-year.
Our truckload operating income reached $127 million, more than doubling the prior year figure, and our operating margin was 22.9%, expanding nearly 10 points, driven by broad-based improvement in our specialized Canadian and U.S. truckload operation. Digging deeper within truckload, starting with our specialized business, which grew quarterly revenue before fuel surcharge a very healthy 18% over the past year to $273 million as our improved diversity allowed us to benefit from strong for our strength in the industrial end market. More important to us, our profitability measure will also improve with an adjusted OR of 76.9, an improvement of 570 basis point and a return on invested capital of 13%, an improvement of 180 basis point.
Our Canadian based conventional truckload business generated a 43% jump in revenue before fuel surcharge to $88 million, along with an adjusted OR of 73.4. Once again, an improvement of well over 10 points compared to a year ago. Similarly, our return on invested capital of 16.7 was up 420 basis points. Lastly, within our truckload, our U.S.-based conventional business and revenue before fuel surcharge reached $198 million, up 5% over the prior year. Our U.S. OR improved sharply to 82.5 on these significant revenues. That's just over 1,000 basis points better than last year, although gain on sale of equipment that accounted for $19 million of operating income. In addition, return on invested capital for this business reached 8.2 relative to the prior year, 5.5.
Much of the improvement here relates to our dedicated business, where we've made significant progress under Greg Orr's leadership, but still have more work to do, and we've been referencing since last year. In that regard, one very noteworthy move is to separate out our dedicated operation and fine-tune our leadership structure accordingly. Our dedicated operation are significant with more than 1,200 trucks, but have been operating inside of our U.S. Truckload segment. By carving out dedicated from CFI, this operation can now be run by Eric Hanson and Steven Brookshaw, who oversees our specialized truckload division operation, while Greg will continue his oversight of our over-the-road operation. Lastly, let's review the second quarter performance for our Logistics segment, now 19% of segment revenue before fuel surcharge.
Logistics revenue before fuel surcharge grew another 12% the past year to $454 million, while our operating income of $42 million compares to $48 million the prior year. That prior year figure, as I mentioned earlier, benefited from a recognition of a bargain price purchase gain, which was $12 million. Our operating margin was 9.3% and our return on invested capital for Logistics is 21.1% compared to 22.4% the prior year. Shifting gear now, TFI International balance sheet and liquidity have continued to strengthen, even as we make the necessary investment to profitably grow our business into the future. Even as we return capital to shareholder through share repurchase and through our quarterly dividend, which itself has climbed 17% the past year.
As I referred earlier, we produced free cash flow of $210 million during the quarter. We also repurchased approximately 2.6 million shares of our common stock. This week, our board of directors approved an increase to our NCIB program to the maximum of approximately 8.8 million shares, about 1.8 million higher than the previous authorization. Also, during the quarter, we completed three small acquisitions plus two additional small acquisitions subsequent to quarter end. We finished June with a debt-to-adjusted EBITDA ratio of only 1.32, despite the completed buyback and acquisition. As of June 30th, 76% of our debt was fixed rate, excluding equipment financing, and we had a weighted average interest rate of 3.45% and a weighted average maturity of 7.9 years.
Again, maintaining a strong balance sheet is core to our overall strategy of being able to strategically grow the business when the opportunity arise while returning excess capital to shareholders whenever possible. Wrapping up, I'll update everyone on our full year outlook, which assumes that volatile broader macro conditions continue, countered by our own strong execution on what TFI International can control. This is what I find most encouraging, that continued streamlining is within our grasp. Specifically, we plan to continue optimizing key freight rate while staying focused on the fundamentals across our entire network. As I said last quarter, this includes an emphasis on improving density, providing superior service, optimizing our pricing, increasing driver retention, and a concept that we all call freight that fits. We only take on the right freight for our valuable network.
With this in mind, for the full year of 2022, we are again raising our outlook. We now expect earnings per share to be $8. That's up from $6.50 – $6.75 previously. We forecast free cash flow to be $900 million, up from $700 million previously. With that, operator, we're ready for the Q&A. If you could please open the line.
Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, to ask a question, you will need to press star one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press the pound or hash key. As a reminder, callers will be limited to one question and a follow-up in order to get to as many callers as possible. Again, that's star one to ask a question. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from the line of Ravi Shanker from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Thanks. Morning, Alain.
Good morning.
As you mentioned in your comments, there's been much press dedicated to what the U.S. macro environment is like, may or may not be a recession. Maybe investors here are not quite as clear with what's happening in Canada. Can you give us a little bit of a snapshot into what the macro environment is and outlook is like in Canada, and also what the kind of ELD situation there is like, and potential tailwinds from there? Thank you.
Well, very good question, Ravi. So ELD, I mean, finally, our friends at the federal government said that this is going on in 2023, January 1, 2023. In terms of the general economy in Canada, we feel pretty good with that. I mean, yes, we had two years of COVID like the rest of the world, but you know, oil being at over $100 a barrel really helps some of our provinces in Canada because don't forget, like, the Canadian dollar is mostly like the petrol dollar. Ontario and Quebec, I mean, the economy are doing well as well. We have a lot of people are talking about the freight recession or maybe a recession.
So far, even when I look at our month of July, I mean, we're still running on all cylinders. Maybe a storm could come, maybe, I don't know, maybe at the end of 2022 or into 2023. As I said many times, you know, us at TFI, we know that storm will come one day, and we're ready for that. We thrive. You know, we do very well in a storm, and it creates opportunity for us. We have a very strong balance sheet. We generate today a lot of cash. I mean, our forecast for 2022, like I said on my script, is about $900 million. So you know, we feel good about the economy as it stands. Yeah, for sure, we have those challenges like inflation and all that.
You know, we went through COVID for two years, and prior to that, there was another story. It's in our world, there's always something that we have to live up to, a challenge. You know, if there's a recession coming, you know, we're ready.
Great. Maybe I have a follow-up. What kind of message do you want to send to investors in the street by raising your buyback at this point? I mean, clearly, like, with your new guide, I mean, I think it reflects kind of the valuation of the stock. Maybe if you can talk in terms of like price EPS or kind of, you know, a floor on the stock price, kind of what kind of signal are you sending with that, with that upside?
Yeah. Well, you know, Ravi, we believe that even at the stock price today, it's still cheap. You know, maybe not within the next six months, maybe because there's a recession coming. Long term, you know, if you look to the next five years, we believe that at today's prices, you know, it's the best use of our cash. Because don't forget, we do large M&A every three years on average. Right now we're not doing in 2022 anything big, anything of size. That may come in 2023, you know, if market conditions are fine. In the meantime, we just buy back something that we know that what we're buying for sure is TFI.
We'll stay very aggressive in our buyback, because we believe that long-term valuation of TFI is still undervalued. We believe that TForce Freight could be an 80 OR down the road, like I said, over the next two to three years. We are investing in technology to help our team there. We are also investing in our equipment, which was, you know, very underinvested for a few years. We believe that TForce Freight could be an 80 OR within the next few years, like I said. This is why for us, buying back the stock long term, it's a great deal for our shareholder.
Great. Thanks, Alain.
Pleasure, Ravi.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Ken Hoexter from Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Great. Good morning, Alain.
Morning, Ken.
Just to clarify that last point. You mentioned earlier in your opening comments that you thought the LTL, the U.S. LTL could be similar to Canada. You just said an 80% OR, and obviously Canada is now pushing below 70%.
Yeah.
Is 80 your target or...
Yeah.
are you throwing it out there longer term?
No. We're still, Ken, we're still staying with a target of 80% OR, okay? Which is quite a challenge because don't forget, a year ago when we bought the company, the company was not very successful at the time. Now we're from a 90%, now we're down to 88%. We're making all these investment in technology and equipment and people, okay? Our forecast is really to be an 80% OR within the next two years. Now, can we be as good as Canada? I mean, that's a different country. That's a different story. We are a dominant player in Canada. We are not a dominant player in the U.S. today. No.
What we're saying is that the same recipe, okay, that bakes the cake, okay, of success in Canada, we're working with our U.S. team, okay, to bring the similar approach, similar philosophy. You guys have to do more with less, you know? We cannot haul freight that does not fit. If you go back to one year ago when we bought the company, I would say that about a third of the freight that we were hauling at the time did not fit, okay? It's not a situation that has been corrected in 12 months. It will take more than 12 months to correct. We've made a lot of stride doing that, but no. I mean, the target for TForce Freight, reasonable target for the next two years is an 80% OR. It's not a 70% OR.
I mean, 70% OR, you know, it's best in class in the U.S. I mean, there's only one company, one of our peers that's there, and us, we're there, okay, in Canada, but Canada is not U.S.
Yeah. Thanks. I just wanted to clarify if you were sending a different signal.
No.
Just to continue on that. You sold a terminal. You know, is that just the start of your digging through the process in terms of what LTL, you know, opportunities within the U.S., or was that a special case out in California?
Well, that was a special situation because so far, I mean, we got rid of one lease in Chicago. We're gonna be selling two small terminals to one of our peers. That was a major one, okay? The usage of that terminal was very, very small, so that was a kind of one-timer. For sure, like I said earlier, when we bought the company a year ago, these guys were managing about, I would say like 11,000-12,000 doors. We believe that there's at least 3,000 doors too many. We just sold 74 to this purchaser from a third party, but there's more to come. Are we gonna be selling the terminal or are we gonna be renting space like we do in Canada on our dock to third party?
Are we gonna be starting to rent space in our yard because we have lots of space available in our yard? For sure. Okay. Year one was really just to try to understand what's going on. Okay. Now our real estate team is working aggressively with our operating team to identify the opportunity for renting space in our yard and on our dock. In terms of selling excess real estate asset, that was more of a one-timer, although we're selling some small terminals here and there. As a matter of fact, we're also buying one terminal from one of our peers in Sacramento. Okay, so a lease will be turned over to one of our own terminal in Sacramento. We're also looking at buying another one in Louisiana.
It's just a real estate complete analysis that's been going on, and we didn't talk on the script about the environment, okay. Very important to say that we've pulled out the fueling banks and all this equipment in about 40 of our sites so far. We shut down 100 fueling operation within the network, and we're cleaning up all this environmental as we speak.
Alain, great to watch, and appreciate your thoughts and insights. Thank you.
Pleasure, Ken.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Jordan Alliger from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Morning. I was wondering if you could drill down a little bit deeper on the truckload profitability for the quarter, you know, specialized Canadian TL. I mean, just had a really big step up in margin and maybe give a little more details around that? Thank you.
Yeah, very good question, Jordan. Our Canadian truckload, I mean, van division, you know, they've done a fantastic job in the quarter Q2. They took advantage of market conditions, and they produced an OR in the 75% neighborhood, and the same for our specialty truckload. Because now specialty truckload is big. Okay, we're the largest player by far in Canada, mostly on the eastern part of Canada, Ontario, Quebec. We're building also a quite solid specialty truckload, okay, in the U.S. under the leadership of Steve Brookshaw. We've reported a very improved OR there. Because don't forget, we made a lot of acquisitions in that sector over the last 12-18 months, small tuck-ins here and there. When we buy these companies, normally they run a 95% OR on average when we buy those guys.
Steve and his team are slowly bringing those guys closer to, let's say, a 90% OR and then an 88% OR and then an 85% OR. We had a fantastic quarter on our specialty. On the regular U.S. operation, you know, with the acquisition of UPS a year ago, we got about 750 trucks in our UPS truckload dedicated division that was losing a ton of money. We were losing about $5 million a quarter when we acquired this division. At the same time, we've also moved all the over-the-road operation of Transport America to CFI. CFI kept all the over-the-road operation of the old TA, and TA kept only the dedicated business that was intertwined, okay, with the over-the-road operation.
Now the old TA operation, which is about 500 trucks, and the combination of the old UPS truckload division, which is about 700 trucks, the total of that dedicated operation is 1,200 trucks. A year ago, these guys were losing money big time, you know, because of UPS mostly. Now, Greg's team, working with Eric, they've turned the tide, they've turned the page, they've turned the corner, and now we are in a profitable environment, okay, running an operation that is around a 94% OR. The reason we did the split is that we want Greg's team to be really focused on over-the-road, which is a different world, okay, than dedicated. Dedicated is not the same kind of business. In our mind, okay, because we run also some dedicated business in Canada, and for us, it's always been part of our specialty truckload.
This is why we've announced on the call this morning that we're making these changes. Greg keeps the over-the-road. Eric is now our leader in the dedicated, working with Steve's team, in the U.S.
Thanks. Just in the context of the earnings outlook then, I mean, is this kind of within a few points the margin level you'd think for truckload going forward for the time being at least?
Well, that's the intention there, Jordan. That's the intention, is that by having this team more focused on just over-the-road with their CFI Logistica division in Mexico, that guys, let's focus on being better at over-the-road. In the meantime, Eric is running his operation, working closely with Brookshaw.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Brian Ossenbeck from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking the question, Alain.
Hey, Brian.
I wanted to ask you a couple questions about labor to start. You know, we've seen AB5 not be heard by the Supreme Court. Just given...
Yeah.
the nature of TFI's model, and I think you just purchased the courier service in California.
Yeah.
Maybe give us an update on that as well as what you're expecting with the Teamsters on TForce Freight coming up in the next year?
Yeah. Well, AB5, I mean, we've been preparing for that for the last, I mean, two years. At the time when this came out, we believed that this would stay the course. That Unity Courier that we bought a few months ago is an employee model, okay? We're just getting ready to grow with the employee model in California. What we've done with our last mile operation is we don't have an owner-operator today that works for us and has only one truck, okay? That creates an issue with AB5. I mean, we've cleaned all this in the last, I would say two to three years, just to make sure that we would be, you know, clear of any issues with AB5 as of it is now.
Now, in terms of our discussion with the Teamsters, I mean, we feel really good about that. I mean, our intention to us is always, like I said many times, you know, our asset is our people. Our approach with our people is that we want salaries to be market. We are. We're there. I mean, the base salary of our employees is market. For sure, it's market could be different in California, okay, than it could be, let's say, in Louisiana, okay, different market condition or New York or Texas. Our approach to us to our discussion is, guys, let's see what we can do together. I mean, we're not about trying to squeeze salary reduction or whatever you wanna call. Our approach to us is to do more with less.
How do we do that? Okay, it's very easy to say, but how do we do that? Our approach to us is, guys, can we reduce the. Because right now, our driver spend about 55%, our P&D drivers spend about 55% of their time driving. Why? Because between each and every stop that we do overall at TForce Freight, our guys have to drive between, on average, 10-12 miles. They spend more time driving a truck than picking up freight. Well, that's completely different than what we do with us in Canada. When we say to our team, "Guys, we have to do more with less," is we have to drive less miles so that our drivers pick up more freight. How do you do that? Well, let's focus on customers that are close to your terminal.
Why would you run 50, 60 miles to deliver a pallet? Try to deliver around your terminal, a radius of 10, 15, 20 miles, okay. Why would you run all 60 miles in rural areas where there's no density? That is one aspect. The other aspect that we're trying to do, as we do in our P&C, and if you look at our P&C results, why are we so good, is because there's been a little bit of a shift between B2C and B2B. B2B, our density is way better. We've always said that B2B is way better in density. We've done less in our P&C in terms of volume, but our profit came up because of that change in mix.
What we're saying to our guys in the US, LTL, is, "Guys, when you stop at a customer and on average you pick up 1.1 shipment, well, try to grow that to 1.2, 1.4, 1.6 to 2, right? You pick up more freight, you drive less mile. That's how you do more with less." It's got nothing to do with the salary of the employee, okay? Us, we wanna take market condition for salaries, and this is what we'll be talking with our friends at the Teamsters. Our job is to manage those employee better, okay? To get more yield out of an hour of work, right? To have better tools like, we're implementing over the course of 22 AI tools to help us with our linehaul operation.
We believe that just the improvement on our linehaul could provide us with a one point saving on our OR. We do more with less, but that's got nothing to do with the rate per mile that we're paying our drivers. It's just that we manage those employees better.
Thank you for all those details, Alain. Just to follow up on the building shipment density, it looks like in TForce Freight, shipments and tons are still down a bit quarter to quarter.
Yes. Yes.
Is that still part of the, you know, 1/3 of the business that doesn't fit?
Yeah.
You can offer some thoughts on...
Yeah.
where you are in that journey and when that might start to reflect positive. Thank you.
Yeah, that's, you're absolutely right. I mean, if you look at TFI's history, every time we buy a company, it always shrinks, step one. TForce Freight is not an exception. It is, it's what we do, right? Now, for sure, we have some kind of a pause right now, okay, in terms of because you know, 1/3 of the shipping, you can't turn 1/3 of your shipping within, let's say, a year. It's impossible. So what we did is we got rid of everything that was really, really bad, okay? But we still have some bad stuff in there. But you know what? Between you and me, we still have some bad stuff in Canada, right? So nobody's perfect. But in the U.S., it's gonna take us to churn everything that doesn't fit probably another two years, right?
Because we have to do it on a timely manner. We can't run from, let's say, 30,000 shipment down to 20. It's not gonna work, right? This is why we're slowly and aggressively replacing the things that are the worst, the worst freight that we've got. You know, it's like hauling mattresses. That doesn't fit TForce Freight. Hauling carpet. I mean, we're not in that business. That should not be us, right? To answer your question, you know, we're probably at a flat organic growth or a little bit negative maybe in the next few quarters. After that, we are investing in our sales team. Our approach is different.
One thing that is also important to note, guys, is that our GFP, which is our diamond within TForce Freight, our revenue are growing by about 20% a year. Okay. That's our asset light operation in our LTL.
Thanks, Alain. Very helpful. Appreciate it.
Pleasure.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Tom Wadewitz from UBS. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good morning.
Good morning, Tom.
Alain, I think there's been, you know, maybe greater caution on the truckload business that we've heard from you over, I don't know if it's over the past year or whatever. I think maybe some frustration with some of the challenges. This quarter was, you know, I think you performed well across the board, but truckload was really notable how strong the performance was, you know, on the margin side. I think you said on an earlier question that you thought it was sustainable at this level. With that as a backdrop, does it make you more optimistic on that business as an attractive segment? You know, maybe something you'd wanna grow more in the future. Maybe that's more a, you know, conventional TL question because I know you like specialized TL.
Yeah. Yeah. You're absolutely right. We prefer, okay, for sure, specialized. Within our over-the-road operation, okay, we have one part of our business, which is temperature control, okay, that's doing really, really well, and we're growing that. As a matter of fact, we did a small acquisition of D&D, a small Joplin, 100-truck company. We are investing in temperature control. On the dry van side, you know, I mean, right now our focus is really to do better with the asset that we have now, right? That's why we did that split so that Greg 's team could be more focused on over-the-road and temperature control. Then Eric has got because dedicated is really not the same business in our mind than it is with the over-the-road stuff. Over-the-road stuff, I mean, it's not the same story.
The employee turnover is not the same. You know, the over-the-road stuff, 900 miles average length of haul, you end up with something like an 85 or a 90 turnover. Dedicated, normally you should be closer to a 50. In the U.S., I'm talking 50, maybe 60, turnover. It's a different story. It's not the same. That's why we made the split, working with our dedicated team in Canada, under Steven Brookshaw, that made a lot of sense to have Eric. These are changes that we're making to make sure that, you know, we could do a better job.
Right. Okay. It doesn't necessarily change your, you know, your view of what you might wanna grow in the future through acquisition in the truckload?
No. Where we're doing a lot of small M&A, okay, is in the U.S. in our specialty truckload. You know, we just made two acquisitions lately in the U.S., two to three, okay, mostly on the flatbed side. This is where we're growing on the U.S. side is our specialty truckload, not our van division, not our over-the-road division.
Right. Okay. Then, I guess for a second question or follow-up, how do you think about where you might have risk in the cyclical side? I mean, you seem like you have a pretty strong exposure to industrial through LTL and specialized TL and everything. The risk seems to be on the U.S. consumer side.
Mm-hmm.
Where do you think if there is a fall off in imports and kinda consumer-related freight, you know, which businesses would you see risk and potential, I don't know, pressure on revenue and performance, you know, looking out a quarter or two?
I would say that to me it's mostly our truckload operation that you may be more concerned than our U.S. LTL or our US logistics or last mile. In our logistics, you know, when the market is getting, you know, a little bit softer, we do an even better job than what we're doing today. To me it's really, you know, the truckload operation, the van operation that could be, you know, a little bit more affected than the rest of the business.
Right. Okay. Makes sense. Thank you for the time.
It's a pleasure.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Konark Gupta from Scotiabank. Please go ahead.
Thanks, operator. Good morning, Alain. How are you?
Hey, I'm good. How about you?
Good, thanks, Alain. Thanks. So just maybe digging further on the margin side. I know you touched on the Canadian conventional truckload, where the margin was pretty close to 30%, but you also saw 30% kind of margins in P&C and Canadian LTL. I'm just wondering, Alain, you talked about some self-help levels as well as, you know, margin control, et cetera. Was there anything non-recurring in nature, like not necessarily, you know, sales or something, but just anything that benefited you in Q2 for those two or three segments for 30% margin? Was that purely kind of, you know, operational performance and you continue to expect those segments to deliver those kind of margins going forward?
Well, on the truckload, the Canadian truckload is really the market condition that we really took advantage of. You know, the market has been tight, the activity has been good, okay? Really it's just market condition, right? That we took advantage. Because if you go back to, let's say, two, three quarters ago, I mean, we were not able, okay, to provide these kinds of results because the market was not helping us on that. Really for Canadian truckload, Canadian LTL, it's a little bit of a different story because we keep on building, you know, more freight, more dense to reduce our costs. I could say that, because of fuel being so high, and when your density is also above average, okay, compared to your peers, which is not the case for us in the U.S..
Like I said earlier, our density in U.S. compared to our peers is probably not as good. I would say that our density in Canada is way better, okay, than I would say compared to our peers normal. When fuel is high and you've got efficient equipment, which is not the case, I mean, in the U.S. we have old trucks, so we get the double whammy of not being efficient. We have old trucks and not good density. Fuel is high in the U.S. LTL, it kills us. On the Canadian side, we have a young fleet, okay, and we have high density. To answer your question, maybe on the package and the LTL in Canada, because fuel is high, it's a little bit of a tailwind for us that let's say fuel goes back to normal, okay?
It could be a little bit of a detriment to our profitability because we make a little bit. It's because we are so efficient. That also help us on the U.S. side. If fuel comes down, okay, it should be a good benefit for us because it will take us two years to bring our fleet to a normal age. See, we reduce the average age by one year, okay, from 8.3 when we bought the company, average age of trucks in U.S. LTL, now we're down to about 7.25. Seven and a quarter is way too old, right? We're gonna bring that down. That is the only thing I would say that is something that is unusual, okay? That if fuel goes back to normal, yeah.
Right. That makes sense. Thanks for clarity. Moving on to the pricing environment. I think some of your U.S. peers have recently alluded to the fact that, you know, the rates have started to kind of soften. I'm not talking about spot. I'm talking about contract. I know you have minimal exposure to spot. Even on the contract side, they are anticipating some sort of softness in the second half sequentially. They will still be up versus last year and maybe a year ago. What are you seeing from your perspective and your kind of rate discussions with your customers? I know your book kind of turns around pretty quickly every year. Any thoughts there?
Yeah. You know what? Because of all the effort that we had to do on our dedicated, because when we got this business from UPS, it was really, really losing money big time, okay? Greg's team's focus has been on correcting that. A lot of energy from the sales department and everybody was there to correct the situation. I believe that our average revenue per mile in our over-the-road today is under market because the guys were too focused on dedicated, maybe not enough, okay, on over-the-road. Our contracted rate today, okay, we're still not seeing that pressure that some of our peers may have because probably their quality of revenue is better than ours. Because us, our team had to focus more on the dedicated to correct a situation that was completely not acceptable. We were losing money. It didn't make any sense.
We had deals with customers that had no sense. You know what? When you have to adjust rate, it's hard to. You have to chase the customer. It takes time and you know, a lot of discussion, et cetera, et cetera. A little bit of out of focus because of dedicated, I would say that, you know, maybe our rates have over the road compared to our peers are not where they should have been, okay. We're still overbooked every morning. As of today, we still are overbooked by 5 to 8 to 10%. We used to be overbooked by 15, now we're overbooked only by 5, okay, to 10. Still, I don't see in the next, let's say, two quarters to for the rest of the year, I don't see any pressure on the truckload, U.S. truckload rates for us.
That's great. Thanks, Alain. I appreciate the time.
Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, please limit yourself to one question and a follow-up. Our next question comes from the line of Kevin Chiang with CIBC. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning, Alain. Congrats on a set of good results here.
Thank you, Kevin.
I'll keep it to one question. If I could just look at your LTL division. If I look at your revenue per shipment excluding fuel for both the U.S. and Canada, you know, sequentially, they were up, you know, a couple of percentage. One of your peers north of the border, sort of or was pointing to, you know, a stronger pricing environment in the Canadian LTL market. I think part of that might be, you know, it's a, it didn't face the same frothiness as the U.S., so maybe a little bit of a catch-up on pricing.
Be interesting to hear what you think the trends is in LTL yield or pricing or revenue per shipment, whatever metric you wanna call out looks like through the balance of the year and maybe even into 2023?
Mm-hmm. Well, you see, Kevin, if you compare us in the U.S. LTL with our peers, the big issue is our average weight, right? So average weight is not even 1,100 pounds per shipment, and most of our peers are at least above 1,300. So, you know, the cost of hauling a pallet that's 1,100 pounds versus, you know, delivering a pallet or picking up a pallet that's 1,600 pounds, I mean, the costs are basically the same. But the problem is the revenue is not the same, right? Why? Because most of the pricing is based on, you know, per hundredweight. So this is, you know, part of our strategy of improving the quality of revenue is to haul like we do in Canada, our LTL operation in Canada. I mean, we're heavy in industrial LTL.
There's not much industrial LTL in Canada, but that's where we're focusing. That's why if you look at our average weight per shipment in Canada, it's day and night versus what it is in the U.S., right? To me, what I see, I mean, what the guys are doing in Canada is exceptional. You know, our average weight is wow. Our OR is, you know, we've never done a 69% OR, right? But on the U.S. side, we've got a lot of things to fix. Like I said, when we bought the company, at least 1/3 of the shipment didn't make any sense. We've corrected some of that, but we still have to correct way more, okay? This is also part of the issues of the weight per shipment.
We've improved over a year a little bit the weight per shipment, just a little bit, not much, not enough, right? That's also part of our focus on our kind of three-, four-leg chairs. You know, like I said earlier, one leg is to pick up more freight per stop. Another leg is to, you know, pick up more freight around your terminal so you're not stupid and having milk run of 300 miles or 200 miles that the guy keeps driving for about 65% or 70% of his time spending money and not picking up any freight. Also it's the weight per shipment, so you got to be focused on the freight that fits.
You don't want freight that is so light that it weighs 200 pounds because you're paid by the pound, by the hundred pound, right? To me, I mean, in the U.S., we still have lots of opportunities, lots of things from the fleet side. We believe that, you know, if we bring our fleet to where it should be, okay, in terms of age, we're gonna save on MPG, we're gonna save on energy, we're gonna save on maintenance, we're gonna save on the size of the fleet, et cetera, et cetera. That's about between two to three points of OR, okay, that, you know, we're not getting because compared to my peers, I run a very old fleet, right? All in all, we're really happy with what's going on in our LTL. For sure, I mean, Canada is wow.
U.S. is, well, guys are doing a much better job today than a year ago.
That's.
Yeah.
Maybe just a clarification question. When you think of that 80% OR target in the next couple of years in the U.S.? I guess that assumes that the fleet gets replaced, so you get the two to three points there, plus the average rate gets to 1,300. Are those kind of the two KPIs that kind of are the major drivers of the 80% OR, or is there anything else you would call out?
Yeah. What we're saying, Kevin, in general, okay, is if you look at today's operation, where are we gonna take the, let's say, the 90% OR to those eight to 10 points, okay? Fleet, okay, is two to three points. That is the big thing. Getting more freight per stop, the productivity of operation is another 2two to three points. The line haul, okay, that, you know, we're bringing some new tools to help our guys. We believe that this is between one to two points, okay? Line haul is our biggest expense at about 38% of revenue, right? You know, it's a huge change, okay? The guys are working. It's a complex network that we have in the U.S., contrary to Canada.
Canada is a very, you know, easy complex because your line haul runs Toronto, Montreal, a little bit to the west, no big deal. In the U.S., it's complicated because we got 20 hubs. The tools that they have right now are not tools of the 21st century. That's what we're doing, okay? We should be up and running 100% by the end of this year. There on the line haul, we believe between, you know, one to two points of OR will reduce, right? All in all, we have a path, okay, to the 80% OR, but that takes time, right?
Perfect. I'll leave it there. Have a great weekend, Alain. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Likewise.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Walter Spracklin with RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Thanks very much. Good morning, Alain.
Morning, Walter.
I wanna come back to the question on segmenting. You mentioned some leadership changes. You've carved out U.S. TL. You're hosting an Investor Day. Just curious as to whether all of this suggests that you're looking at businesses either more on a standalone basis. Would you consider some to be non-core, but not strategic for you that you could spin out or, you know, just curious whether all of these changes are leading to something that you might be, say, maybe you won't say it here, but, am I pulling together things accurately here or is that just something you're doing in the normal course of how you're managing your business and nothing to read into?
No, it's normal course, Walter. I'll give you an example, which I did talk about on the script. What we've done is our Western Canadian operation that was the responsibility of Steve Brookshaw, okay. We said, "Steve, you know what? This has gotta go. It's gotta go to Chris Traikos, which has its own operation out west." We did that change about two months ago. That change was done, why? We remove about $100 million revenue from Steve's management, okay, and we gave it to Chris because we saw an opportunity in Dedicated. I mean, Greg and his team have done a fantastic job to turn this thing around, okay. At doing that, okay, like I said earlier, we lost focus on the over-the-road thing. More importantly, on the quality revenue, the revenue per mile.
I'm convinced that we've missed because they were too focused on trying to correct a situation at Dedicated. This is why, you know, our approach has said, "Okay, Greg, let's have you and your team focus on over-the-road only so that we could catch everything that we didn't do because we were too focused on something that we have to correct." Steve is growing more and more into our specialty truckload. There, we also made a split between the flatbed operation that we have in the U.S. and the tank operation in the U.S. Cameron, that used to run both, until about two months ago, Cameron Holzer now runs only the tank operation, and someone else, I forgot his name, runs our U.S. flatbed operation, which is upsized.
I mean, we're doing about $100 million of flatbed in the U.S. today. Now bringing dedicated, Eric, with about 1,200 trucks into the same fold, the same team. The other thing also is the TMS, okay? We run mostly TMW. Okay. TMW is the software in our dedicated that we got from UPS. It's also the same kind of system that we have at the old TA, okay. It's two different worlds. Our specialties in the U.S., they all run TMW. You know, it's a standardization thing that we're doing there, Walter.
That makes sense. More of an optimization, standardization rather than.
Yes.
Probably strategic. Got it. Okay. Acquisitions you mentioned perhaps in 2023. I know, recently, when we were chatting, you mentioned, you're always working on larger transactions.
Mm-hmm.
They take time.
Yes.
There were a few that you were kind of working on. Well, my question is, do you think those are advancing or are the market conditions right now slowing that process down or pausing it, or are they continuing to proceed such that, you know, in 2023, we could very well see another larger deal from TFI?
Walter, I think it's possible, but you can't say anything until it's done, right. For sure. Look, like I said many times, you cannot buy something of size and do that overnight. That's not our style. We always believe that you make your money on the buying, never on the selling. You gotta be smart buyer and take opportunity where they lay. 2022, it's impossible for us. What we're doing, as we said, okay, we're buying TFI. We bought 2.6 million shares in Q2. You know, we've increased from seven to eight something, okay, according to our board approval. We'll be probably very active with our NCIB in 2022. Now, going into 2023, and you know what?
Our forecast is that, you know, if we exercise all the share buyback that we could do until the end of October, because that is the NCIB, that's the expiry date of our actual NCIB buying back, we believe that our leverage is gonna be at about one, right? It's gonna be incredible. That's our focus. Now, in 2023, for sure, if it fits, if it makes sense, if market condition, and maybe, you know, like everybody is saying, maybe there's a recession coming. If a recession is coming, I like that on the equity side because it adjusted the value, okay, through a recession, right? Everybody's valuation comes down. If you look at since April, most trucking companies' valuation have come down 10, 15, 20% because the perception is that we're going into a recession, right?
That's why I think 2023 is the right timing for us. I think that, you know, our target, that we have are still very interesting. Let's see what 2022 ends up being. I think we'll be ready for something of size in 2023.
Yeah, I guess when you got good free cash flow, it gives you lots of options, buy back stock and still be able to do acquisition with a clean balance sheet. That, that's great, Alain. Congrats on a great quarter. Appreciate the time.
Yeah. Thank you, Walter.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Jason Seidl from Cowen. Please go ahead.
Good morning.
Morning, Jason.
Wanted to ask you some questions here on some operational issues. If you look at your P&C business, I mean, obviously there's been a switch away from the consumer more to B2B.
Yes.
How should we think about the margins in that business trending forward with the shift going on?
I think that most of the shift, Jason, what you're seeing in Q2, I think that it's probably gonna be similar in the next three to four, Q3 to Q4 and 2022. I think that the switch, okay, so if I take one of our divisions, for instance, ICS, okay, we're really badly affected by B2B, all the closing, et cetera, et cetera. They're back to normal now, right? So those guys are back to normal. TFIS, okay, were badly affected by B2B. Those guys are back to normal. Now, our Canpar-Loomis operation, mostly Loomis, okay, there we've been down on volume because they were a big B2C player when this COVID thing hit us. They were the choice, the tool that we use, and this is why our Loomis operation has shed some volume.
B2C will probably continue to shed a little bit of volume into the peak season, okay, of 2022. Why? Because the consumers, okay, we see that all around, a lot of these guys are going back to the mall, right? It helps our TFIS, it helps our ICS guys to the detriment mostly of our Loomis guys.
Okay. That's great color. Wanted to also follow up with Canadian LTL. I mean, you know, absolutely an amazing OR. I have been on one of your docks years ago when it was under another brand name with the rail tracks running through it, and I think they were operating in the nineties. To be operating in the sixties is an amazing accomplishment.
Yes.
You know, how should we think about that going forward? Is this sort of plateauing, and then we should think about potential growth on this, or do you think there's even more to go there on the OR?
No, I think that, you know, when you run on the Canadian market, Jason, a 70% OR, I mean, it's just like a. You cannot say impossible, but it's, like, very, very difficult to do better than that. I mean, you know, our guys are working every day, you know, like, you know, very professional to do better. But, you know, when you are at a say 69%, 70% OR in Canada.
Because if you compare the quality of revenue, okay, of a Canadian shipment, same weight, same length haul, okay, you compare that with the U.S., even better to one of our peer in the U.S. that is running a 76.9% OR, compare the quality of revenue of a U.S. 69% OR with the quality of ours, we do a 69% OR, you will say, "Wow, this is incredible." Because the Canadian market, okay, is such a poor market in terms of quality of revenue. Our team are doing a fantastic job. If we would be able to replicate what we do in the U.S., okay, I mean, in Canada, in the U.S., with the same quality of revenue that we have in the U.S., even with shipment that don't fit, we would probably be running a 55% OR, okay?
If you do the math, because in our MD&A, okay, we are showing all these different numbers and you will see that, wow, okay. To answer you and make a long story short, it's difficult to do better than that, right? We're gonna try.
Well, it was extremely impressive nonetheless, and I look forward to you guys posting gains in the U.S. division. Impressive quarter. Thank you for the time.
Thank you, Jason.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Benoit Poirier with Desjardins Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Hey. Good morning, Alain, and congrats for the very impressive quarter.
Thank you, Benoit.
Yeah. Obviously very strong performance from Canadian LTL and Canadian TL with very impressive OR. We are aware about the supply chain issues in Montreal and Toronto, the lack of warehousing and drayage capacity. Obviously, TFI has many tools in their toolbox to help out customers. Could you provide some color about how the supply chain issues benefit TFI and whether the strong performance for both segments is sustainable going forward as the supply chain is going back to more normal levels at one point?
You know what? You're right, Benoit. Maybe, you know, but our guys really took advantage of the market for sure, because we have a good pulse. We know what the market can sustain, and we took advantage of it. Now, if supply chains issue within a year or 18 months or maybe because of recession, supply chain gets better, or worse, I don't really know. One thing is for sure, is that, you know, we always take advantage of market condition. The only areas where we've missed the boat a little bit, like I said earlier, is our U.S. TL over the road because the guy were really focused on correcting a situation and are dedicated that need a lot of attention. The rest of our operation really are on pause, okay, with market condition.
Now, if market conditions change, for sure that could affect us, okay, down the road. But you know what? That also helps us on the M&A side, you know. If you look at 20 years of TFI's history, you know. Good times, bad times, you know, we adjust ourselves and we perform well.
Yeah. Okay. That's great color. For my follow-up, Alain, with respect to the $8 EPS target for the year,
Yeah.
Could you talk a little bit about the expectation for gain on rolling stock in the second half? Looking at the CapEx also, it seems a bit weaker in the quarter. If you could or mention some color about the CapEx forecast and your ability to get new trucks these days, that would be awesome.
Yeah. Yeah. Well, for sure. Q2 on the CapEx side has been slow, okay, for our LTL, U.S. LTL. I mean, the suppliers keep pushing back. Now, we believe that three and four will be important CapEx for our U.S. LTL. You know, we're trying to catch up. I mean, so far, we've replaced about 650 trucks in the US, which is way too low. We believe that by the end of 2022, we'll be in a position to have been able to replace about 1,400 of those trucks. CapEx on Q3 and Q4 will be more important. Now, in terms of gain, okay, on equipment, we don't believe that the huge gain that we had in Q2 because we also took advantage of the market.
We were selling trailers in the U.S. for $24,000 in 2008, 2009, okay, in Q2. As of today, the same trailer is being sold for $15,000. It's still a lot of dollars for an old trailers, but it's not $25,000 like it was, like, two months ago, right? We don't believe that in three and four, the gain on selling pre-owned used equipment is gonna be in the same nature. Q2 was exceptional on that, in that regard. We believe very, very confident about our $8 per share and our free cash of $900.
Okay. Thanks for the color, very much, Alain. Thanks again.
Pleasure, Benoit.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Bascome Majors with Susquehanna. Please go ahead.
Can you talk about how you compare quantitatively the return you expect on buying your stock versus the return you think you can earn from M&A, and what that comparison looks like today, where your stock price is trading this morning? Just to clarify, does the EPS guidance assume that you get through that full expanded 8.8 million share buyback or does it not assume that or anticipate that yet?
No. When we talk about the $8 per share, it assumes the share count as we have it today after the 2.6 million shares that we bought back in Q2. If we buy back another, let's say, 2-3 million shares, okay, that could be a different story on the EPS.
Okay. Thank you. The return comparison, you know, how does your hypothesis-
The return comparison is always difficult to do, okay? What we believe is if you look at it today, okay, maybe it's close to breakeven, always depending on what is the cost of purchasing the stock back. We know long term, okay, it's gonna be a huge advantage for our shareholder. When I'm talking long term is I'm talking three to five years.
Thank you for the time.
Pleasure.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Ariel Rosa with Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.
Great. Thank you. Good morning, Alain.
Good morning.
Really impressive results here. So, you know, you laid out the path to get to an 80% OR on the U.S. LTL side. Obviously, what you guys have done since acquiring that business has been extremely impressive. Maybe I could just get you to speculate or discuss what would be the obstacles to getting to that 80% OR? You know, two to three years down the road, if you guys aren't there, what would be kind of the reasons that might not happen? Specifically on the kind of competitive landscape in U.S. LTL, we've seen a number of the big players looking to expand. Obviously a lot of people are going after heavier weighted shipments, and that sort of thing.
Does that present any kind of competitive risk to achieving that 80% OR? If not that, is there something else that might be an obstacle to getting there?
You know what? I don't think so. I think that, you know, we have a lot of opportunity to correct a situation that, you know, has been there for too long. Like, you know, when you run an old fleet, like we do now, okay? That's got nothing to do with the market. That's got something to do with the decision of the owner of the company to invest or not to invest. When you don't invest, okay, well, that's the result that you're getting, is your maintenance cost per mile, instead of being $0.05 a mile on equipment on your truck, is gonna run to $0.40 a mile because you're running a 2008 or 2009 truck. On the two to three points of OR, okay, that relates to the fleet, this is us.
I mean, this is us investing in the future of the company, right? On trying to do more with less on the P&D side and on the linehaul side. Again, this is us. I mean, we have to provide our team there the tools to be able to be efficient like our peers. The tools that, you know, we're implementing in our linehaul, most of our peers are using that tool. So for sure they're more efficient than us because it's not about market condition, it's about just providing our team the tools to be successful, right? That's what we're doing. We're implementing those tools on the P&D side and on the, you know, the freight that fits. Again, that's a decision that was made to go after everything that moves, right? Our approach is more no, no.
We're not jack of all trades, master of none. We're not hauling mattresses. We're not hauling surfboards to California. That's not us. Guys, let's focus on what makes sense. Okay? Let's try to pick up more freight closer to our terminal. Let's try to pick up more freight per stop per customer. That's what we do in Canada. It's got nothing to do with the market. This is all us doing a better job, okay, with better tools, right? Now, if market conditions change, let's say that. You know, if I look at one of my peers, my best peer, okay, XPO, his revenue per shipment was up 9% year-over-year. That's great. That's fantastic. That's not us.
I mean us, you know, we are up big time because we got rid of a lot of freight that did not fit. That's how we're able to get a better revenue per shipment. We did not raise our rate on average by 9% year-over-year with existing customers. No way. We're not in that position today, right? A lot of improvement from a 90% OR to an 80% OR, it's just us. It's us doing a better job, providing our team with better equipment, providing them with AI tools because we run a complex network. That's just us.
Got it. Looking forward to seeing that play out. I'll keep my questions to one. Thanks for the time though.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Cameron Doerksen with National Bank Financial. Please go ahead.
Thanks very much. Good morning.
Good morning, Cameron.
I just wanted to actually follow up on the comment you just made about, you know, some of the peers and maybe their ability to price a little higher. I guess one of the things that some of them have pointed out is, you know, having very good service metrics is one of the, I think, it's the levers for...
Yes.
having improved pricing.
Yes. Yes.
Can you talk about, I guess, the TForce Freight service metrics, how that has evolved since you've owned the company and, you know, what more maybe needs to be done that maybe down the road you will have?
Yes.
Maybe a little more pricing power?
Yeah, that's a very good question, Cameron. For sure, if you compare me with the best peers in the U.S., our service is not up to that level. Okay? You're right. You're absolutely right. You got to correct your service to be able to or adjust your service to, let's say, what the peers are. Now, one of the reason, okay, that our service is not up to par compared to our guys, which we have to improve and we keep improving it, is the equipment, right, and the tools we have. Right? So that's something that will be corrected over time. Claims, it's also a nightmare for customers. We used to have 1% or 1.25% of our revenue to pay for claims.
When you have claims, customers are not happy because you have claims because either you break the guy's stuff or you lose it, right? Now our claims per dollar revenue is down to about 0.5%. We are solving this issue. Billing, okay? Billing with TForce Freight from day one, and it's been an ongoing thing for years, okay? I mean, billing failures, we have way too many, right? This is what we've done is we've brought in all the billing, okay, as fast as we could from the TSA, the deal we have with UPS into our own family. The customer master file, the same thing. If you compare me with my peers on mistakes on billing, well, for sure I'm worse than most of my peers.
This is something that we are correcting. You're absolutely right, Cameron. We have to fix all these things, okay? In order to be able to get the same kind of quality of revenue as my peers, right? These are all things, like I said earlier, that it's us, okay? We are investing, okay, and we're bringing all this into our own house, okay, so that we are in control. The same approach, same philosophy as we have in Canada.
That's great. That's extremely helpful. I'll keep it to one question. Thanks very much.
Pleasure, Cameron.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached the end of the question and answer session. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Alain Bédard for closing remarks.
Well, thank you, operator, and thank you everyone for being with us this morning. Again, we look forward to seeing many of you at our upcoming Investor Day on November tenth. As always, we appreciate your interest in TFI International, and we'll keep you posted on our ongoing quest to create and unlock shareholder value. Please feel free to contact us with any remaining questions, and I hope everyone has a terrific weekend. Thank you again.
Thank you, sir. The conference of TFI International has come to an end. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines.