Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to TFI International's third 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 uncertainty that could cause actual results to differ materially. Also, I would like to remind everyone that this conference call is being recorded on Friday, October 28, 2022.
I will now turn the call over to Alain Bédard, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer of TFI International. Please go ahead, sir.
Well, thank you so much, Operator, and welcome everyone to this morning's call. We released our third quarter results yesterday after the market closed, and we're pleased to again be reporting a strong quarter with relative stability right through September for most of our segments, despite ongoing macro volatility. In two weeks, we'll also host our first ever investor day at the New York Stock Exchange on November tenth. During that event, we'll expand on the operating principles that drives TFI International in our plan to create additional shareholder value. Instructions on how to RSVP are in yesterday's press release.
As a result, I'll keep today's remark more brief than usual, but suffice it to say our continued strong growth and profitability is a direct result of our principal operating philosophies that we stick to regardless of the economic cycles, such as quickly adjusting capacity to our variable costs to match changing demand. In addition, our performance reflect the ongoing self-help opportunities we are delivering on that are entirely within our control. Most importantly, our performance reflects the skill and tireless dedication of everyone at TFI International and at our coming investor day, you'll have the chance to hear from many of our talented leaders. For the third quarter of 2022, we reported a 30% increase in adjusted net income over the prior year, despite a non-recurring charge, and we produced a 38% increase in adjusted diluted EPS.
We also generated $292 million in quarterly free cash flow. That was up 73%. Giving the emphasis we place on intelligent capital allocation, we view our robust free cash flow as strategically important. Yeah. Also, on a consolidated basis, our total quarterly revenue were $2.24 billion, up 7% over the prior year quarter. All four of our business segment produced strong returns on invested capital, and if we exclude the non-recurring charge in logistics, all four produced healthy gains in operating income. Our P&C segment represents 6% of our total revenue before fuel surcharge. We saw a 10% decline in revenue before fuel surcharge, mainly related to slower volume associated with e-commerce activity. This was partially offset by strength in our B2B business.
Importantly, due to our network density, our sharp focus on cost control and our strong execution, adjusting quickly to changing volumes, we produced a 42% year-over-year increase in operating income to $34 million, with our operating margin up more than 1,000 basis points to 28.2%. Our return on invested capital came in a very strong 30.7%, up an impressive 760 basis points. Turning to our LTL, which is 44% of segmented revenue before fuel surcharge, we produced $817 million of revenue before fuel surcharge. That was down 5% versus the prior-year quarter. However, our operating income of $101 million was up 5%, reflecting a margin of 12.3%, up 120 basis points.
Within our LTL business, our Canadian operation saw just a slight decline in revenue before fuel surcharge and produced a very strong operating ratio of 72.8, marking a notable improvement of 750 basis points over the past year. Important, our return on invested capital was 23.1%, and that was 640 basis points improved. Turning to our US LTL business, created just last year with the acquisition of UPS Freight, revenue before fuel surcharge was $687 million, with an adjusted OR of 90.8, just about flat, while our return on invested capital was 25.2, which we view as a solid just entering our second year with this business, but clearly experiencing top-line pressure due to lighter volumes.
However, our pricing held up and TForce Freight has meaningful room to improve. Moving right along to our truckload segment is 27% of our segment revenue before fuel surcharge. Our third quarter revenue before fuel surcharge was $510 million, up just 4% over the past year as we sold CFI truckload, temperature control, and the Mexican logistics business. About two months into the quarter, our truckload operating income still surged to $97 million, which was up 73% the past year. Similarly, our operating margin of 18.9% was up a robust 750 basis points. Let's take a closer look at what drove the strength by sub-segment. First, I'll mention that specialized truckload, following the sale of CFI, now includes our dedicated operation that remains with us and were previously included as part of our USTL.
With that in mind, specialized truckload performed well, growing quarterly revenue before ful l surcharge by 9% to $355 million, with our diversity and exposure to the industrial end market working in our favor. Given our focus on profitability, we're very pleased to have regenerated strong improvement in our adjusted OR, which at 79.9 marks an improvement of more than 10 points from 90 just a year earlier. Our specialized structural return on invested capital at 12.7 was much improved over the prior year period of 8.8. Next up, our Canadian-based conventional truckload, we saw a jump of 34% in revenue before fuel surcharge to $79 million. This is an example of TFI's diversity, in this case, our exposure to the relatively strong Canadian market working to our advantage.
Similar to specialized truckload, we were able to leverage our network density and market share while implementing cost control and benefiting from strong end markets. As a result, our adjusted OR at 75.5 improved by 13 percentage points from 88.4, and our return on invested capital at 20.6 was up sharply from 12.4 a year earlier. Moving to, onto our logistics segment, it represents 23% of segment before fuel surcharge. We saw a 4% year-over-year growth in revenue before fuel surcharge to $424 million, while our operating income of $29 million also reflecting the non-recurring charge of $11.4 million compares to $33 million one year earlier.
Our operating margin was 6.8% as compared to 8.2% the prior year, and our return on invested capital for logistics was 21.1% compared to 24.3%. With that summary of our segment, let's move on to TFI International's balance sheet and liquidity, which remain a pillar of our strength, allowing us to properly invest for future growth while returning capital to shareholders, both through our share repurchase and our quarterly dividend, which I'm pleased to announce today that our board of director raised by a substantial 30%, reflecting the core strength of our business. During the quarter, as I mentioned, we generated free cash flow of nearly $300 million, up 73%. We've repurchased approximately 2.1 million shares for just under $200 million.
Also, in terms of strategic capital allocation, we've completed 4 tuck-in acquisitions during the quarter, plus a fifth subsequent to quarter end. At the end of September, our funded debt to EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA ratio stood at less than 1 times, and nearly all of our debt was fixed rate. Finally, in terms of our full year outlook, we're maintaining our forecast of $8 earnings per share with a free cash flow of $900 million. At our upcoming investor day, we'll expand on our outlook, including our long-term vision and our many strategic initiatives to enhance shareholder value that are within our own control regardless of the economic environment. All right. I thank everyone for listening. Now, Operator, if you could please open the line for Q&A.
Our first question comes from the line of Jordan Alliger with Goldman Sachs. Please proceed with your questions.
Yeah. Morning. Curious on the LTL.
Jordan.
On the LTL tonnage front, you mentioned culling freight is a primary factor, also some softening demand. Maybe you could give a little more color around those two aspects of the tonnage. On the culling side, you know, can you maybe give a sense for how long that will be active and, you know, what sort of order of magnitude to think about? Thank you.
Very good, Jordan. You know, when we bought UPS Freight, the volume was about 30-32,000 shipments a day. In there was about 25%-30% of that that didn't make any sense for us, right? What we've done so far is we got rid of a lot of that that didn't make any sense, but it's not done. We're not complete, but we have to pause, okay? Because up to a certain level, okay, we were able to get rid of the most of the freight that really did not fit. We still have some freight that don't fit, okay? Right now we're in a pause, okay, because we reached a certain level that we said, "Listen, I mean, let's do this pause.
Let's work on our cost." Because if you look at our cost per shipment today, I mean, we have not done a great job. If you look at the trend over the last 12 months since we've acquired. What we've done, a great job, was to get rid of freight, a lot of that freight that didn't fit, and also adjusting rates to customers to the market. Where we haven't done really a good job is controlling our costs. One of our largest costs is labor, right? When we bought this company, the tools that these guys have to manage labor costs are very different than the tools that we have within all of the TFI companies.
These tools that we have in all of our LTL companies within TFI, except TForce Freight, as of 2023, we'll be able to implement that. Why is that? Because now at the end of 2022, we're moving away from the UPS Oracle system, financial Oracle system, into the TFI Oracle system. At that point, we'll be able to provide our managers over there tools to be able to adjust cost to reality, cost to volume. If you look at what we do in other of the TFI division, our P&C, our Canadian LTL, our truckload, I mean, you see the difference between what we do normally and what our team has done at TForce Freight. This volume that we drop about 17%, 10% 10%, you know, 17.
There's 10% that is really volume that didn't make any sense. Organically, we also lost some volume that, you know, maybe made some sense, okay? The market has slowed down a bit. To us, if you look at where we're going, I think that we'll see some kind of stability in terms of the volume for now, unless the market starts to shrink a little bit more. More importantly to us is really to start addressing, okay, our labor cost per shipment that's way too high. Now, I can't ask the guys to do miracles because they don't have the right tools. By 2023, okay, these guys will get slowly but surely the right tools to manage the business and manage the costs.
That's why we said from day one, okay, to bring this company to a 9 OR, yeah, we could do that between 12-24 months. But to bring this company to an 80-85 OR, it will take us 2-3 years. Why? Because now it's a cost game, and they don't have the tools to manage the costs. We'll be providing them those tools in 2023 as soon as we hook up to the TFI financial system, and then we can start, you know, acting in a better way than what we're doing today. Now, in terms of to answer your question also, Jordan, is we see some kind of stability for now until, okay, we move into 2023.
The other thing that we have to keep in mind is that 2022 has been burdened, okay, very much so with the TSA, you know, the transition agreement we have with the seller. At the same time that we're paying these costs, we also have to spend money, okay, to be able to move away from UPS into the TFI network, financial network. It's a long answer to your question, but it is what it is.
Great. I appreciate the comments. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question has come from the line of Ravi Shanker with Morgan Stanley. Please proceed with your questions.
Thanks. Morning, Alain.
Morning, Ravi.
Very much looking forward to the analyst day in a couple of weeks. Not to steal your thunder from the event, but would love your thoughts kind of as you sit here looking out to 2023, what do you think the downturn is gonna be like? It sounds like you and all your peers have kind of maybe lowered expectations a little bit since the last time we spoke. What does it look like out there right now as we sit here?
You know, we feel pretty good about our Q4. You know, what we've seen so far in October, I mean, we feel good about Q4. We anticipate that, you know, things will probably still slow down in 2023, and then we'll definitely have to adjust to that. I mean, you know, if you exclude TForce Freight, which is a special situation for us, you know, the rest of our business are. We have the tools and we have the management to really adjust and act and react according to the market condition. I think that the proof is in the pudding if you look at our last 20 years of TFI. TForce Freight is a special situation whereby the guys over there are doing a fantastic job with the tools they have.
The problem is that their toolbox is very limited in terms of financial information, in terms of how fast these guys get the information. So we will rectify that during the course of 2023. So I mean, we're ready. Don't forget, Ravi, we like a storm, okay? You know, we're gonna go through a storm probably in 2023. There's gonna be a slowdown or whatever it is, and our balance sheet is very strong, and that opens always M&A for us. You know, we've been doing small, nice tuck-ins here and there. We did 4 or 5 in Q3. We're gonna do another 2 or 3 in Q4. We'll probably do 4 or 5 in Q1 and Q2 of 2023, because we have so much free cash flow, so we could invest.
Maybe also a larger one in 2023 because, you know, the old saying at TFI is you buy on bad news and you sell on good news, right? We feel pretty good about our Q4 so far, what we've seen, and we anticipate that there's gonna be some kind of a slowdown. If you exclude TForce Freight, TFI has fantastic tools to adjust cost, volume, and everything to market condition. TForce Freight, the guys are working day and night, okay, to do this transition from UPS to Oracle as of January 1, 2023. From that point, now we'll be in a position to support our team there, okay, provide them with the tools that our managers could, you know, move faster, adjust faster to volume change and adapt the cost per shipment, our labor cost per shipment.
The other thing also that didn't help us in Q3 is our CapEx. We didn't get any trucks, right? Everything that we wanted to do at TForce Freight in terms of catch up CapEx, okay, because the previous owner didn't do, okay, a lot, we were not able to do so far. Now we have a new fleet VP that we just hired about a month ago, and for sure, that's his priority, okay, to move in the new equipment as fast as we can, because so far, our maintenance cost per shipment is the same and even a little bit more because our age is about the same. The only improvement that we see on our cost there is our MPG that improved a little bit, okay, because now we have about 800 new trucks in the fleet.
Got it. That's great color. Maybe just as a quick follow-up. You mentioned at the top of the call that your cash balance is a strategic asset for you.
Yes.
Just thinking of whether you're thinking about that as an offensive asset in that you can go out there and buy companies and deploy that capital or as a defensive asset?
Yeah.
going into the downturn?
Right now, Ravi, the best M&A we could do is buy TFI, right? That's why we bought 2 million shares of TFI. Now, depending on market condition, for sure we'll be very aggressive on the buyback. We just renewed our NCIB to 6 million shares or about 6 million shares. You know, depending on market, we will be very aggressive in Q4 and in Q1 and maybe in Q2 of 2023, depending on market condition. M&A has always been the source of creating value for our shareholders, so this is not gonna stop. We'll do the small, nice tuck-ins. Just look at our truckload, okay? Oh, fantastic because last year we did a lot of M&A in our truckload.
You know, when you buy a 98 OR company, it doesn't turn into an 85 OR company within a day, right? Brookshaw and his team have done a fantastic job. This is what you see in Q3 now, okay? We'll keep with Steve and his team doing some M&A. Our Canadian team as well. Our logistics team also in the US, we bought Unity in California about three, four months ago. M&A is in TFI's blood. We've done that for 25 years. We're not gonna stop that. Maybe in 2023, because market condition will help us doing a larger deal, a significant transaction, you know, at a fair price. You know, that could be interesting.
Very good. Thanks, Alain. See you in a couple of weeks.
Yes. Thank you, Ravi.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Brian Ossenbeck with JP Morgan. Please proceed with your questions.
Hey, good morning, Alain. Thanks for taking the question. Just to come back to-
Good morning, Brian.
To TForce Freight. Could you talk about the broader competitive dynamic? There's one of your peers who announced a large contract win, at least for them. Did that have anything to do with the tonnage trends and the volume throughout the quarter? Maybe you could also give us a little context of how that trended throughout the quarter. Was it a steady decline or was it a significant drop?
No, I would say, Brian, that if you look at our Q3, June was great in Q2, okay? Then things start to soften a little bit in July, in August, and we see the same thing in September, okay? I had a chat and a meeting with our team there last week at TForce Freight. Eileen, the sales leader we have there, has come up with some nice features that we're doing. What we're trying to do on the sales side at TForce Freight is to be smart in the sense that try to grow volume with existing customer that we already service to reduce the cost per pickup, right?
Instead of picking up one shipment, if you pick up two, well, your cost of picking up is divided by two instead of being just on one shipment. That's the focus of Eileen and his team. Focus number one. Focus number two is, guys, try to grow business around our service center. You know, we don't like to really do pickups at 80 miles away from our service center. This is very expensive or deliver freight 80 miles from our service center. Refocus, guys, on this. This is a major change in the approach of TForce Freight, okay? That was not the same kind of focus as the TFI focus. If you look at why is TFI so profitable, you know, on the Canadian LTL, on our P&C? We are density maniacs, okay?
That's us, okay? We're not gonna service a customer that's 150 miles away from our service center ourselves. We could do it with a third party that's got lots of volume in that area, maybe if the price is reasonable and we can make money on it. This is not something that was in the blood of TForce Freight. This is on the sales side, okay? This is really what they're trying to do. At the same time, okay, we're unloading, okay. We did a lot of that, okay, the first year, freight that does not fit. As an example, freight that we have to deliver 150 miles away from the terminal, mate, that's not for us. That's for someone else, not us, right? What we've seen in Q3 is a little bit of softening.
We anticipate 4 is gonna be probably the same and into 2023. This is why it's been urgent that we walk away from the financial system of, you know, the old company and move into the TFI financial system so that we can provide them information not a month after, but the same day. What's going on, guys? That they could act and adjust.
Any comments on the competitive dynamic? Has that affected your tonnage trends at all?
Not so far. So far, what we're seeing is that, it's seemed like the industry in the US is very aggressive in adjusting rates with 3PL. Okay? Like the C.H. Robinson and guys like that. But so far with the competition, our peers, I don't see that. Okay, we don't see any pressure on quality of revenue per shipment. You know, if you look at our revenue per shipment, it was up a little bit ex fuel, about 6% year-over-year. So far so good. It's really, Brian, we're gonna win this war at TForce Freight within the next 2 years by reducing our costs, by doing more with less. This is something that we have to do. It's got nothing to do with the market. It's us.
I mean, when I say it's us, is we got to give the guys the tools. Right now, you know, they don't have the right tools.
Just one quick follow-up on the cost side. With the tools you mentioned, is there anything from a labor flexibility perspective that would be limiting, or is the vast majority of what you're looking to do here really based on information and tools? Just curious because obviously you have a union workforce.
Yeah.
at TForce Freight and wanted to see how that would play into this.
No. No. Brian, the contract we have today, if we are smart, okay, we could do wonders. It's just that right now we don't have the tools to be acting smart. You cannot blame, okay, a driver if you don't manage his work properly, right? You can't blame the cost of a shipment if you service an account that's a hundred miles away from your service center. It's us. We have to do the job. It's got nothing to do with the contract we have with our employees. Contract we have with our employees is okay. We're gonna be working with them. And for sure, in terms of flexibility, it's a little bit different than the non-union carrier. Look at UPS. I mean, they are the king, and they are Teamsters, right? Union Teamsters. Look at what we do in Canada.
Our P&C is 90% union. Well, look at the results we have. The job is us. It's not the union. No, it's us. We have to do the job at TForce Freight, and we will do the job. It's not a question, can we or can we not? We will do the job. It's just that the team there wants to do better, but they don't have the right tools. They, you know, they have tools of 1965, and we're in 2022. We'll change that.
All right, Alain. Thanks for your time.
Pleasure.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Konark Gupta with Scotiabank. Please proceed with your questions.
Morning, Alain. How are you?
I'm good. How about you, Konark?
Good. Thanks. I look forward to seeing you a few days of each year. I just wanted to understand, Alain, you know, like Package and Courier had kind of still very sticky 28%-29% operating margin, which I think it's your best ever. Didn't change here, so good to see that.
Yes.
The trend continue in the third quarter. Your truckload margin as well improved quite a lot. I'm not sure if it's just one month of, you know, TFI makes that difference or not. Just want to get the thoughts on, like, how sticky are the margins in those two segments, P&C and truckload?
Yeah. On the P&C side, I think that it's not really a question. I think that it's sticky, you know. I think I said it on the Q2 call that, you know, to run a 28% OR in our P&C is exceptional. I would say that if you look at the margin that we believe at TFI that we can accomplish on average, on average over 10 years, is between with today's technology, with today's tools that we have. Because when I talk about TForce Freight tools that they don't have, I mean, the guys at the P&C, they have tools, right? They have P&L by state, by terminals now that, you know, 4 years ago, we didn't have. That really helped our management team to deliver these kinds of results.
If you were to say, "Alain, could you do 28% for the, over the next, 5, 10 years?" I cannot say that. What I can say is, on average, I think that between 20-25%, okay, it should be the average. We will have peak like we have maybe now at 28%. We could have trough at 22%, okay, depending on market condition. On average, I think that 25% is what we could deliver with that P&C division.
In terms of our truckload, that's a little bit more tricky because right now, we're getting a lot of action that our guys are doing in Canada, with our truckload division, whereby, you know, with, again, our tools, our management tool that we have there, the guys are able to really do a better job of matching, you know, the line, the head haul with the back haul. Also because now we have more unification of our Canadian operation, under one management team. You'll see that this is gonna be even better for us in the future.
Now, if you say, "Well, Alain, could you do an OR of 20-25% in Canadian truckload over an average of 10 years?" I would say, "At 25%, I think it's a little hard to accomplish on 10 years. But can we do 15%-20%? I think this is doable." Most importantly is our return on invested capital. I think it's the key, we should be able to play in that 15% mark on that 10-year average.
That's very great color, Alain. Thanks so much. My quick follow-up is just on the M&A front. I'm sure, like you probably addressed that at the Investor Day. In terms of competition from private equity, do you see that lessening at all given the interest rates are rising here, or no change?
No, I think that, with the interest rates, I mean, PE, those guys, they love when interest rates are low because their cost of funding is really cheap, so they could do all kinds of things. Right now, with interest rates moving up and up and up, I mean, they're getting a little bit more skittish. That's really helping us because, you know, on larger deals, our competition is not really strategic. It's most of the time PE, and those guys don't view things the same way as we do. Our philosophy, and I've said it many times at TFI, you make your money on the buying, never on the selling. You gotta do M&A very aggressive, buy at the right price, not overpay because this is gonna burden you for years to come.
Makes sense. Perfect.
[crosstalk]
Yeah. No, thank you.
Thank you. Our next question has come from the line of Tom Wadewitz with UBS. Please proceed with your questions.
Yeah, good morning.
Morning.
Alain, wanted to ask you a bit about how you envision the progression on LTL operating ratio. You know, I think third quarter, you explained the decline in shipments into the market's a bit weaker, but I guess the path is a little bit off from where we thought it was gonna be. How do you think about LTL margin in 2023? You know, is it reasonable to expect a couple hundred basis points of improvement given the comments on Oracle and kind of managing costs better? Or is that too optimistic given that you've got a maybe weaker freight backdrop?
Yeah. Yeah. That's a very good question. I mean, it's hard for me to answer because, you know, we don't know how fast these guys will be able to act based on the new financial tools that we'll be providing them. This is why we're having some of our Canadian folks helping our US management team, okay, to really start moving and addressing situations faster, et cetera, et cetera. It's difficult to say what we could deliver in 2023. What we could say, though, is that within our LTL, we have a diamond that's called GFE. That's really helping us, which is the asset light. We believe that our CapEx in 2023 will be way better, okay. The new trucks coming in will be way better, okay, than what we've seen in 2022.
Because now with the leader, the new leader of our fleet, TForce Freight, that should help us, okay. Because don't forget, until we sold CFI, it was our CFI team that was there to help us get the new equipment in, even with all the supply chain issues. And then don't forget that in 2023 also, our TSA costs, okay, that's costing us a fortune because it's normal. UPS, I mean, they're there to support us, but they want us out, so they charge us an arm and a leg, a fortune to support us. And as of January 1, we believe that once we have the financial system away from UPS, the saving in 2023 is gonna be maybe a basis point, okay, of OR, just that, right? We have some tailwind, okay, into 2023. We have also some headwind.
Like you just said, maybe volume is gonna, you know, keep, you know, under pressure. On the other side, like I said earlier on the call, we have Eileen and her sales team focus on shipment and freight that makes more sense for us, okay. We should also see some improvement into the average mile per stop. Why? Because, you know, we're trying to pick up freight closer to our service center, not chase freight 100 miles away from our terminals, because that was not an area of focus in the past, right? It's very difficult to answer, you know, black and white on that. I could tell you that our team is very motivated. They understand the challenge, okay.
They look at their sister company in Canada, and they say, "Hey, I mean, these guys are running a 72 OR in Canada." The Canadian market, the quality of the revenue is shit. It's terrible compared to the US. Those guys can run a 70, 72 OR thing there, 73. Wow. This is fantastic. But these guys have tools. Us, we have nothing, right? Oh, whoa. You guys will get the tools next year for sure. Then the proof is gonna be in the pudding.
If it's hard to quantify, or come up with the right, you know, kind of ballpark for what it is, are you confident in saying the OR will improve, or is that maybe hard to say too?
It's hard to say right now, okay, because we don't have the right tools to have these guys managed. That doesn't change a thing, okay. Like I said many times, that we buy this company, it loses money. Within 1-2 years, we should be at a 90 OR, which we are basically there now. Okay. Now, within two years, we will bring this company to an 80-85 OR. Okay. Why? Because we know that with all the financial tools that will provide them, okay, these guys will do their job. Now, what's gonna happen in 2023? It's hard to say because you got the tools that these guys don't have, number one. There's market conditions that is changing, okay, a little bit more softness in the market, but we also have some tailwind, right?
If you look at 2022, we have lots of costs for that transition that will disappear in 2023. You have also our sales team that's more focused on freight that is logically intelligent to us versus just chasing freight for the sake of freight. You got plus and minuses. We'll see how it turns out, right?
Yeah. That's great. Just a quick follow-up. What about the timing on the Teamsters contract? I think people focus for UPS on, you know, have some concern that there's maybe pent-up inflation when the contract expires, so you get a bit of a step up in your cost structure. Is that something that would be of concern for you as well? Or how do we think about, you know, kind of contract changes?
No, no. The contract that we're gonna have with our employees is gonna be fair. We wanna be fair with them, and the salaries will be fair. Everything's gonna be fair. I think it is fair today, and we'll just make sure that the next contract, hopefully is five years, okay, that it will reflect market condition, right? Now, if you just look at what we've done in Canada with Loomis. I mean, Loomis, okay, which is part of our P&C, we just renewed the contract for five years with these guys. This is the Unifor union. Everybody was saying, "Oh, these guys are this, these guys are that." No, no. I mean, Unifor, you sit down, you make a deal, and now we have a five-year deal with them.
We have a five-year deal with Canpar with the steelworkers, right? We'll sit down, okay, with the group of people that represent our employees, and we'll come up with something that is reasonable and fair, right? Then the onus is on us, okay, the management team, to organize the work so that it's efficient and profitable for our shareholders, delivering freight that fits, right? We have a huge job to do at TForce Freight on that. Like I said, with financial tools that we are using in all of our TFI division that will be supported. We'll be supporting them next year, these guys will be in a position now to deliver and reduce costs. Now, how do you reduce costs is having the work better organized, okay? Not by reducing the salary of the employee.
Right. Okay. Makes a lot of sense. Thank you for the time.
Pleasure.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Jack Atkins with Stephens. Please proceed with your questions.
Okay, great. Good morning, Alain, and thanks for taking my questions.
Thank you, Jack.
Let me kind of start. I think we've been getting some questions on this, and I'd love to get your take on it. This may be a difficult one to answer, just given all the uncertainty out there. You know, you guys are obviously very, very good at managing your business. You know, it sounds like there's a lack of visibility maybe into 2023 at this point within the US LTL segment.
Yeah.
Based on some of the systems. You know, if we were to see a more challenging freight market in 2023 kind of materialize, you know, given all the levers that you've got in the business across the different segments, do you think you'd be able to grow or at least hold earnings flat? How are you thinking about that? Not asking for 2023 guidance at this point, but just trying to think directionally, you know, how we should maybe think about that opportunity.
You know what, Jack? I mean, me, I feel pretty good. Like I said earlier on the call, I mean, we went through storms. I've been in this environment, Jack, for 25 years. If you look at TFI's track record, good time, bad times, I mean, we always perform really, really well, you know, and we take advantage. You know, when there's a storm, it's time to do things that sometimes, you know, you can't do when it's nice and sunny, right? You could do things on the cost side that, you know, when it's nice and sunny, like I said, why fix something that doesn't seem to be broken? There's a lot of opportunity in a storm, okay? A small storm, you know, like we probably will get in 2023. Me, I'm not worried at all.
I mean, we have a very strong balance sheet. Our debt is fixed at 3.45%. Our average tenure on our debt is 8 years. I mean, our leverage is less than one. We have a fantastic team and tools. The only rock in my shoe right now is TForce Freight, whereby these poor guys are trying to do a job that's too bad that they don't have enough tools to have them, you know, look at the situation and make some adjustments. We'll provide them the tools. Me, I feel really good. You know, our guidance for 2022 is $8. I haven't seen our plan, our budget for 2023.
You know, when we have the board approve a 30% hike in our dividend, I think that this sends a message that, "Guys, the CEO and his board really are feeling good, even if there's a storm coming into 2023, because we have the tools, we have the team, and we will take advantage if there's a storm of all the M&A that we could do, you know. Look at our track record. I mean, it is what it is.
No, absolutely. I appreciate that comment, Alain. I guess for my follow-up, just on TForce Freight, you know, maybe looking at it a little bit differently. The Mastio survey results came out a couple weeks ago. You know, TForce Freight was sort of in the bottom quartile there of national carriers. You know, I know kind of improving the freight mix is important to the strategic move, moving forward. How do you improve the service level there to be able-
Yes.
to attract the freight that you want?
Yes. Yes. Yes. You're absolutely right, Jack. I mean, we're not like the top tier of the LTL company in the U.S. No way. It's impossible. You know, there's many reason to that, okay? Reason number one is that, you know, we have so much equipment, okay, that is not proper to do a good job. If you look at the best in class in the U.S., do they run trucks that are on average 8-10 years old? They don't. Why? Because you got all kinds of issues. The guy breaks down on the road, the service is not there, et cetera. Our customer service, our pricing, okay, was not under our control, right? Now the Richmond team has customer service and pricing master file now finally under our control. It will take time, okay?
You know, if you don't bill a customer properly because you're so disorganized that your master file has been kept up by a bunch of guys that don't know what they're doing, okay, in the Philippines, as an example, well, for sure the customer is not gonna be happy because you can't bill the guy properly. Then he's got another issue with you because then you're trying to collect something that don't make sense, right? We're going through all this as we speak in 2022 and into 2023. This will improve. There's lots of action that have been taken to improve, you know, the satisfaction of the customer dealing with us, not just delivering the freight, but also on the admin side, right? It's also a pride thing, right?
You know, if you have drivers that for years and years are running into a terminal that is terrible, okay? Because you know that everything is falling apart, and the guy's got a 2008 truck, and it's like a piece of shit, excuse the expression. I mean, that doesn't help, you know, the pride of your employee, and that reflects also to the customer to a certain degree. We are also correcting that. That will take time, okay? The fleet and also the facility. We just started talking with Eileen, our sales leader, to have customers in some of our terminals, the nicest one, bring customers in to see, you know, what we do. Our claim ratio per dollar revenue, okay, it's a major improvement.
You know, we used to be at 1% of revenue, which is a disaster, okay? You know, the guys told me, "Well, we used to be at 2%, now we're at 1%." I said, "One is terrible," okay? You gotta be at 0.2, 0.25. Now we're under 5%. After a year, we're under 5%. That also improved the customer, you know, experience with us, right? We don't break his stuff, we don't lose it as much as we used to do. All of that, Jack, is action that Paul and his team are taking to improve the customer satisfaction. It will take time, okay? We'll keep working at it and improving it. Because like you said, I mean, it's hard for our sales team to get more freight, quality freight, quality customer, if the service is not there.
Okay.
We're raising the bar.
Thank you, Alain. Really appreciate the time.
Pleasure, Jack.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Scott Group with Wolfe Research. Please proceed with your questions.
Thanks. Good morning, Alain.
Morning, Scott.
I wanna help you set a Guinness record for saying tools, so I'm gonna ask a follow-up there.
Yeah.
The equipment's been delayed. What's the risk that this new system gets delayed? You know, maybe just bigger picture, you said at the beginning of the call, like, one of the pillars of the model is we're an asset-light model, we can be really flexible. Is this a lack of tools or is it just that, hey, this is an asset-based business that has more operating leverage when things slow?
You know what? To answer your question on the financial tools that hook up to TFI Oracle, I think that, you know, we're testing right now, and when I talk to David and all of our team, our IT team, I mean, we feel really good. I mean, that's not gonna be an issue. I mean, equipment, it's out of our control. We place the order, and those guys have so many issues with their, you know, supply chain that they can't deliver. So that is out of our control. But IT is us, it's our control, and so far, you know, what the guys are telling me is we're gonna be there, no question about that, right? So what was the second part of our question, Scott, about?
I just wondered, like, is this ultimately just a, you know, this is a more asset-based business, the rest of your business.
No.
is more asset-light. Is that just a more difficult business to manage in a downturn?
No. I don't think so, Scott. I think that, you know, once we provide the tools to the guys, you know. Just look at our Canadian LTL 5 years ago, 7 years ago, and what we do now. I mean, it's the same, it's the same company, it's the same asset intensity, but the results are damn right. Why is that? Well, because over time, over the years, we've built tools. We got P&L by terminals. We got all kinds of tools that help those guys to do the job, right? We believe that once we provide those guys with the right information, that's not a question. The job will get done. We believe that 2 years is long, but it's also short. I mean, you know, we'll get there.
Okay. Just quick follow-up. The revenue per hundredweight ex-fuel is up about 4%, which is good.
Yeah.
Maybe others are gonna be are trending a little bit better.
Yes.
You think there's more pricing opportunity for you?
A little bit more, but don't forget, we don't have the same reputation as the peers, the best peers, right? As the number one peer in the US, I mean, we're not there at all, right? You know, in Canada, it's a different story, in the US. We did okay on that. To do great, it will take us some time to improve. Like I was discussing with Jack, is we have to improve service. You know, we have to bring, you know, a lot of different cultural things over there. I mean, at TForce Freight, it's not the TFI culture yet. You know, we're gonna get there, but it's not there. You know, the culture of doing more with less is not there, right? It will get there.
All this, and I don't wanna say tools again, Scott, because I said it too many times, but to me, this is, you know, the guys are not gonna sit on their ass. Once they have the info, when they have the proper information, exact, fast, they're not gonna sit on their ass. They're gonna start moving and acting.
Thanks, Alain. See you in a couple of weeks. Appreciate it.
Yep, very good. Take care, Scott.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Walter Spracklin with RBC Capital Markets. Please proceed with your questions.
Yeah, thanks very much, operator. Good morning, Alain.
Morning, Walter.
I'd like to go back to the LTL division, particularly on the revenue per shipment. You're up 6.5% on down 17% in shipments, and I know you were shedding a lot of, you know, underperforming business.
Yeah.
Was the 6.5% increase mainly the average going up as opposed to price increase and?
It's a mix, Walter.
like pressure.
Hey, Walter, it's a mix, right? Because if you shed, you know, low revenue shipments, I mean, it helps your average, right? It's also a mix because we've been correcting rates, okay, adjusting rates. As an example, the largest e-tailer a year ago that we were dealing with them about 1,400, 1,500 shipments a day, losing 25%, right? That was a year ago with him. Today, we do about 150 shipments with him, so we've lost 1,300 shipments, volume-wise, with him per day. But instead of losing 25, now we make maybe 5 or 6.
Okay, what I'm looking to get here is kinda unpacking the mix and really drill down on the price environment. If we do go into a weakening environment, do you still have room because you're priced below, you know, kinda below market to bring prices up if we do go into weakening environment in the first half of the year? Or-
Yes.
You know.
Yes. For sure, Walter. We are not priced at the market at all, okay? That, you know, is easier to fix when the market is solid like it was last year, okay? We could not fix everything in the same day. We still have a lot of adjustment to rates to get to market of our peers. Like we were talking earlier, okay, there's also a service issue, right? You want to sell your service as good as the best in the class, but your service is not as good. For sure, you'll always be a discounted kinda guy, right? It is a two-phase kind of approach. Paul and his team are, you know, working hard to improve the quality of our service, et cetera.
At the same time, we're also moving slowly into getting closer to market. If you compare, okay, what we do, we still have some room to go. The other thing that we are not there at all is the weight per shipment, right? That's another aspect that we're talking to our sales team, is that us, we like to carry very low weight shipment. That is not what we should be doing. Why? You know, if you look at my peers, they haul shipments that are 1,500 pounds on average, 13, 14, 15, 16, and us, we're stuck at 1,075. If you look at our Canadian division, we're heavier. Why? Because we focus on heavy freight because there's more money, right? Over there, you know, because of the past focus, they were not focusing on that.
They were focusing more on retail, okay, LTL, which is lighter than industrial LTL. We are the same thing as I was explaining about trying to get more freight per shippers, okay, when you pick it up, try to get more shipment per stop, try to, you know, get more freight around a 30-mile radius of your service center, so it's cheaper to operate and get more heavier shipment because you get more dollars per shipment. Right? It's a combination of all of this, Walter, that's gonna help us move the average revenue per shipment. Because, you know, you're paid by the weight, by a per hundredweight. Why would you haul 1,075 versus, you know, my peers, my best peers are hauling 1,300 or 1,500. They get more money per shipment.
That's great. Good color. My follow-up question here is on acquisitions. I hear you on a weakening environment and when there's storms out there, you can buy small tuck-ins because of kinda desperate sellers, that kind of thing. I'm with you on that. My question is really on the larger transactions. Does a weakening environment push back negotiations because of the base on which the EBITDA is being negotiated? Or do you worry at all that some of the larger deals that you're contemplating might not get done because of a weakening environment? Or are you kinda settling in? Are you looking at more of a normalized EBITDA and kind of the weakness will not be as big a factor in negotiating with a larger potential acquisition.
Yeah. If you look at what we've done with CFI, Walter, you know, a discussion I had with the buyer is that, you know, let's do a reasonable deal for both parties. We were able to come to an agreement in an environment that was not maybe, you know, the best for the seller, which is me, right? We apply the same kind of reasonableness once we get to, you know, an environment that is to the buyer's advantage. It takes two to dance. If you try to squeeze the seller because market conditions are in your favor so much, like you just said, there's not gonna be a deal, right? It's also a philosophy there that we want to have a fair deal.
My experience, Walter, is that we normally get a better deal, okay, when the market is difficult because there's less buyers showing up with stupid pricing. That doesn't change the reasonable price. What it changes is like, it's. I'm just thinking about the housing market in Toronto, right? So the same story could be true of a company. When you have 15 buyers of a company, well, then the price goes up, right? So when the market is tough, you have less buyers, so the reasonable price gets more in line with what I like to do.
Makes a lot of sense. Thanks very much, Alain, and to you in a few weeks.
Yep. Thank you, Walter.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Jason Seidl with Cowen. Please proceed with your questions.
Thank you, operator. Good morning, Alain.
Hey, good morning, Jason.
I wanna focus on sort of through the storm here, if we will, because I think it's pretty obvious to anyone that's been following the markets that we're heading into a little bit of a downturn here. How long it'll take, I have no idea. I wanna look at your LTL business because it sounds like right now you're sort of running a six-cylinder car without three cylinders firing, right? You have your fleet that you wanna refleet, but you can't because the OEMs. You have a facility footprint which is probably not right sized to your liking, and you're a little bit behind in the technology.
Yeah.
Can you talk to me about the opportunities that exist for, forget about 2023, but 2024 and beyond, and then where would that put you in terms of sort of the rankings in your head for some of the national carriers once you get right sized?
Yeah. Once we get right sized, Jason, and this is what, why I say within two years, I think that we'll be in an 80 to an 85 OR company, which is normal in the US. I mean, you know, the exceptional guys are at 70 OR. Okay, I'm not saying. I'm not talking about that. This is a company that has been built and a great management team over years and years of success. I mean, I'm not saying that about our company. What, this is what we do in Canada, but this is not attainable for us within the next two, three years. What we're just saying is that by providing, okay, everything that these guys need, okay, in 2024, in 2025, I think that we should be in a normal environment of an 80 to 85 OR.
I think that 80-85 OR in U.S. LTL is just normal. It's not exceptional. 70 OR is exceptional, but 80-85 OR is just normal.
No, no, that makes sense. Can you get a little bit of an update on the fleet? Obviously, you mentioned, you know, you're not there yet where you wanted to be.
No.
That was sort of one of the things you called out when you purchased TForce Freight. Where do you think you're gonna be? Where, you know, in other words, where do you think you're gonna be in terms of your original target by the end of 2023?
Yeah. You know the story, you always put the oil on the wheel that squeaks, and the wheel that squeaks did not happen at TForce Freight. Why? Because it was CFI, our truckload division that was in charge of making sure that we get the CapEx in as fast as we can. You know, those guys have been gone for 3 or 4 months because as they knew that we were making a deal with another company. Well, they focused more on CFI than on TForce Freight. This is why we just hired about a month ago a leader, and now this guy is making calls.
Okay, he is now the wheel that squeaks and calling those supplier and making sure that, you know, we're gonna get the equipment ASAP. So far, okay, one supplier is probably late by maybe a month, a month and a half, but we've diversified in 2022, okay, because of the failure of 2021. The second supplier, he just started giving us the equipment about a month ago, right? This guy is 3 months behind his schedule. The third supplier that we have, you know, he hasn't delivered anything. So far what we're seeing is that the delivery is supposed to start end of October, which is now into November. He's already about 3-4 months behind the schedule. The fourth supplier, which was supposed to start in the fall, now is in Q1 of 2023.
I mean, we're still behind, hopefully, okay, with this new leader that we have, which is really important to him that we get the equipment in. Hopefully, if supply chains issues with the OEM start to improve, okay, we could get the stuff. Now, the price of the equipment, okay, is creeping up for the last, what, eight, nine months, big time. Maybe the demand, okay, will start to shrink. Not ours. Okay, like I said to the TForce team, I said there's no way we're gonna reduce our CapEx at all at TForce Freight in 2022 or in 2023 or in 2024 because we need a lot of CapEx catch up, right, to bring this age of the fleet. If something happens in our CapEx in 2023, 2024, it's never gonna be TForce Freight.
If the other carriers are buying less, maybe that's gonna help us expedite, okay, get our equipment faster. We'll see.
Well, I wish you guys good luck there. It sounds like you're about 3-6 months behind.
Thank you. We need that big time. I mean, it's gonna improve the driver satisfaction. I mean, it's such an important thing for a transportation company to have a fleet of normal age.
Yeah. Listen, it will improve your cost as well. Fingers crossed for you, and I appreciate the time.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Ken Hoexter with Bank of America. Please proceed with your questions.
Hey, great. Good morning, Alain.
Morning.
Can you talk a bit about your review on truckload, obviously now that post TFI, what else needs to be done on the truckload side? You've made continued acquisitions on the specialized side. You know, what's your thought for the business? How should we think about that, you know, with the low 80s, high 70s margins going forward?
Yes.
Any impact on what's going on in the market now on pricing?
It's a very good question, Ken. I mean, for sure. I mean, we love specialized truckload. Us, we're a big fan of that. We are second to none in Canada, where we're so big. Our approach with the team there is that we're trying to grow east of Mississippi in all sectors. We did two acquisitions in the US in Q3 on our specialized truckload. Our team is heavily involved in the US right now to keep growing that. Our truckload division now, including TA, dedicated now is under one leadership, which is Mr. Brookshaw, right? This is something that will continue to grow, not the van, okay, but really the specialty, like the flatbed, like the stainless steel, like the dump operation and all that. Absolutely. East of Mississippi, we're in.
Okay. Just to clarify on the LTL discussion a bit more on your shedding of the customer, maybe just trying to parse what is the macro deceleration that you've already seen in the quarter? I don't know if you were kinda breaking that up before when you were answering the question or, you know, is there a way to decipher how fast you're seeing the impact of this decelerating economy versus what you talked about getting rid of a customer?
I would say that, you know, if you look at our 17% year-over-year drop in volume, at least 65% to 60%-70% of that is really freight that we had to get rid of. I mean, like I was talking, this guy that was giving us about 1,400 shipments, now he's giving us 150. Well, that's over 1,000 shipments a day that just disappeared with this guy, you know, because it didn't make any sense. We were losing 25%. There's another customer that we shed more than 60% of his business that was also an important shipper. We've also lost a lot of volume with 3PLs, right? Because, you know, those guys, they will give you freight, but we haul freight to make money, not just to haul freight, right?
I would say at least 70% of that 17% that we lost is really related to just freight that did not fit the system at all.
Okay. That's flowing through on the pricing in terms of like in your answer before. Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay. Thanks, Alain.
Pleasure, Ken.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Bascome Majors with Susquehanna. Please proceed with your questions.
We're two weeks out from the first time that you've done a formal investor day with the investment community. As we sharpen our pencils and get ready for that event, can you tell us a little bit about what this is and what isn't? Just, you know, what are your objectives and what's the kinda information that you do plan to share? Maybe what will this not be as far as, you know, guidance or near term expectations, that sort of thing. Thank you.
Yeah. What we're trying to accomplish with that is really to show the team at TFI how deep of a bench we've got in our EVPs, right? You know, it's a big company and we have a lot of talent, and we just want to have the investors and the analysts really not just be talking to the CEO or the CFO. That's why we want these guys, our EVP being talking to investors and analysts so that you guys get a better feel of how deep our bench is, right? The quality of our talent. Really that is goal number one.
Because of the timing, okay, for sure, we'll probably be in a position to say, "Hey, guys, this is what we think so far based on our budget that we've seen, okay, that this is what we think that may happen for TFI in 2023 in terms of guidance." Right. But the most important thing for us being the first is that we wanna show our team, we wanna show the culture. I mean, how strong these guys are, right. That is really the key of all this.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
Thank you. Our next question has come from the line of James Monaghan with Wells Fargo. Please proceed with your questions.
Hey, guys. Thank you. Wanted to follow up on the commentary you had about specialized trucking and just sort of understand how you guys are thinking about sort of the rate environment going into 2023 and sort of like you see strength in the end markets. Like, it would be less economically cyclical going through this, like, you're still in for rate expansion. Just trying to understand your thought on how you're thinking about sort of rates and specialized through into the next year.
Yeah. Our vision on that is that infrastructure, both Canada and U.S., have suffered investment for a long, long time. We believe that both on the Canadian and U.S. side, I mean, you'll see some major investment all over the place on the infrastructure, and that helps our specialized division, right? There's still an issue housing in Canada and housing in the U.S. I mean, we lack a lot of housing. Now, housing is very expensive because of interest rate now, I understand that, but we still need to build a lot of homes in Ontario and in Quebec, as an example, and the same in the U.S. Population is growing.
To me, when we look at the specialty truckload that we do for the commodity market, for the building material, for the chemical, for the food, I mean, that is where we want to be positioned in the U.S. Not so much the van. This is why we made the deal of selling CFI because there's way more players in that field, number one. On the specialty side, there's less and less players. We see a lot of opportunity. The other thing too is that we're so big in Canada that a lot of our Canadian customers are coming from the U.S. A lot of these guys are saying, "Hey, are you guys thinking about moving south?" And we say, "Yes, we're coming." Right?
This is really the plan for us on the specialty truckload side, both on the East Coast in Canada and on the East Coast in the U.S., is we're gonna keep growing that through a lot of small, nice tuck-ins here and there that we do.
Got it. That's helpful. Actually, just a quick follow-up on, you've been calling for just any sense of the sort of seasonality of the OR or shipments heading into the fourth quarter from here?
You know, on the US side, yes, for sure, December and January are not good months for us in terms of volume. It is what it is. I mean, it's always been the situation. You know, we've asked our team to be even more proactive than what they were used to do in terms of adjusting. Okay. Yeah, there's cyclicality. Absolutely.
Okay, thanks.
You're welcome.
Thank you. Our next question has come from the line of Benoit Poirier with Desjardins. Please proceed with your questions.
Hey, good morning, Alain.
Morning, Benoit.
Yeah. You mentioned that some softness should be expected in 2023, and obviously the company is quite different versus 2008, 2009, much less exposure to energy, TL, stronger balance sheet. Just looking at 2023, what are the segment that should be the most resilient and the one we might see some volatility or softness? How would you prepare for a potential softer environment, Alain?
Well, you know, it's hard to predict, Benoit, which one will be affected. We know one thing is that the guys, the management team we have and everything that we have at TFI helps us adjust. If you just take an example, without a recession, what happened in our P&C is that e-commerce start to come down, B2B start to come up, okay? We're still short in volume. Right? Now, if I look at October, my P&C, I'm down only 1% in volume, okay, year-over-year. Okay? I'm more than that into Q3. The guys have done a fantastic job. To say that the volume drops, okay, means that you're gonna get killed. Well, it depends how good your teams are, and it depends how fast they can turn around and adjust. Right?
It's hard to predict, but one thing we always do in a downturn is because we are so active in M&A, is that we could lose organically in our base business, but then we complement that with some M&A that we buy at reasonable price, okay? That keeps our revenue, okay, at something at the same level if there was no storm. I don't know if you understand what I'm saying or I'm explaining that correctly, is that with a small downturn, we lose revenue, okay, fine. But with M&A, because our balance sheet is so strong, because we have lots of experience doing M&A, we do that all the time. We could beef up our revenue through M&A to get back to where we were before this recession that may come.
Perfect. That's great color. Just quickly on the follow-up question, in terms of CapEx, obviously you'll be facing a catch-up years 2022, 2023, but now that CFI has been sold, what could be kind of the normalized net CapEx we might see in 2024 and beyond, once it gets more normalized?
Okay. I haven't seen our plan, Benoit, yet for 2023, but I would suggest that, you know, you take our 2022 numbers and you reduce that by about $75 million, which was the share of CFI net CapEx.
Okay, perfect. I suspect that.
Far.
Those catch up years, the number could even go below that, let's say 20-
Yeah.
20 and beyond. Perfect. Okay.
Yeah.
Thank you very much for the time, Alain. I'm looking forward to seeing you and the team.
Okay, very good. Thank you, Benoit.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Ari Rosa with Credit Suisse. Please proceed with your questions.
Hey, good morning, Alain. So I wanted to ask about the sale of part of the truckload business, I guess.
Yes.
It was one of the larger transactions that you've done in some time, and certainly pretty rare to see you guys selling assets as opposed to buying assets. I'm just curious what your thinking was there and kind of how you were thinking about that truckload business and why now was the right time to exit?
Yeah. Key number one for us is that our return on invested capital, okay, has always been too low for us. If you look at the average return on invested capital today in Q3 of TFI is 20 points, right? 20%. Which is great. Now, our average return on invested capital in our regular van division was about 5% or 6%, maybe 7%, you know. This is why discussing with the board, it was, you know, nah, we have to do something else. We'll use this cash to invest into a business that will produce a better return on invested capital. You'll see that probably once we do the next major transaction, okay, you should see why we switched from, let's say, a 5 to a 20, right?
Now, I mean, for the buyer, okay, this is a great transaction because he's buying. He first of all, he has a lot of knowledge, the buyer of CFI. He has a fantastic team, and I'm convinced that the buyer will do a better job than me with CFI, right? So to me, I'm looking at that, and it was a win-win for the buyer. It was also a win-win for us because we got our capital back, okay? From 2023, maybe the end of 2023 or into 2024, you know, we'll use this huge capital influx, $500 million, $550 million, okay, of the sales, and we'll use that to invest in something that has got a better return. You know, you gotta look at the track record of TFI.
That's what we've done for 25 years, since I've joined this company 25 years ago, right? It's a, it's a swap. The idea was, okay, we sell this asset to a great buyer. It's gonna be good for, you know, CFI team. It's good for the buyer. It's good for us. It's good for our shareholders, okay? You guys have to wait till we do the next major deal, which may happen next year. It's never gonna happen in 2022, but may happen next year. Then you'll understand why we did that.
Yeah. No, that makes a lot of sense. It'll be exciting to see what you guys do with that capital. Just for my second question, wanted to ask, the parcel revenue per shipment was down sequentially. Just wanted to get a little bit of color on what drove that decrease. Was it FX related? Kind of, you know, how much of a headwind was FX also, but then, you know, specifically for parcel, was there a mix effect or something else going on there?
Yeah. You know, the Canadian market is very different than UPS or FedEx could do in the U.S. I mean, those guys are lucky to be in the U.S. market. It's really a fantastic market in terms of being able to, you know, get pricing power, okay, with the shippers. In Canada, our competition is government-owned. It's called Purolator, and it keeps tabs on what we could do in terms of improving the quality of our revenue. This is why the game that we have in Canada, it's been like that for years and years. It's never been on trying to get more money from the customers to be more efficient and to do more with less. That's how we're able to come up.
I mean, to me, when I was looking at what Jim and Bob have done, I said, "Guys, this is wow. This is really fantastic." I mean, 28 OR with no volume growth, okay, no growth in revenue per piece. It's all about cost. This is, you know, the guy that's run our P&C, McGonigle. He's also involved with Paul, the guy that runs TForce Freight in the U.S., helping those guys to be more in line with our costs, right? Our cost reduction, being more efficient. This is why I feel good that Paul and the rest of our U.S. team, with the support of our Canadian team, okay, we'll be in a position to deliver some great results within, you know, 24 months. I think that we'll get to that 80-85 OR.
Great. Thanks, Alain.
Very good.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Tim James with TD Securities. Please proceed with your questions.
Great. Thanks very much. Good morning, Alain.
Good morning.
I'm just wondering if you could talk through the implications for profitability and returns on capital from the good growth that we've seen in around freight pricing in the US TL/LTL business?
Yeah. Well, that is a diamond that we have. You know, GFE has grown the revenue 25% year-over-year so far, right? This is the goal, to keep growing that by about 20-25% into 2023. I haven't seen Paul's plan, but you know, the last discussion we had was, is there a possibility that we could do that? Absolutely. We have a product there that is second to none. We have a partnership with UPS. This is one of the greatest asset that we have within our U.S. LTL business today. Absolutely.
Thank you. My second question, you've done a great job of describing the transition that the TForce Freight business has gone through from the time you acquired it until today and kind of your strategy there. The transition from culling freight and focusing on freight that fits to now thinking about the cost side and getting the tools deployed in that business. I just wanna confirm maybe that, you know, this transition was all part of the original plan. This is.
Absolutely.
In line with when you bought the business, this is playing out the way you expected, I believe. Is that correct?
Absolutely. For sure. It's always the same. You know, what we do is always the same. The easiest thing to fix, okay, is freight that does not fit because you just have to talk to the customer and say, "Mr. Customer, I'm sorry, but we can't do it." Right? Adjust rate is not that easy to do to market because, you know, the customer doesn't like that, okay? That you move rate up. This is more difficult. This is why year one, okay, to start from a company that was losing money to a company that's got a, let's say, a 90 OR, that was the easiest thing to do.
The most difficult thing is to do more with less, to organize the work of our drivers or dock workers or a line haul in a more efficient way, okay, that it reduces our cost. This is why we said, "Listen, guys." I mean, when we bought it, we said, "Hey, I think that within 12-24 months, we'll fix that to bring it to a ten OR, a ninety OR, a ten OR." Okay. It will take more time to fix the cost because you gotta change the culture. I don't wanna say it again because Scott's gonna kill me with the tools, but you got to provide the right information to those guys so that they're not gonna sit on their hands, but they will fix the issue, right? They will get the job done in a better way.
Also at the same time, you need the support of sales, not to commit to a customer that we're gonna deliver a shipment 100 miles away from a service center. It's not for us, right? It's a complete plan, okay? Now, for sure, day one, if you ask me, "Alain, did you encounter some surprises?" I would say yes. I thought that the technology that was there was better than what it is. The problem is that the previous owner, you know, for them, it was like not very important, so they didn't spend time or energy or money, okay? The tools that we have, the equipment, the technology we have there is very old, right? This is why we're moving the financial system to our own, which is brand new, okay?
We'll be in a position to provide the right information so that the guys could do their job, right?
Great. That's very helpful, Alain. Thank you. I look forward to seeing you in New York.
Very good.
Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I'd now like to hand the call back over to Alain Bédard for any closing comments.
All right. Thank you very much, operator. I appreciate everyone being on the call this morning. Again, I look forward to seeing many of you at our Investor Day on November 10, when you'll have a chance to meet many senior leaders of TFI International. We appreciate your interest and hope you enjoy the weekend. Thank you again.
Thank you. This does conclude today's teleconference. We appreciate your participation. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Enjoy the rest of your day.