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Deutsche Bank US Transportation Conference 2025

Aug 13, 2025

Richa Harnain
Transportation Analyst, Deutsche Bank

Okay, maybe we can kick it off then. Hello, everyone. I'm Richa Harnain, DB's lead transportation analyst, and welcome to day two of our Transportation Conference. Mainly one-on-ones and small group meetings today, but we have one special fireside, and that's with John Dietrich, CFO of FedEx , a leader in transportation and logistics. We also have with us today Matt DeBerry and Stephen Hughes from the Investor Relations team. Maybe to start, I'll kick it off to Stephen to make some introductory comments, and then we'll get right into it.

Stephen Hughes
Staff Director of Investor Relations, FedEx

Great. Thank you, Richa. Certain statements may be considered forward-looking as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act and subject to factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied. For additional information, please refer to our press releases and filings with the SEC.

John Dietrich
CFO, FedEx

Great. Thank you for that, Steve, and Richa, thanks so much for having us here. We're glad to be here. I thought I'd open with some remarks before we get into the Q&A, just kind of give you some high-level overview if that's okay.

Richa Harnain
Transportation Analyst, Deutsche Bank

Let's do it.

John Dietrich
CFO, FedEx

As I think we all know, we continue to be in an uncertain market environment. That said, from a FedEx standpoint, there's a lot of exciting things happening, and we're focused on executing on those things within our control. When you look at the global marketplace, we're right in the thick of all of it, with 3 million customers carrying roughly $2 trillion of goods every year. We're closely involved and also closely watch everything that's happening in the marketplace. We also happen to be in the midst of a massive transformation, and I think there's a lot of idiosyncratic benefits we have in the competitive space in which we operate, which we'll talk more about throughout the morning here, including Network 2.0. That's all part of One FedEx, our Tricolor initiatives, and other strategic initiatives that we've been working on.

As I reflect on the last couple of years, actually, but FY 2025 particularly, we're pleased with the results that we delivered in this environment. We had two years of earnings growth, and FY 2025 was the second year of earnings growth despite some headwinds, the market environment, of course, but also the termination of the U.S. Postal Service contract that we experienced. When you factor in two fewer operating days, we feel good about that growth. By the way, throw the tariff environment and market uncertainty into the equation. Having that growth in that environment was pleasing to us, but there's still a lot more to go. DRIVE was a success. We'll talk more about DRIVE and our journey in DRIVE going forward.

We set out on a goal of $4 billion of DRIVE structural cost takeouts and delivered $1.8 billion of that in FY 2024, and we said we were going to get $2.2 billion of that in FY 2025, and we delivered on that. We're pleased with that. We advanced Network 2.0, and we'll talk more about that. That's going to continue to yield results as we go forward. From a capital standpoint, I'm also pleased that we delivered significant value back to our shareholders, a total when you take our share buybacks and dividends, $4.3 billion of returns, all in an environment that's as challenged as we talked about. Being able to deliver all that in FY 2025 was satisfying. That said, we don't rest on our laurels. We still have a lot to go.

We've set a marker out for FY 2026 of an additional $1 billion, largely made up of DRIVE savings and some Network 2.0. We have, as well, set our freight spin, which we'll talk about, which is going to be a significant focus area of ours as we go forward here. All the other strategic initiatives we talked about, Network 2.0 being a primary one.

Richa Harnain
Transportation Analyst, Deutsche Bank

Yeah. All right. Yeah, a lot of exciting things happening at FedEx, and I hope to get into that. Maybe we can kick off with zooming in on the macro outlook, right? You said you serve 3 million customers, over 200 countries across the globe. Many tend to look at FedEx as a barometer for the state and health of the global economy. Therefore, in broad strokes, maybe you can start with telling us how you think consumers are doing, how our business is feeling based on, you know, the trends out there today in FedEx's business and what you're sensing in terms of B2C versus B2B dynamics, SMBs, et cetera.

John Dietrich
CFO, FedEx

I'll start with the B2B environment. We've seen the softness continuing. If you look at the ISM PMI index, it's been below 50 for roughly 31 of the last 33 months. That B2B market has been somewhat soft and is continuing. Conversely, on the B2C market, that's been stronger. We saw strength, particularly in June, in the first part of July, but that's starting to soften a little bit as well as the latter part of July and August. On the international front, there's been the impact of the tariffs for sure. As we said, we're facing for Q1 about $170 million of headwinds from the tariffs, largely the result out of China. It's been a challenging environment, but again, one in which we continue to focus on those things that are controlled to deliver results.

On the international export front, again, we're starting to feel the impacts of that, but we're monitoring that very closely.

Richa Harnain
Transportation Analyst, Deutsche Bank

Okay. So a lot there that I'm going to come back to, but maybe we can go from there into your outlook. You chose to withhold full-year guidance. I thought that was pretty prudent in light of all the uncertainty out there that you spoke about and global trade in particular, which you facilitate. You did provide an update on the quarter. John, before I get into the question, kudos to you. I think since you were appointed CFO, our analysis shows that FedEx outperformed the broader transport landscape on earnings revisions in five of the past seven quarters. Your team has been doing a better job than average on at least doing what you say you're going to do. Again, good job there. Now to the questions on the outlook for Q1, a competitor of yours recently reported and spoke to weakness in China being severe.

I know you spoke to this as well. You said it's contemplated in your guidance at $170 million, right? You said that things continue to remain under pressure. I believe you said in July got potentially.

John Dietrich
CFO, FedEx

Starting to soften in the back half of July, yeah.

Richa Harnain
Transportation Analyst, Deutsche Bank

Yeah. Any updates to your view on Q1? How are you tracking there?

John Dietrich
CFO, FedEx

I will start by saying we continue to operate in an uncertain environment, but I think you hit it on the head, what we talked about. The B2B softness has continued. We haven't seen any change to that. On the B2C lanes, we have, as I said, we saw strength through to about the mid-July time period, but that's starting to soften. We are taking a close look at what we're going to see in August and for the remainder of August and look forward to keeping you posted on that as we go forward.

Richa Harnain
Transportation Analyst, Deutsche Bank

Okay. In the domestic market, 75% of what you do just on a direct basis is you do domestically, right? There has been a nice share growth story there. Your volumes, for instance, in the last quarter domestically were up 6%. At that point, it sounded like based on the trends then, you're tracking to the high end of the guide. Just in light of what's happening in the domestic market, maybe more specifically, do we like maybe the midpoint of the guide contemplated some sort of weakness, which is kind of what you're speaking to on the B2C side softening, but maybe talk through that a little more.

John Dietrich
CFO, FedEx

I'm not really going to talk about where we expect to fit what's in the guide, but what I can say is with regard to the B2C volumes, again, we saw strength in the first part of the quarter, I guess the first half of the quarter. As we look forward into August, we're going to keep a close watch on that and look forward to keeping you posted when we deliver our earnings in September.

Richa Harnain
Transportation Analyst, Deutsche Bank

All right. Fair enough. Maybe we can switch gears and talk about de minimis and the exceptions soon to be removed beyond China, which is wrong. What risk do you think this presents? What were your learnings from the initial round of de minimis exceptions going away, and how have those prepared you for this?

John Dietrich
CFO, FedEx

Right. You hit it correctly. Public data reflects that about 75% of de minimis volumes come out of China, and I think that's a nice proxy for our business as well. I think it's reasonable to expect once it applies to the rest of the world, we will feel some impact of that. What I can say, though, is I think we are state-of-the-art in terms of a leader in how we're helping our customers manage this environment to minimize the impact of that, leveraging our global network, our clearance capabilities, and our technology. We feel really good about where that is, but I think it's reasonable to expect there to be some additional pressure beyond just the 75% reflected from the China volumes.

Richa Harnain
Transportation Analyst, Deutsche Bank

Okay. Maybe we can switch gears and talk about the competitive backdrop. Pricing has been a bit of a bright spot in the parcel industry recently, a number of increases. You just announced your peak surcharge. That was good. We also now have David Steiner started as the Postmaster General at the USPS . He was supposed to come to the conference, by the way, but had a scheduling conflict. He's one from the business community, did some great things at Waste Management. I know he served on the FedEx board as well. You would expect him to maybe lead forth the USPS as a more rational competitor. UPS has shown a strong commitment towards improving its revenue quality as well.

Talk us through maybe what you make of the competitive landscape and if the pricing trends of late that have been more positive are enough for you to feel good about your ability to generate a fair return.

John Dietrich
CFO, FedEx

Sure. I'll first start with David. I'm quite sure he's very busy now. I ran into him at a social event and he was describing the significance of the role in the U.S. Postal Service operation, which is no surprise. I think it's good for our nation that someone like David, with his great experience and business acumen, will be serving at the Postal Service. I'll start there. You know, from a peak season standpoint and a pricing competitive standpoint, you mentioned our peak season surcharge that will compensate us for the additional costs and work in managing our peak volumes. We also have recently, and it's reflected in our guidance, there are some fuel table increases as well, some adjustments. I think it's fair to say it's still a competitive and rational pricing environment that reflects the work that we're doing in the marketplace. Still competitive, still rational.

Again, we've been able to pass along some increases along the way. With regard to the Postal Service, I'll just say, one of the things from a competitive standpoint, I think there could be some structural uplift in the pricing environment if they are not subsidized by our taxpayers. It's one of the things, particularly in the parcel business, one of the things we've said consistently, the Postal Service operates at a significant loss, and a lot of that loss comes from moving parcels. To not have that further subsidized by the taxpayer, we think would be favorable to the competitive pricing environment.

Richa Harnain
Transportation Analyst, Deutsche Bank

Okay. All right. Let's talk about capacity. You've been rational about capacity. I know, more so with this Network 2.0, and I'm excited to talk to you about that. Peers have been as well for the most part. A common concern out there is that capacity reductions UPS and you are making are perhaps being backfilled by Amazon. The threat of Amazon and some new entrant carriers that we hear about, such as LaserShip, are quite significant. Maybe you can present your latest thinking there, how you get comfortable around new entrant capacity and things like that.

John Dietrich
CFO, FedEx

I’ll start by saying we always pay attention when any new capacity comes into the marketplace, but I think it's also important to note the differentiation between what we do and what others are doing. I'll use Amazon as an example. I mean, they're a very good company, no doubt about it. Effectively, they're a retailer that delivers. From our standpoint, FedEx has built a network over many, many years that is an end-to-end logistics provider, so that's an important distinction. I'll use as an example, in our ground service, on balance, roughly 70% of our ground volumes travel 300 miles or more, and 30% travel 600 miles or more. I think those numbers are pretty close.

Matt DeBerry
Manager of Investor Relations, FedEx

70%. Yeah.

John Dietrich
CFO, FedEx

I'm sorry?

Matt DeBerry
Manager of Investor Relations, FedEx

Yeah, so half would be from origin to destination for 600 miles.

John Dietrich
CFO, FedEx

That's right. You know, and by comparison, for example, Amazon is a retailer who delivers. Their proximity is about 100 miles, right? That's a significant difference. We continue to leverage our strengths. We continue to leverage our global network and deliver our quality service for our customers. I'll get back to the pricing environment for a moment. I think it's another differentiator for us. We continue to get a yield premium for the great service that we offer, and I think we've earned that. We'll focus on continuing to leverage our capabilities there.

Richa Harnain
Transportation Analyst, Deutsche Bank

Okay. Good stuff. All right. Regarding the concept of, you know, recently you talked about this prioritization of network utilization, anything that's led to some of the good results. I wanted to offer you an opportunity to comment, maybe clarify any potential misconceptions about that. You know, our understanding is FedEx aims to maximize network fill while maintaining or enhancing overall profitability, right? Like, we've observed this in recent quarters. I think last quarter revenue was up 1%. It was primarily driven by deferred services. You know, EBIT was up 9%. You're seeing that benefit of filling in your network, the nooks and crannies, if you will, with some of those deferred offerings. Does that accurately summarize your perspective on utilization prioritization or, you know, how would you describe it?

John Dietrich
CFO, FedEx

Yeah. No, I think that's a fair assessment. That said, our focus is always on revenue quality. The nooks and crannies are important to fill in a large network like we operate. That's important. It's also important to focus on the higher yielding, you know, volumes as well. I think the Amazon volumes is a good example, you know, heavier, more dense, larger packages. That's one of our strengths in being able to carry that. It generally comes with higher yields as well. From our standpoint, yes, we want to fill the network. Yes, you know, we want to focus on the B2B, the higher yielding. While that remains soft, it's important to take advantage of the highest yielding revenue quality in the B2C because not all the B2C is created equal. We're focused on that, which is the highest yielding.

Richa Harnain
Transportation Analyst, Deutsche Bank

I was going to ask about that Amazon business, that relationship being turned back on. You talked about that being a higher yielding business for you.

John Dietrich
CFO, FedEx

Yeah.

Richa Harnain
Transportation Analyst, Deutsche Bank

Want to further elaborate there?

John Dietrich
CFO, FedEx

Yeah. No, that's exactly what we just described. It's generally some of the higher-yielding, larger, heavier packages that we can do, frankly, better than anybody and make money doing it. We'll look forward to ramping that up.

Richa Harnain
Transportation Analyst, Deutsche Bank

Great. Maybe we can pivot there. FedEx Freight, you talked about that. We had some of your large public competitors in the industry report and discussed a pretty muted June, offset by a better July. Did you see the same dynamics? How is business, how is this business doing? How is the addition of salespeople going up for the spin-off?

John Dietrich
CFO, FedEx

Yeah. The LTL business is performing slightly lower than we expected. I think it's probably fair to say in line with what the industry is experiencing. It's important to remember that 90% of our freight volumes are related to B2B, so it feels the effects of when the B2B business is soft. I would say that we're very well positioned for when the market recovers for sure. I talked about the freight spin in my introductory remarks. We're moving forward, making a lot of progress there, getting the executive team together. We made some public announcements. The CEO and the Chairman of the Board, we have a CIO, and we're filling all the rest of the management spots. All that work is progressing. I look forward to keeping you all updated. We do plan to effectuate the spin in June of 2026, as we talked about. That hasn't changed.

I look forward to keeping you posted on that.

Richa Harnain
Transportation Analyst, Deutsche Bank

Okay. Can you just touch on your decision to delay enforcement on the NMFC updates until, I think, December of this year, right?

John Dietrich
CFO, FedEx

December 1st, yeah.

Richa Harnain
Transportation Analyst, Deutsche Bank

Yeah. Elaborate on the reasoning there.

John Dietrich
CFO, FedEx

Yeah, that was really kind of a customer-friendly gesture on our part to be able to, we received feedback that our customers were looking for a little bit extra time. We certainly subscribe to and support the more simplified density-based classifications. Of course, any customer who can get on board sooner. Based on feedback we received and the willingness to accommodate our customers, that was really what went into that decision.

Richa Harnain
Transportation Analyst, Deutsche Bank

Okay. All right. Now let's get into the fun stuff. I know this energizes you. Talk about the stuff that's within your control, right? Network 2.0 to start. 15% or so, give or take, of your network now is integrated, I believe.

John Dietrich
CFO, FedEx

Right.

Richa Harnain
Transportation Analyst, Deutsche Bank

How is that plan progressing?

John Dietrich
CFO, FedEx

Yeah. Network 2.0 is progressing. You're spot on. We've got roughly 15% of our ADVs being handled now by Network 2.0 stations. We closed about 100 stations and reconfigured about 290 stations as part of this. Canada is effectively completed, and now we're working on the lower 50. The work is progressing. It's really important work. As we look towards investor day in Q1 of next year, we'll look forward to giving you a more comprehensive briefing on that.

Richa Harnain
Transportation Analyst, Deutsche Bank

Okay. Would you be willing to share like kind of some tangible examples, biggest challenges you've come into as you execute Network 2.0 versus things that maybe went smoother than you would have thought?

John Dietrich
CFO, FedEx

Yeah, the way I like to break it down is really three major categories, right? You've got your people, facilities, and technology. Anytime people are involved, of course, it's going to be behavioral change and change that needs to be managed. I think it's fair to say that's probably the more sensitive item of the big three on my radar. I think we've got to treat our people fairly throughout this and manage that all while making sure we're not at all adversely impacting our service. I think from that standpoint, it's going pretty well. On the facility side, we keep learning more and more. Every facility we alter and make into a Network 2.0 facility, we have a team of people dedicating significant resources to doing kind of debriefs and downloads, what went well, what did not go so well. The technology is an important piece of it too.

Route efficiency is critically important in a Network 2.0 environment. As you may recall, we recently purchased a company, which we had done business with for many years, called RouteSmart. We had done business with them for many years, which was largely a ground route planning tool that we think effectively works in a Network 2.0 environment. We've adopted that as our technology going forward, among other technologies. As you can imagine, it's a pretty comprehensive list of technologies. I'd say people on the forefront is top of mind. Using as an example, behavioral change, our couriers who were used to day definite may have some time definite requirements on them. Working together with them on how they can best manage and handle our priority products most efficiently. There's opportunities for them to make more money too.

We've been reconciling our compensation programs for our contractors and our couriers and so forth, again, to have the most positive outcome and deliver for our customers.

Richa Harnain
Transportation Analyst, Deutsche Bank

Okay. We can talk now maybe about Tricolor. That was one of the stars, I think, of last quarter, right? Allowing you to quickly adapt, flex capacity in response to rapidly changing demand, especially on the international side. Talk to us about what exactly this initiative entails. It took me a while to get there on what exactly you're doing, how it's going, what's left to come.

John Dietrich
CFO, FedEx

Sure. You touched on one piece of it. The Tricolor initiative really allows us the network flexibility to adapt to a changing demand environment. Also, to coin a phrase, kind of put horses to courses in terms of our assets, right? With regard to the flexibility, for example, with the decline in volumes out of Asia, we were able to bring our Asia to U.S. flights down by roughly 25% during the impact of the tariffs. We redeployed those assets to other markets where we didn't see demand drop and/or saw demand improve. Our Tricolor really, we call Tricolor for three colors: purple, orange, and white.

The purple is really designed to utilize our assets, our aircraft for that which it was designed to do for speed of the priority products, and to use the aircraft and our hubs the most efficiently to maximize our profits on our highest yielding business. That's the purple piece of it. Then you have the orange network that's designed to take advantage of a market we really haven't tapped as much as we could on the air freight market, the heavy air freight market, and to utilize the extra time we have with our orange, also our aircraft, utilize the extra time we have to maximize density in those aircraft on the heavy freight market, but not bring that freight into the hub to burden the hubs like Memphis, for example, but to find alternate points to distribute the air freight into our expansive ground network.

It's really a service offering that's unparalleled that we can do in-house that, for example, the freight forwarding community needs to contract multiple services to accommodate what we believe we'll be able to do with our orange network. The last one is the white. It's built in some opportunity with the white network, which is really belly capacity of commercial carriers that you gauge your demand level. This is one where we can get at a lower cost. It brings our cost to serve volumes in the belly networks for some of the higher volume, lower yielding products. You can flex based on your forecasted demand and how much belly capacity and not be burdened by the cost of the assets. We're excited about that. I talked about the orange network on the freight.

You mentioned one of the shining stars contributed an additional $200 million of operating income for us in the fourth quarter. We feel good about that trajectory and still a lot of markets to tap into with the orange network.

Richa Harnain
Transportation Analyst, Deutsche Bank

Yeah, we're not done. That's how it should continue, right?

John Dietrich
CFO, FedEx

Yeah.

Richa Harnain
Transportation Analyst, Deutsche Bank

DRIVE savings. It's interesting you said it was a great success. It was, but it seems like there's still some left to do there, right? $1 billion you talked about for 2026, but that's DRIVE plus Network 2.0 after $2.2 billion last year. On DRIVE specifically, you know, what's left to do here that you're most excited about? If things go right, could that surprise to the upside?

John Dietrich
CFO, FedEx

DRIVE, I don't, it's worth repeating, we feel really good about the $4 billion, you know, the $1.8 billion in FY 2024 and the $2.2 billion in FY 2025. What that did in addition to achieving our results, it also instilled in the organization a mindset that, hey, this works. You know, we can do this. We set our next target, as you said, at the $1 billion. The way we view DRIVE, the way of doing business, it's kind of a, from our perspective, a journey, not a destination. You know, a lot of opportunities in some of the things we've already done, route planning, there's some back office opportunities we have. Europe will be a big focus for us on Drive. You know, we're pleased to have delivered the $600 million we set out for, you know, in Europe, but there's more to be done there.

Richa Harnain
Transportation Analyst, Deutsche Bank

Okay. That leads well into my next question, which is on Europe. A lot of excitement there. You know, recently around momentum, you talked about customer wins. Maybe give us a more fulsome update. We look forward to more meaty metrics maybe at the Investor Day also. Q1 next year, right? We're going to have an Investor Day of sort of, you know, your business here, profitability improvement stats, or anything that allows investors to follow along with some of the good progress that you've shared.

John Dietrich
CFO, FedEx

Sure. We do look forward to Investor Day to elaborating further. What I can say is Europe is a primary focus and an area where we have more runway of opportunity. We feel good about the progress we've made. Our service levels have improved, which has allowed us to gain market share. This is another area that I think can benefit from further back office restructuring, if you will. We talked about a number of $150 million eventually. It takes sometimes in Europe a little bit longer to adjust your back office structure under the European rules. That $150 million we expect by FY 2027. Route planning, package efficiency, condensing our stations, in-station efficiencies, all these things are being looked at and implemented. We also are focused on more ground capabilities.

In fact, you may have heard us say we've redeployed some of our U.S.-based ground expertise and redeployed them to Europe. I think we're second to none in what we do here in the U.S. We want to leverage that expertise and bring it to Europe. Those are some of the things that are in play in Europe and recognizing that, you know, from a competitive standpoint, our competitive juices are flowing here. We want to do better in Europe.

Richa Harnain
Transportation Analyst, Deutsche Bank

Okay. One quick follow-up. How did it take this long to get here? Is it just now you feel like you've gotten this momentum on the domestic side and so you have that leverage to let them borrow your team in Europe?

John Dietrich
CFO, FedEx

I wasn't here during that period, but what I can say from my perspective, looking back in time, there were a number of things. I think, as I reflect on it, we had two major traumas to Europe. We had the cyber event and also a significant damage to one of our core facilities in Europe. I also think, as you look back, there was, from my perspective, such a customer focus to not change and disrupt that at some point it was harming us more than helping us in terms of bringing the networks together. Sometimes change is challenging. When you're bringing two organizations together like we did in Europe with TNT , there were challenges. Hindsight's always 20/20, but what I can say is we're excited about what lies ahead.

Richa Harnain
Transportation Analyst, Deutsche Bank

All right. Very good. Okay. Technology now. When you and I and Raj were on the road, something that was very exciting of a topic for you all to talk about. This concept of a FedEx digital twin. Based on our time together on the road, you talked about the value unlocked from this. Maybe you can elaborate for the group here, some new things FedEx is doing on the technology side. How are those initiatives yielding results to the bottom line?

John Dietrich
CFO, FedEx

Yeah. Yeah. This is something that we're passionate about. Our CEO is very passionate about this. Really, two main categories from my perspective. One is how can we operate more efficiently and leverage technology to do even better than we do today. SenseAware is one feature. FedEx Surround is another feature where we're leveraging technology to not only create a better value proposition for our customers, but also to be able to get further yield and get paid for that technological investment. The other piece of this too is when you consider the significant amount of data we gather on a daily basis, it's extraordinary. Just to reflect for a moment, we had a memorial service for our founder who passed away just earlier this week.

There was a little segment that was featured back from the mid-1990s that talked about FedEx as a technology and an information company, all the information we gather. Dating back to even the mid-1990s, we're focused on leveraging technology and the information. Now in this current environment, we're just looking to take it to the next level. How can we leverage AI and how can we leverage technology not only to help our operations, but how can we monetize and unlock the value of the significant data that we collect on a daily basis? We just talked about the 3 million customers, $2 trillion worth of goods, but that translates into 17 million packages a day. Who's shipping? Where are they shipping to? Why are they, you know, there's just all kinds of data that we have available to us that we're looking to leverage.

Richa Harnain
Transportation Analyst, Deutsche Bank

Okay. All right. I guess like putting it all together, you know, and Raj started this transformational plan, I think it was back in 2022. It was built off this premise that FedEx didn't have a revenue problem as much as it had a cost problem that needed to be addressed, right? The team did a good job addressing it. You talked about DRIVE, Tricolor, and now you're doing Network 2.0. We thought it was interesting, you know, this past quarter, FedEx's overall express business, you had a margin that was 200 basis points better than UPS's domestic business, despite yours is a total apples to oranges kind of comparison because you have the international built in there, and that's probably being held back by Europe in the most recent quarter.

I know there's some seasonality, but maybe just talk about the next phase at some of the positive changes you're making this season. What do you think BlueSky margins at Express could go and could look like in like a medium long-term scenario?

John Dietrich
CFO, FedEx

Yeah. What I can say is margin expansion is a significant focus of ours, right? It's certainly a significant focus of mine, and I hope you find it's reflective in a lot of the actions we've taken. We talked about, you know, some of the network efficiencies of Network 2.0, DRIVE, Tricolor, all that is focused on margin expansion. Our CapEx program and the successes we've had in bringing our CapEx down as well, that's all focused on margin expansion. I'm not going to give any specific numbers other than to say we want to be best in class. We want to be the highest margin, most profitable company in our space.

Richa Harnain
Transportation Analyst, Deutsche Bank

Okay, again, something maybe we can look forward to for the investors.

John Dietrich
CFO, FedEx

will be talking more about that at Investor Day, for sure.

Richa Harnain
Transportation Analyst, Deutsche Bank

Yeah. Last one, capital allocation. You talked about how you did a great job last quarter, or sorry, last year rather. As a percentage of market cap, you've had some of the highest capital returns in transportation. What are the latest priorities on cash flow, balance sheet targets, and the like?

John Dietrich
CFO, FedEx

Yeah, we're going to continue to invest in the business. As we talked about Network 2.0, roughly $700 million of our CapEx budget for next year is attributable to the facilities redesign and/or Network 2.0 new facilities. From an aircraft standpoint, we set out a target to bring our CapEx down from roughly run right north of $2 billion a year. Our target was to be at $1 billion roughly by FY 2026 and for the subsequent years. We're on track to achieve that. I think that's a shift in how the company has managed its assets. That's not to say we're not going to order new airplanes at some point in the future. We'll need to keep a modern, efficient fleet. We've brought our CapEx down considerably.

You tie that in, as you said, I think our CapEx in FY 2025 was the lowest it had been in 10 years, or since the company, FedEx Corporation, was founded. A lot of focus on that, on bringing our CapEx down. Finally, you know, returning to shareholders, right? We're looking to return capital to shareholders kind of in line with and parity with our free cash flow.

Richa Harnain
Transportation Analyst, Deutsche Bank

Real quick follow-up because you're an airplane guy. I'm going to give you an opportunity on the, you talked about the aircraft piece and how it's important that we maintain, FedEx maintains this modern fleet. I think the fact that your CapEx has come down so much over the last 10 years is because FedEx is maintaining that, already has one of the best fleets in the industry. Maybe talk about that more. How do you feel about the fleet today and where can it be optimized?

John Dietrich
CFO, FedEx

Thank you for that. The attention that the aircraft investment received in prior years, I understand, but the 777 is the best airplane out there for what we do. The company, I think, was very bold and had the foresight to invest in as many as we did. Now I think we're at a point where we were able to take advantage of that investment and kind of harvest those investments. Of course, we'll need to look to the future for the ultimate retirement of our MD-11s. Those are getting older, more expensive to operate. We'll be doing that. We'll be looking at our ground, or excuse me, our domestic fleet as well. I think there's opportunity to further compress the size of our fleet when we look at our 757s and our A300s that we operate here domestically. We've done some of that already.

I think we've kind of retired roughly 29, 30 airplanes in that neighborhood over the last two years, maybe even more. I'm focused on that as well. That said, as new equipment opportunities come up, we're going to be closely scrutinizing it. Don't necessarily always have to buy new, although those give great returns. We have strong balance sheets, so we get them for a reasonable price. We have buying power as FedEx, as you'd expect, one of the largest fleets in the world. We take advantage of that, but look forward to keeping you posted on the fleet expansion and/or contraction as we go forward.

Richa Harnain
Transportation Analyst, Deutsche Bank

Nice. All right. Thank you so much for your time and that great conversation. Everyone found it helpful.

John Dietrich
CFO, FedEx

Great. Thank you. We appreciate it. Thank you all. Thanks. Bye.

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