Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome your speaker for today, Mr. David Mee. Sir, you may begin.
Thank you, Donna. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us. We have here John Roberts, President and CEO, Terry Matthews, President of Intermodal, Nick Hobbs, President of DCS, Shelley Simpson, Chief Commercial Officer and President of Highway Services, and myself, David Mee. Given that this is our first earnings call, let me go over what we'd like the format to be. I will make a brief opening statement, and then we will open up the lines for Q&A. The participants will have an opportunity to ask a question and then one follow-up before they have to return to the end of the queue to give everybody a shot at asking the questions that they want.
We do have a call scheduled for 90 minutes, we hope to get through as many questions as we can during that time, and we do appreciate your patience given that this is the first time we have attempted this. As we go forward, I am sure it will be a lot more efficient into the future. As far as the opening remarks, I have two areas that I want to address. The first is the quarterly tax rate and the difference between the pre-announced after-tax charge and the actual after-tax charge reported in the earnings release. The primary culprits in the reduced rate are our annual computation of what is referred to as our FIN 48 exposure and a tax rate adjustment for equity-based compensation. At the time of the arbitration update announcement last week, we had not performed these reconciliations and had not determined the discrete item amounts.
We used our previous estimated quarterly tax rate of 26% instead of the 20.4% that Q3 ultimately generated. With this third quarter adjustment and our current estimate of what our discrete items will be in the fourth quarter, we anticipate that our full year 2018 tax rate will be 24%. The second area is obviously the elephant in the room, the arbitration update. As we announced, we received our interim award on October 5th, 2018. The interim award is subject to a protective order addressing, among other things, confidentiality of the award and the underlying contract. However, in that interim award, we were able to identify a quantifiable claim for a specific issue that accrued over a multi-year period. That was the $18 million pre-tax charge we announced. We also stated that the arbitration panel has requested additional submissions from the parties over the next several months.
These submissions are needed to determine, A, an appropriate interim award or awards, and B, a final award. We cannot determine any further financial implications of the interim award beyond the announced $18 million pre-tax charge until after the arbitrators review the additional information required to be submitted and issue an additional interim award or a final award. Once we can determine any additional financial impact of any interim award or final awards, we will provide additional disclosure at that time. Until then, we will follow what has been our standard practice during this entire process, which is what we said in the press release is all we're going to say. Any questions on the arbitration process or on this interim award will most likely be answered with no comment, it is confidential, or we have said all we're going to say, or something similar.
As we do when the investor community visits our headquarters, we've assembled the entire management team to answer your questions and talk about their businesses. With that, Donna, we're now ready to take our first question.
Ladies and gentlemen, to ask a question, please press star one, then the number one on your telephone keypad. Your first question comes from the line of Mr. Amit Mehrotra. Sir, your line is now open.
Thanks, operator. Thanks, everybody. Thanks for doing the call. Really appreciate it. First one is just if you can talk about the deceleration in intermodal volume growth basically every quarter this year. I fully understand that we had the derailment in the quarter, which likely impacted the number. Does the deceleration, I would imagine, impact some price over volume focus from the management team? Could you just talk about that? When do you guys expect to pull the volume lever or volumes to re-accelerate just given the tight truckload market? Thanks.
Yeah, this is Terry Matthews. Obviously, this year, we've been focused a lot on price. I think you've seen the results of that in the marketplace. It's been a marketplace that I believe has been the most orderly marketplace I've seen in the 28 years I've been involved in intermodal. I think that will continue into next year. With regards to volume, as you look in 2019, I think you'll see a better balance between price and volume as we go forward. We'll have a more balanced approach as we hit 2019.
Could you talk about what you estimate the volume impact to be from the five major derailments in the quarter?
I believe it was around 4,000 or 5,000 loads.
Got it. Okay, that's helpful. Then just as a follow-up, I guess it was nice to see that step up in incremental margins in the third quarter over 20%, on an underlying basis. Is that the right level to expect over the next three, four quarters, just given as some of the pricing actions continue to cycle through the numbers? Is that sort of the right incremental margins you guys are targeting for the intermodal business over the next several quarters?
This is David Mee. I think that's going to be the result, given that the fact is that we will begin a new pricing calendar here in the fourth quarter, but the effects of those new pricings won't show up until later into 2019. Yes, I would say that the pricing is set. Operationally, if we can squeeze a little bit more margin out of operations, then we will. I wouldn't expect much difference from what you've seen here in Q3.
Got it. That's helpful, guys. Those are my two. Thanks so much. Appreciate it.
Your next question comes from the line of Mr. Jason Seidl. Sir, your line is now open.
Hi, guys. This is Adam on for Jason. Thank you for taking my question. I guess first of all, do you expect more startup costs for Dedicated Contract Services heading into 4Q and then 2019?
This is Nick, Adam. I would say our pipeline is very strong. We would continue to see startup cost in Q4. We already have some trucks booked for Q1. Yes, I would say that would continue through the next couple of quarters, tailing off in Q1.
Got it. Thank you. Then a quick follow-up as well. I think that the latest data came out just this morning about spot truck rates continuing to fall. Do you guys think that this is maybe because of a pull forward of freight, which created kind of an artificial high, which we're now seeing the tail of? Maybe do you think there's something else at work that's causing these spot trucking rates to continue to fall?
Great question. This is Shelley. We have similar questions. We have been talking with our customers. We do know that some customers have done a pull-forward strategy. I can't say that we've got a great answer to what that question is. We have some pharma customers. They're expecting a good peak. Their retail season that they are still considering to be good. We would expect to have a pretty good peak as we come into intermodal, finishing the first leg. Then truckload coming after that.
Great. Thank you guys so much.
Your next question comes from the line of Mr. Thomas Wadewitz. Sir, your line is now open.
Good afternoon. Thank you for doing the call. I wanted to ask a little bit more on the freight trends, and I guess it's a little bit similar to the prior question, but can you give us a read on what the volume growth looked like in intermodal by month, and then what the start for October is in terms of just, I think, low growth year-over-year?
Tom, I'll take the historical stuff, and then I'll let Terry tell you about how he feels so far in October since it's too early, and you know I don't tell you what the numbers are for the current anyway. July was up 4% year-over-year, not calendar affected. August was down 1% year-over-year, again, not calendar affected. September was down 2% year-over-year, again, not calendar affected. That's how we get to our 1% up.
As far as really how peak season has started off, we've seen the West Coast pick up the last week or so in September, and basically the peak is hitting our expectation similar to what we've seen in the past here so far in October. We think the next four to six weeks up through Thanksgiving should be a very normal peak, and we're also thinking that December with possible tariff implications should be extremely strong in December as well.
How do you think about the relationship between spot market and what you're seeing and what that might imply for next year? I guess we have seen that softness in the truckload spot market, it sounds like you're expecting a good seasonal pickup. Does that imply that the spot data should be stronger as we get into later October, November? I guess if that doesn't play out, that you see continued weakness in the spot metrics, does that give you concern that you're going to lose some leverage as you go into the contract negotiations in bid season for 2019?
I would say customers have finished their bid season here through the third quarter with implementation. I know a lot of our customers were working towards getting more in the contract business, they paid higher rates in spot, got taken somewhat by surprise, understood that the asset players needed more contract rate. They were willing to give that up, I think you're seeing part of it happen from a bid cycle being fully implemented in total.
The other thing I would mention, this is Terry, that as much as we tried to keep up with the truck rates, we did a pretty good job there, the fuel surcharge has gone up substantially over the last year. When you look at the differential between all-in fuel and the truck rate versus what the intermodal rate is, there's still a pretty good gap there. I think that bodes well for intermodal.
It sounds like you're not overly concerned about spot market weakness in truck in terms of impact to intermodal rates.
No.
Okay. Thank you for the time.
Your next question comes from the line of Mr. Matthew Troy. Sir, your line is now open.
Yeah, thanks for taking my question. Just a bit more on pricing and contract repricing you mentioned as you're starting up the season again in the fourth quarter. What type of rate increases are you guiding your customers towards in 2019, and how have those conversations been going?
I think that depends customer by customer. We have started talking with them about the cost creep that is occurring, and that depends by lane, by customer, and what that really looks like. It also depends on when they really came into the bid cycle with us. We saw costs continue to creep after we'd started the bid cycle last year, and so some of those customers we're going to have different conversations with versus customers that have just completed their bids.
Okay. Is it reasonable to still expect above average rate increases next year? I guess that's a different way of asking that versus historical norm.
We think that we still have cost challenges. We are talking to our customers about those and recouping those during bid season. Historical norm, I'm not sure what that number is for you. I would expect customers to be able to manage their budgets better coming into next year, not being as surprised being in the spot market as much. They will still be paying more than really what any of us want to pay based on cost changes that are still happening.
Thank you. Just one quick follow-up from me on the tax rate. As we look into 2019, is 26% still the right number to use for 2019, or is there a step change down associated?
At this point in time, I'm going to tell you 26 is going to be the number. Again, we'll have discrete items with both the stock compensation and the FIN 48. Stock compensation's affected by stock price. If the stock price goes up or down, that will change that baseline amount up or down accordingly with the stock price. FIN 48 is going to be based on income levels in the states that we have uncertain tax positions in. It's very difficult to predict on the front-end basis. My budget will use 26% until we figure out what the exact discrete items look like.
Understood. Thank you for taking the questions.
Again, to ask a question, please press star then the number 1 on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, press the pound key. Your next question comes from the line of Mr. Brad Delco. Sir, your line is now open.
Good afternoon, gentlemen, and Shelley. Question for Nick. Nick, I know you talked about the dedicated startup costs, but when we make the adjustments that were sort of outlined in the release and add back, call it, $4 million of a quantified startup cost, you get to a 91.3% OR. I don't think that's necessarily your steady state going forward. Can you talk about the kind of cadence of what you think the operating ratio should do, assuming you don't have anything other than the startup costs you've quantified for Q4 and Q1?
I think first thing is the startup cost is a lot of stuff around driver pay, hiring charges, training charges. The other thing to keep in mind, Brad, is you're right, that's not a normal cadence. Our cadence would be more in the 11%-13% margin range, and that's what our base business is running. I think the other thing, when you're looking at the global dedicated, you have to take into account Final Mile is starting to grow some. There's a little bit of dilution that goes on with that as well from an OR standpoint. Not a great amount, but it does drag it down a little bit. It's just the timing of when all of them come on and when they go out and trying to estimate that.
If you look at just our base business that's out of startup, it is performing in our accepted margins. We've just got a bunch of trucks. We had 600 trucks that we added from the end of Q2 to the end of Q3, which is a lot. That $4 million that we put in there, that's some very big items. There's a lot of little items associated with that. Each one of them is different. I would think you'd see the OR start heading back where it needed to be in Q1, then Q2 of next year, unless we get some more big awards.
Okay. Dave, for you, just two small nitpicky follow-ups. The bankruptcy that you guys commented on, I'm assuming that's related to one from last year. Can you quantify if there's any exposure to one that's been very recently announced, if any? Number two to the follow-up, can you tell us when that 4,000 load impact hit, which month in Intermodal?
Yeah, the Intermodal impact was the end of mainly August, but the first week in September when the Cajon Pass had the major derailments and the three major lines went out. It was August 21st, but it's taken them three or four weeks, so it bled into September, but it was primarily August and the first 10 days of September.
Got it.
as far as your bankruptcy, that one particular one did occur this year. It was with a store that was competed with the dollar stores. We've had them as a customer for quite a while
They decided to expand into the Northeast, and we grew with them. It turned out that it wasn't the most advantageous business decision for either one of us at this point in time. As far as the one that happened, was it today by any chance? We have virtually no exposure to that one.
Okay, great.
Brad, a follow-up on we had the Hurricane Florence in September. We had derailments bleed in from August to September and the hurricane that affected the Carolinas.
That was included in the 4,000?
Yes.
Okay. Last September, you had Irma and Harvey, I think you quantified 5,500. Is that fair?
Correct.
Okay. Thanks, everybody, for the time.
Your next question comes from the line of Mr. Allison Landry. Sir, your line is now open.
Thanks. Good afternoon. I wanted to ask about what your thoughts initially are on the potential short and long-term impacts from Precision Railroading potentially being rolled out across the U.S. rails.
Yeah, this is Terry again. The Precision Railroading, obviously, the CSX and Hunter Harrison was the pioneer of that. I think what you're seeing is each railroad is taking bits and pieces and trying to implement things that they think that fit within their railroads without going overboard with regards to maybe what the CSX did in going all out into Precision Railroading. Some of the effects that could happen are some of the rationalization that goes on. They like big, long trains in some of the shorter markets. They have announced, I think, in January, there's a few things that will be discontinued, and I think that's probably the key thing that we're focused on, trying to figure out what does that exactly mean. Can we use a different ramp? Can we use a different railroad? Can we have a longer dray?
I believe that there'll probably be less options than more, and hopefully, the service will get back to where we all expect it to be and where they want it to be in some form or fashion.
Okay, following up, how does 360 play a role in this, if at all? Could you give us a sense for your initial expectations for rail purchase plans in 2019 and maybe some color on your initial thoughts on margins for JBI? Thank you.
We'll be integrating the dray piece on JBI into the platform in 2019. Any carriers that we do dray with, which will be about 15% or so of our shipments, will be contracting through our 360 platform that's scheduled to come online mid-year next year.
Yeah. JBI, traditionally, we've been trying to have 11%-13% margin. I think we're somewhere in that range now, and we hope we can be able to continue that and hopefully improve upon that. As far as next year, we're in the budgeting process, and we really don't have any hard numbers yet to be able to tell you what's going on with box orders or equipment for 2019.
Okay. If you have any thoughts about the background noise. Any thoughts on the rail costs next year versus 2018?
No. Each year there's rail cost increases, and at this point, it doesn't look any different than what it has in the years past.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Your next question comes from the line of Chris Wetherbee. Your line is now open.
Yeah. Hey, thanks. Good afternoon, guys. Wanted to ask about the DCS segment. I guess I'm thinking about 2019 and in the environment that we're in, it would seem that there's likely to be a continued push for shippers to sort of get capacity. In that context, if you think about a good amount of potential fleet conversion or growth of the segment, do you think you can sort of stabilize and move margins higher? I guess that really the question is, can you get margins moving upward if you're still experiencing strong revenue growth? I'm just trying to get a sense maybe how that relationship looks in 2019.
Yeah. I think our plan or our focus is We really don't focus on capacity fleets. We try to focus on private fleet conversions. We will get a little bit of that capacity with some of our historical legacy customers. I think we will plan on probably not adding as many trucks next year as we added this year. I think a good number of trucks for us to add is between 1,000 and 1,200, and that's probably what our plan's going to be for next year. This year, we're going to add a whole lot more than that. I think it'll slow down, and we call it the wave from 2018 will help carry some of the better margins in the middle part to the end of next year. I think you will see some margin improvement.
If we happen to get another big deal signed up, we've signed up a little over a 500 truck deal this year and some other large deals in our pipeline that we've signed that's in the middle of implementing. If those come along, it could be a little bit of a drag. Right now, our plan is for 1,000 to 1,200 trucks next year.
Okay. That's helpful. Then, on intermodal, I guess, really since the middle of last year, it would seem that volume growth has been lower than what your traditional run rates have gotten, and I appreciate the law of large numbers, so I know there are some mathematical forces at play here, and clearly, there's rail service issues, all of those factors. When you think out, I guess, to the drivers behind that sort of lower volume growth, do you think these are more sustainable in that as we move into 2019 and potentially beyond, we should expect sort of a structurally lower pace of volume growth in the network?
Are these sort of transitory like we saw with some of the derailments you had this quarter and other factors that have played out over the course of 2018, that they might go away and you could see that run rate move back up? I'm thinking more conceptually about your ability to grow in that segment rather than the specifics. That would be helpful.
Yeah. The bucket of freight that we see in our bid and data warehouse is in the millions of loads, in the East being a bigger portion of that bucket than maybe the West, even though both buckets are in the millions of loads. It's just a question of when the customers feel comfortable of moving that freight from truck over to intermodal, and some years it's a quicker transition than others. I hesitate thinking that the story's over because as soon as you say that, the freight comes up. A little increase in rail service, and I think the cost of trucks will continue to increase. I think our ability to be able to grow in the intermodal segment, maybe not at the percentage law of large numbers that you talked about is good for the upcoming years.
Okay. That's helpful. I appreciate the color. Thank you.
Your next question comes from the line of Ravi Shanker. Your line is now open.
Hi. Thanks very much. A couple of questions here. Just going back to the current freight environment. Since we aren't really seeing the kind of uptick in kind of spot rates and market tightness that you would expect going into peak season, it does seem like shippers are more comfortable than we'd expect it to be given the start of the year. Is that how you're seeing it, and what impact does that have on the brokerage environment given that a relatively balanced market kind of tends to be a headwind to shippers using brokers?
I think that customers this time last year were really trying to figure out how to budget. I know we had sent out a customer letter in August really trying to articulate our cost position and trying to guide them on budgets. I think customers took several months to try to figure that out. If you think back to the hurricanes happening this time last year, the network was in such a chaos that not only was it difficult to find a truck to move the shipment or capacity, but also the price. As customers came through bid season, I think customers started to understand and were very receptive to talking about capacity and what prices look like. I think customers are more comfortable today because they've made it through bid season. They feel like that they've had a good plan.
I think they've probably picked really good providers to really reset themselves for a successful 2019. At the beginning of this year, customers still weren't sure how high pricing would go and if service would be acceptable or not. In the conversations we're having now, customers are still concerned about service, less concerned about cost, although I've never met a customer that wants an increased cost. They understand what's happening in the market, and they really understand what's happening specifically with drivers. I think they're more comfortable than what they were back in the day, and customers have done a really good job coming out of the spot market and being in contract relationships.
Got it. Just sticking with ICS, can you just talk about JB360 costs and how they've been trending through the quarter and where do you see them in the next couple of quarters?
Well, they're increasing. I haven't really put together the 2019 plan yet, we have started with what we want from that. We'll be working on our budgeting here in the next month or so we can start planning for those resources.
Got it. Just one last follow-up. David, I think you said that you didn't want to comment on IM trends in October, just to clarify, from what you're seeing so far, are IM year-over-year load growth numbers in October up or down year-over-year?
Well, we don't comment on the quarter, but I would tell you that yes, Terry has said, and what he did say is that we're about where we expected to be, maybe slightly a little bit ahead, but nothing to scream that we're seeing things just run off the chart.
Very good. Thank you.
To ask a question, please press star, then the number 1 on your telephone keypad. Your next question comes from the line of Mr. Todd Fowler. Sir, your line is now open.
Great. Thanks, and good afternoon. Terry, I wanted to come back to the comment you made about 2019 and kind of having more balance between volume and price on the intermodal side. If I think about the revenue per load trends that you're seeing in the back half of 2018 and maybe where some of the contract pricing's resetting, thinking about that carrying forward into 2019, and the comments about it still being a decent pricing environment, to me, that implies that you could see mid to high single-digit revenue per load in 2019 on the intermodal side. Is the comment that you'd expect to see similar sort of volume growth with that into next year as well?
As I mentioned, I haven't given any numbers out on that. I think, as Dave mentioned, you can somewhat extrapolate what the bid cycle is going to do for the first half of next year with regards to price. Again, we haven't put together our plan for 2019. As I mentioned, I believe that there will be more balanced approach going into 2019 than maybe what we had this year.
Okay. It is fair to think about the fact that the rates that are resetting in the second half of this year, you get the carry forward of that into next year. If it's still a positive pricing environment, at least directionally, that's a decent way to think about revenue per load into 2019 at this point?
Yes, you're correct.
Okay, good. Then maybe just a short-term question as we think about the fourth quarter. If we go back, and David, maybe this is for you at a high level, but if we adjust for the charges here this quarter, in the third quarter, is there anything that we should think about as to why we wouldn't see maybe what you normally seasonally see from third quarter into fourth quarter? Either some additional costs coming through on the rail service side, or as you sit here today and we think about how to think about the fourth quarter for the rest of the year, is it fair to think about normal fourth quarter trends versus third quarter and typical seasonality, or is there something else we should be factoring into our assumptions? Thanks.
Well, yeah. I think the general trend for intermodal should be fairly consistent. I think that our expectation, like we said, the customers are telling us there is going to be a normalized peak. You're not going to get, obviously, the last year's hurricane wave come in spite of Michael. We just don't expect it yet. It could show up, but we're not counting on it as an item. In dedicated, I think they'll see their seasonal operations. They would expect a seasonal rise probably a little more so than normal because frankly, ICS lost some of their seasonal activity to DCS. The big contract inside DCS was a direct result of cross-selling. There's a little bit of robbing Peter to pay Paul.
ICS is going to have to backfill to get to its normal seasonal uptick in Q4, considering they gave a bunch of their freight to DCS this year. Truckload is actually starting to perform very well inside the seasonal market, relatively speaking. I think the trend is going to be okay. I couldn't tell you that I see any abnormal costs on the horizon. I'm hoping the trend is, again, as predicted, but we're hoping that the pricing covers that trend as it did 3Q.
Okay, that makes sense. Yeah, I think that the biggest piece really is just typically when you see that improved OR in the fourth quarter on the intermodal side, that really drives some of the seasonality. It sounds like that that's on track and that's helpful on the interplay between ICS and DCS as we think about the fourth quarter. Thanks for doing the call. I appreciate the time.
Your next question comes from the line of Matt Terpene. Sir, your line is now open.
Hey, thanks and good afternoon. Another DCS question for you. Could you talk to how many trucks you expect to add in fourth quarter?
Yeah, we should see our total number go up in the range of 9,800 to 9,900 is where we'll end the year with trucks on the books.
Okay, that's helpful. A higher level DCS question. If we think about this incremental growth that you're seeing this year, how much of it would you attribute to a tighter overall truckload market versus the continuation of converting private fleets and also maybe taking some share from your competitors? Trying to get a feel for how much of it is just blocking and tackling on the competitive side versus a function of a tighter overall truck market.
Yeah. I would say probably 70% of it is more private fleet blocking and tackling basic stuff. The other 30% is probably because of tightening capacity with some of the stuff we got from ICS that's going into a long-term contract with us. Also just our base fleets are growing. We're expanding our service radius from 200 to 250 out because the one-day market's going up, so we're signing up trucks for longer periods of time because of that. That's where I get that extending out for longer miles, and that's going to some of our base fleet. That's a ballpark.
Okay. Appreciate the color and time. Thanks.
Your next question comes from the line of Benjamin Hartford. Your line is now open.
Hey, good evening, all. I want to circle back on the DCS margin question. I know that, I think on this call, you had mentioned the long term 11%-13% margin. How should we think about that over the next five years or so, to the extent that final mile does grow, you'd acknowledge that that is a lower margin business. Maybe twofold. Is that 11%-13% still the target as you assume scaling up the non-asset-based network, one? Two, the non-asset-based network, is it fair to assume that it is a higher return on invested capital business than the core legacy DCS business?
Yes. The way we do our pricing and all of it is based on ROIC guidelines. I'll start the reverse of that, talk about the final mile. The non-asset portion of that does have a much higher ROIC. As we grow that, it's going to be growing it from a smaller base but a higher %. It will have some dilution, could be anywhere from 20-50 basis points, depends on how fast we grow of the overall DCS margin. I think within DCS, we can still maintain that 11%-13%, even with that starting to dilute and pull a little bit more as we go forward. Our ROIC on our dedicated, we price each one of the deals based on how much capital we got to put in it and hitting our ROIC targets.
We feel very good about that. The final mile will have some drag on it, but we still should be able to hit within those guardrails, if you will, of 11%-13%.
Okay, that's helpful. If I could circle back real quick on the tariffs, you had mentioned that December could be quite strong given the looming tariff on January 1. What are customers saying as it relates to inventory across the channel to the extent that there was any pull forward in 2Q ahead of the 10% and then now if there is some in front of the 25%? Where do inventory levels sit, and have customers experienced any issue at all as it relates to passing on higher costs to customers? Has there been any impact to aggregate demand outlooks to 2019 based on these tariffs?
I'm not sure that I could specifically talk about tariffs because our customers are also trying to think about their own strategy. What is their sourcing strategy? Will it make an impact on them? That's going off my most recent visits in total.
Okay, thank you.
Your next question comes from the line of David Ross. Your line is now open.
Yes, good afternoon, everyone. Dave, you mentioned that JBT, the truckload segment, is actually performing well for a change. Could you elaborate?
That's what I meant from an opportunity standpoint. They've got room to improve. They've not been let off the hook. I think that, yes, I'm getting a dirty look from Shelley because I'm answering her question. I really should let her describe what the trend is actually moving in the right direction for us. Go ahead, Shelley.
First I'll take the acknowledgment from our CFO that truckload is doing okay.
Right.
That doesn't happen very often. Truckload, I think, is performing. Our prices really came through here in the third quarter. We feel really comfortable with our power mix and our direction moving forward inside that segment, and we also feel comfortable how they can interact and operate inside of our J.B. Hunt 360° platform. That's something that we plan to integrate as well coming into 2019.
Can you talk a little bit on the driver side? How much wages are up this year across dedicated truckload, drayage? Do you expect a similar increase next year? What's been communicated so far about driver wages into 2019?
Yeah, this is Dave. I'll talk about dedicated. Probably in the last 12 to 18 months, our driver wages are up about 10% or a little bit more than that. As far as going forward, we price each deal. It depends on where it is and what the demand is and how tight it is in that particular market. We price each one of our individual deals based on what we think it would take to recruit the drivers. We've been recruiting drivers very well in this difficult market because of the pay that we've been able to price into our deals for our drivers. I can't really speculate what it's going to do next year on driver pay. We're just pricing deal by deal.
All right. Yeah, our driver wages are-
Is it going to be different on the truck or drayage side in terms of 10% wage inflation?
In truckload, we are seeing double-digit increases in driver wages. I would say it is the more difficult job to attract new entrants in the market. Done a nice job in turnover in that segment overall, but we are experiencing double-digit increases.
In Intermodal, we've had to increase wages as we will increase wages next year. We already have increases on the books around the plans for early next year. We anticipate next year will be similar to what this year was.
Last question, Shelley mentioned earlier about customers getting out of the spot market where they got abused this year and into the contract business. Are any of those contracts coming with volume commitments, in terms of if you're going to put them under contract and readjust the truck network for them, is it fair that they also commit to give J.B. Hunt a certain number of loads?
Well, first, I don't know that they got abused in the spot market. The network was completely out of balance. Their lack of planning, our lack of planning, and more importantly, what the driver market was doing in total really created such a demand that people were deadheading and doing things they needed to do to be able to service customers. I don't think any of our customers intend to not live up to their commitment. They don't do as good of a job as forecasting, and neither do we. The crystal ball is very foggy for our customers. It's foggy for us as well. Customers are trying to do their very best in estimating how much volume they need to move, and they're trying to commit to the carriers based on that.
We never have a conversation with a customer that doesn't come with a commitment. That's really a two-way street.
Excellent. Thank you.
Your next question comes from the line of Ken Hoexter. Your line is now open.
Great. Good afternoon, thank you again for hosting the conference call. This is great process. Appreciate it. Just want to turn back to intermodal, your comments on the growth turning negative, particularly on the transcontinental side. I want to understand, is that because you're being more aggressive on the rail because of rail costs going up and you're being more aggressive on rates? Or is it something in the market specifically?
Well, there's probably three or four things I would point you to. One, we talked about the weather events and the derailments that we previously mentioned. Last year, we were almost up 8% on the transcontinental, so the comp was a little bit difficult. As we mentioned, the West Coast was not quite as robust in August and the first half of September. Lastly, some of the freight that we lost due to the pricing and the customers did not buy our price with regards to long drays happened to be some of the transcontinental freight.
Okay. Did you mention if that's what you saw turning when you mentioned the October outlook, or is that, I just want to understand where you are in that process.
Well, I think the West Coast is certainly strong now. That should help us. It's only 15 days into the quarter, that's what I was alluding to, is the West Coast has been strong as a normal peak it should be.
Great. Shelley, for the follow-up on your thoughts on negative rates at brokerage. You talked a bit about LTL growth ramping up. I guess the ramp up J.B. 360. Is there a shift in focus at brokerage in terms of driving more LTL growth, or is that the shift that you mentioned between brokerage and DCS?
I would say that's more a contractual relationship that we have that grew more on the LTL side, but we're continuing to expand services and cross-sell into our customers. Certainly on the 360 side, that's been a big growth for us. We're pleased with where we're at, our statistics on both the carrier and the customer side, and that gives us good promise moving into 2019.
Great. Appreciate the time.
To ask a question, please press star, then the number 1 on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, press the pound key. Your next question comes from the line of Bascome Majors. Your line is open.
Yeah, thanks for taking my questions here. Dave or Terry, the long-term range of margins expectations you talked about in intermodal of 11%-13%, that dates back to, I think, last March. Clearly a lot has happened since then, both good and bad inflation, an interim reward from your largest supplier in the intermodal business and then some shifts in customer preferences, mix both regionally, et cetera. I believe earlier you pretty much said that's the right range to be at going forward based on what we know today. Can you say that or maybe talk about that a little more explicitly? If we need to think about fitting to the higher or lower end of that range with some of the changes that have happened, just maybe expand on that a little.
Well, I think we were a little out of that range at the latter part of last year. I think we've gotten back into that range in the last quarter or so. We anticipate to be within that range going forward. Whether it's higher or lower, in the middle, I can't give you any direction on that, but I think we'll be in that range moving forward.
All right. Thank you for that. Shelley, just one on the brokerage business. The gross margins sequentially seem to improve on a fairly seasonal basis based on the history that you guys have experienced. Can you talk a little bit about the profit margins you're earning on the transactional versus the contractual side today coming out of bid season? How wide is that gap? Which one's in favor? What does that mean for the overall gross margin of the business as we move forward?
Well, on our contractual business, we've been going through repairing that business and recouping costs that we've paid out to carriers on a more real-time basis. Certainly, those margins have improved as the year has progressed. Our spot margins, in total, the revenue per load in spot is generally higher because that's more out-of-pattern shipments, longer length of haul. Our margins tend to be slightly better and definitely less volatile. We typically stay in the 14%-16% range on spot margin in total, published pricing continued to repair as the quarter moves forward.
Thank you.
Your next question comes from the line of Brian Ossenbeck. Your line is now open.
Hey, thanks. Good afternoon. I appreciate taking the question. Terry, just one more for you on the intermodal volume side. You made some comments about the transcon freight and the West Coast being stronger, or should be stronger into the normal peak. We've seen the rails running more trailer-on-flatcar, especially with e-commerce demand and the parcels taking up some capacity there. Has that been any sort of limitation for the space that you're able to get on the network as well?
I think it's maybe caused, in a few ramps, a little congestion here and there. In terms of being able to service our customers and get their loads on the trains, I believe we'll be able to be successful in doing that this year.
Okay. The other one for Nick. As you look at the private fleet conversions, which has been a majority, big chunk of what you're getting now, how is it right now retaining drivers when you make those conversions? Is it easier because you're getting the same people running the same sort of freight? Or are you finding it difficult to hang on to those folks when you do the conversion?
No. With those private fleets, it makes the conversion a lot easier because we have the ability to go in, talk to them. We know ahead of time. We do our comparisons on pay and benefits, and we have strategic conversations with the decision makers on how we want to align that to make sure we're aligned. We like doing those because we get a lot of the drivers come over in the transition. There'll be some that don't pass some of our tests or something, but the vast majority do, and so that makes the startups go quicker, and we get to profitability a little bit quicker.
Okay. Just to confirm the $4 million charge from this quarter, is that expected to basically continue in 4Q and then sort of tail off into the first quarter and second, depending on, like you said, the bumpiness of any new big contracts that are signed on?
Yeah, I think that's probably a good way to look at it. Again, that $4 million was just the big bucket items. There's a lot of other smaller things in there that we didn't roll up in there, but I think that's a good way to look at it.
Okay, great. Thanks for the time.
Your next question comes from the line of Scott Group. Your line is now open.
Thanks. Afternoon. Couple of quick things here. On the dedicated side, it sounds like you're talking about fourth quarter being better than third. Can you just clarify if you're including or excluding some of the charges you talked about in third quarter with that comment? Then maybe for you, Nick, on dedicated, on the new business that you're winning, are you pricing that at 11%-13% margins, or do you see opportunities to be pricing that better given the environment?
Given the environment, I would say we're pricing it a touch better. Our margins, if I look at our price business in 2018 versus 2017, it is better than what we were pricing in 2017. Go back on the first part. Was that for me or for Terry?
I guess it was for Dave, who made a comment about fourth quarter being better than third quarter in dedicated.
Okay. I would just say that I think we're going to have some of those same startup costs. They might be a touch lighter in the fourth quarter, but I think the $4 million is going to carry forward. It might be a touch lighter, then it's going to tail off in the first quarter.
Okay. Terry, just going back to that 11%-13% intermodal margin comment. I just want to make sure. That captures or reflects anything you know at this point as it relates to the arbitration. Is that right?
We don't have any comments about arbitration because we don't know. Nice try, Scott.
You know more than we do, right? I guess I just want to make sure. Terry still said 11-13.
11-13 is what our target is. 11-13 is still our target.
Okay. Last one on the brokerage side. Gross margins improving, gross revenue per load falling. When you add it all up, Shelley, is net revenue better or worse than you thought in the quarter, and do you have a view on the direction of net revenue growth accelerating, decelerating going forward?
I would say net revenue growth was better than expected. Moving into fourth quarter, I think we'll have a good net revenue growth year-over-year, and spot is somewhat muted. We come through busy season, but I would still expect to have a good fourth quarter in everything.
Okay. Thank you, guys. Appreciate the time.
Your next question comes from the line of David Zernan. Your line is now open.
Hey, good afternoon, or I guess good night. Question for you on the intermodal growth. It feels like the rail network as well as some of the drayage network in the yards are really constraining your ability to grow into that market. Can you comment at all about how rail services is progressing and what the industry or shippers need to do to help increase the fluidity of intermodal traffic so that it can actually accommodate more growth?
Yeah, that's a two-part question, Dave. The rail service isn't where the railroads want it's not where we want it, and it's certainly not where the customers want it. If you look at history, when their service has degraded, you normally don't see it more than 18 or 24 months. I think hopefully next year they'll start coming up out of that. I know there's a lot of things going on with the railroads, with a variety of commodities, and that they've always been able to recover. The velocity is key to them, especially as they start looking at Precision Scheduled Railroading. They make more money with better velocity typically than they do with slow velocity.
To answer your question about the terminals and what the customers can do, the flexibility that the customers can have with regards to be able to deliver freight 24/7 will allow us and the railroads to be able to clear those terminals quicker, better. The more open windows they have to be able to deliver that freight, the quicker we'll be able to pull it and deliver it to them, and that'll allow more fluidity in the rail system.
You're not worried about capacity on railroads constraining growth into 2019, then?
Not at this point, no. I think they're going to make the appropriate plans, we will work with them to get those terminals and work with customers to get that freight picked up and delivered accordingly.
All right. Thanks. Dave, maybe just as a follow-up, as you think about CapEx for the year, where do you think you're going to end up? It feels like we're spending a little bit more, maybe that's associated with startups. If you could give us some added color as to how much of the spend that's gone out this year is backstopped on contracts versus assets that shareholders may be on the hook for in a downturn, that'd be helpful. Thank you.
No. I think where we'll probably end up is probably just shy of $800 million at this point in time. Nick is spending a boatload of money. Those are all under contract. We're less concerned about downturn risk in those particular environments. I think that's where we're going to end up at this point in time.
All right. Thank you, guys.
Your next question comes from the line of Brandon Oglenski. Your line is now open.
Hey, good evening, everyone, and thanks for hosting this call. I jumped on a little bit late, so I apologize if we already discussed this. Following the question about CapEx, I think maybe more strategically, it seems like you might be putting more capital behind Dedicated and the technology effort, the 360 platform. How should long-term investors view that? Is that a strategic shift within the company, a little bit less focus on Intermodal and more on some of the other segments, or how should we interpret that shift?
Hey, this is John. I wouldn't say it's any less focus on intermodal as much as an increased focus on building the platforms and connection that we need to reach more people and to better automate what we're doing and how quickly we're doing it and how efficiently we're doing it. I think we're really seeing all of the businesses connect through the investments that we're making. Probably find us some things that are places where we can connect better than we're doing today. It's not a de-emphasis on any part of the business. We've always held ourselves to a very high standard of return, and I think so far we've been pretty true to that.
The other thing I would mention is that as 360 grows, it just adds more loads to intermodal.
Should we be thinking in any way that this is going to be a more capital intensive company looking forward, or is that the wrong way to characterize it as well? Because when I think Dedicated, I think very asset intensive.
This is Dave. It might be somewhat asset intensive. No, I don't think we have any delusions that the returns that Dedicated can generate, even with their contracts, can approach, say, intermodal with an asset light or ICS with a non-asset model. However, I would say that the way Dedicated is priced and at what standard they're held from a return on invested capital standpoint, that it is not going to look like a traditional truckload model, or at least the ones that we can see out there. Granted, we can only see it on a consolidated basis. What we break down and where we hold Dedicated's ROIC thresholds to be
Is not going to look like what a traditional truckload model, or at least one that we've operated in the past, or what we see out there from public information, is going to be. Yes, take a poor asset but a better return than normal.
Thanks, David. Thanks, John.
Your next question comes from the line of Arnold, Dan. Sir, your line is now open.
Good afternoon, gentlemen. Ladies, gentlemen. Real quick, if you can just play a little history lesson for all of us to make sure I've got my history right, and also to be better equipped so that we can think about how you look at the business strategically in coming months, quarters, years. Your agreement with the BNSF is an ongoing relationship that actually began, what, how many decades ago with the Santa Fe, correct?
1990.
Yeah. It's a revenue sharing agreement, the net resulting price sets the absolute minimum that the BNSF can charge anybody else in the system. Correct?
Well, I think I said earlier that the contract is under a confidentiality agreement.
Okay.
I think it is fairly well known that it is a revenue sharing agreement.
Yeah. When it wasn't under a confidentiality agreement, that's certainly what was out there. On an ongoing basis, you both renegotiate this percentage revenue split. You've been involved in minor litigation with each other before, it's in both of your best interests to continue the relationship. There's no rational reason for anybody to inject fear into this, to expect anything other than you and the BN are going to continue to be prosperous business partners for years and decades to come. Am I overstating that, or is that just the reality of the business for both parties?
I guess I'm not sure what you want us to say on that.
Well-
If I comment, then it sounds like I'm speaking for the BN. You would have to ask us both that question at the same time. I'm not about to answer that question without the third party.
You can't speak for them. Strategically, it's something that is not unreasonable for us to expect that from your vantage point, you should be continuing to do prosperous business with them for years and decades to come.
I would think that any contract that we sign with any type of provider or supplier, yes, we would expect to create prosperous business out of that contract. Yes.
Yeah. All right. Well, not full where I was headed, but the point being, this is an ongoing thing that happens now and then between the two of you. This isn't new news. By any means, is it?
It isn't new news. I think that, yeah, we have been in arbitration once before this particular time. We are in arbitration again.
Fantastic. All right. Thank you, gentlemen. Everyone else has already expressed it. I appreciate you being willing to host a conference call and being willing to take live questions. That shows a level of transparency and accountability that, quite frankly, is needed by more of those in the industry. Thanks for that. That is greatly appreciated.
Again, to ask a question, please press star then the number one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, press the pound key. Your next question comes from the line of Barry Hayes. Your line is now open.
Hi, thanks. Can you hear me okay?
We're here.
Well, great. I had a question having to do with shipper behavior, and it's maybe a truckload question or probably also an intermodal question. The question is, as rates have moved up over the last year or so, one of the issues, of course, has been drivers waiting around and as the power has shifted, if you will, from shipper to provider, one would expect that you guys and others have less tolerance for that. I'm wondering, are you seeing a lot of shipper behavior change? How many of them, just gut feel, were not doing a good job? How many of those are now doing a better job? How much productivity benefit do you get? Any just color around changes in shipper behavior that you guys have seen across your businesses. Thanks.
I think as customers have become more knowledgeable about where we are as an industry with drivers and specifically for J.B. Hunt, they want to know what they can do to help. They have probably the greatest awareness of what the facilities look like. Shippers are wanting to be a shipper of choice. I would say a large part of our shippers are trying new things and thinking about driver amenities and the way that they treat drivers on dock. We've seen a movement of that. Could I say what percentage in the past? I think as transportation costs have reached
Other companies' press releases, it has gotten the attention all the way up to the C-suite of our customers. Those that are over our customers' locations also are trying to figure out. You don't just have transportation trying to manage cost. In the past, it was primarily transportation trying to manage cost, and the locations were managed completely separate. I would say not as great of a percentage did anything in the past out of the ordinary, where today, because of the heightened costs in earnings releases, they are very interested in making their locations very driver-friendly.
Great. Thanks so much. Appreciate the call.
Next question comes from the line of Todd Fowler. Your line is now open.
Great. Thanks for taking the follow-up. I know that you quantified the weather impact of the intermodal loads in the press release. I think that last year you had given some color around the cost side for weather in the third quarter of 2017. Do you have a similar number this year for what you think weather was on the expense side this year?
No.
Right. There you go, Todd. There you go.
I take back everything I said about I'm happy to do these calls. Come on.
Yeah. I have to admit, I don't have last year's. I'm not sure we talked about costs. I know we talked about loads lost. If we did quantify it, I apologize. I don't remember that. Yeah, the weather was only one component because we also had the derailments, which are probably more of an effect on the load count than the hurricane event was this year. Last year, it was just hurricane events.
I know they have tried to quantify some costs for me, but I don't have that. That's why Terry said no.
Okay.
That's why Terry said no.
I won't take it personally. Okay. I think that we had a number in our notes, so maybe it wasn't something that was specific in the release.
It may have been, Todd. It could have been.
Fair enough. Okay. All right. I'll still say thanks for the time. Thanks, guys.
Yeah.
Your last question comes from the line of Amit Mehrotra. Your line is open.
Okay, the first one and the last one. Great. Thanks for taking the follow-up. Just a few quick ones here. One is, when I was out there earlier this year, truck orders, new truck orders weren't at the levels they had been over the last several months. Obviously, the outlook for intermodal volume and pricing was quite strong. If you can just talk about how the record truck orders have changed your view at all about next year volume and pricing trajectory for intermodal, I guess more appropriately probably for the second half of next year. I know it's a little bit of a crystal ball question, I would imagine that it would have had some effect in terms of how you think the cycle plays out.
Yeah, I think it's a little early to tell on that. As I mentioned earlier in the call, that the differential between the truck price and the intermodal price when you include fuel has widened. I think the line haul price, we may have kept up with that in most cases, the fuel cost has widened. The gap between truck and intermodal versus this time last year has widened. The question will be, does the truck rate come down? You have all the pressures that are on truck. I don't perceive seeing that come down. I don't believe early on in 2019, it should have really any effect. We'll just have to wait and see with regards to what happens with truck pricing.
Even if truck pricing comes down a little bit, which I don't think is going to happen, there's still a large gap between truck and intermodal.
Okay. Let me just ask one follow-up for David. I don't know if I heard this correctly, but the September intermodal volume comp, I thought you said was negative. If I'm not mistaken, I think the overall comp in September was actually pretty easy. It was, I could be wrong on this, but plus 1% September last year. Can you just talk about why that comp turned negative in September despite the comp being so easy?
Yeah, there were two or three things that I had mentioned earlier. The West Coast was not as robust as what it was last year. Of course, the weather events happened in September, and the major derailments on the Cajon Pass affected what happened in early September, plus some of the final bids that were implemented that had long drays that we weren't able to retain started showing up in August and September.
Got it. Okay. One last one for me on the dedicated business. I mean, obviously, the growth initiatives have been organic so far. Would there be any appetite to, I guess, bulk up in that business via acquisitions?
I think on the dedicated side, we've got a roster of 35-plus salespeople out there, and our pipelines are full, and so I see no reason to pay a premium to go grow when we can do it organically.
Got it. Okay. All right. Thanks for taking the questions, David. I guess you'll get home early tonight. Appreciate it, guys. Bye.
We have.
Okay.
Yes, sir.
No, go ahead.
We have another question, comes from Bascome Majors. Your line is open.
Yeah, thanks for squeezing me into the caboose here. David, the $800 million or close to $1 billion in CapEx that you talked about spending this year with the boost from all the dedicated growth you've been able to achieve here. I think historically you've talked about closer to $500 million in a "normal year." How far down closer to that do we look next year based on what we know today?
Well, I think if you look at where our fleet size is, and when I say fleet, I'm referring to the consolidated fleet. Yeah, my guess is that $500 million as a norm is probably inching its way up, that you're going to talk about replacement CapEx and normal growth CapEx combined is probably going to look closer to the $650 from the old $500. We've been inching up the last couple of years on that anyway, Bascome. Yeah, I'll have to wait and see what my trade cycle looks like for the next two or three years, and then add to that what I would consider normal growth inside of intermodal and dedicated, to give you what a normal CapEx number would be. I think we've moved off the $500 million, just given our general size.
Understood. Has the return profile you're targeting strayed from the kind of, call it 20% returns on capital you've generated historically?
No, it hasn't. It has not, as a matter of fact. Even though we're seeing solid record type growth numbers inside of dedicated, the return profile that those growth numbers are throwing off is not diluting what intermodal return profile and ICS return profiles should be. At this point in time, I would say that we're not willing to move off the dart throw of 20% ROIC for the consolidated group.
Thank you, sir. Everyone for your time. Take care.
We have the last question, comes from Mr. Ken Hoexter. Your line is now open.
Great. Bascome, just have to ask the question I was going to on CapEx, let me just round it out on intermodal. Dave, were you specific on the intermodal portion of that changing at all given the growth deceleration from, or is there an outlook on your target CapEx just for the intermodal side?
In the current period, Ken, no, we've not deviated from any of our plans. The trucks that we wanted to bring on for the Dray group, we are bringing on, and trading, frankly, during this quarter as well, as planned. The box count that we expected to bring on, we're sticking with and not deviating from that. Frankly, we kind of need them because our turns have not been the greatest. We certainly don't want to give up opportunity for growth just because we don't have an extra box or we shorted ourselves boxes accordingly. I think if we make modifications, that'll go into the 2019 budget process, we haven't made those determinations yet.
Just to clarify, when you say make modifications, you mean if the service improves, you might not need to spend as much because you got extra boxes, or you're going to need more?
Both. It could go either way. If we have a growth target and we think the growth target can be satisfied from the elasticity that we already have in our equipment, we may make that decision. On the other hand, if we see that this is going to be a steady growth target more than a one-year period of time, we're not heading into an actual downturn from an economic standpoint, yeah, I wouldn't anticipate us not showing growth boxes in 2019 as well.
Just lastly from me, your thoughts on leverage and the pace of the buyback.
Leverage, I think our attitude has remained the same. As an unwritten rule, we've always targeted one times EBITDA as relative, safe, prudent debt levels. I wouldn't expect us to deviate that in any material way. Naturally, we could be a little bit higher in one period and a little bit lower in another period, but I think we always come back towards the one times EBITDA as a target. If we get substantially lower than the one times EBITDA, we certainly consider that excess cash, and we've been active in our share repurchase. I don't see any real reason to accelerate that and level up, or pause on that if we start seeing additional EBITDA over our debt levels.
There are no questions at this time. Please continue.
Well, Donna, if we've answered everybody's questions, we can certainly terminate this and let everybody get off to writing their reports if they want to. I can send all these people back to work around here. Okay, Donna, I think that if that's the case, I think we'll call it early and call it quits early. Thank you all for joining us, and have a good evening.
This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.