Derek J. Leathers, President & COO of Werner Enterprises, Inc. (WERN): a Wall Street Transcript Interview
67 WALL STREET, New York - September 21, 2012 - The Wall Street Transcript has just published its Transportation and Logistics Report offering a timely review of the sector to serious investors and industry executives. This special feature contains expert industry commentary through in-depth interviews with public company CEOs, Equity Analysts and Money Managers. The full issue is available by calling (212) 952-7433 or via The Wall Street Transcript Online.
Topics covered: FMCSA CSA Regulations - Regulatory Issues in the Trucking Industry - Trucking Pricing & Capacity Dynamics - Retail and Industrial Transportation Demand - Truckload, LTL, Parcel, Rail and Intermodal - Capacity Constraints Result in Pricing Power
Companies include: Werner Enterprises (WERN) and many others.
In the following excerpt from the Transportation and Logistics Report, the President of Werner Enterprises discusses the outlook for his company for investors:
TWST: If you would, please start with a company history and an overview of your business today.
Mr. Leathers: Our company was founded in 1956 by our current Chairman Emeritus. He started with one truck, and it's kind of the American success story. He started as a truck driver without any formal education, and now we're an international transportation and logistics company that does business to and from about 100 countries around the world. Our focus is North America and our roots are still in trucking, but we've grown and expanded into global freight forwarding.
We are a U.S. customs broker. We do domestic logistics, site-selection work and really the entire portfolio of transportation and logistics services for our customers. Recent years have seen our focus increasingly on the international side of our business, and we are approaching just over $300 million of business outside the United States and growing, and a particular focus has been on the freight-forwarding piece of that, which would be what we call Werner Global Logistics, the part of our business where we would coordinate somebody's shipment to and from just about any point in the world. That logistics piece of our business has been recently growing at about the 20% top line, with similar bottom-line-type growth trends.
TWST: What other areas of your business are experiencing growth?
Mr. Leathers: When we think of our business, the foundation is the trucking side, and the trucking side has been stable and slowly growing, but it has been growing in recent years from a revenue perspective. But the fast growth has been, as I mentioned, global logistics. Also our intermodal product offering - that's us and the rail working together to provide an intermodal solution to the customer - and that's had well in excess of 35%-type growth rates for multiple quarters in a row now. We continue to see a lot of upside in our intermodal business, as well as with our truck brokerage business, so us arranging for transportation on behalf of a customer with a third-party carrier, not a Werner blue truck. So all of what we refer to as the asset-light pieces of our business is where the fastest growth has been taking place.
TWST: Who are your typical clients, and what trends are you seeing in terms of their needs and demands? How is that affecting the company?
For more from this interview and many others visit the Wall Street Transcript - a unique service for investors and industry researchers - providing fresh commentary and insight through verbatim interviews with CEOs, portfolio managers, and research analysts. This special issue is available by calling (212) 952-7433 or via The Wall Street Transcript Online.
