Earnings Labs

Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings Inc. (KNX)

Q1 2018 Earnings Call· Wed, Apr 25, 2018

$65.39

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good afternoon. My name is Vincent, and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Knight-Swift Transportation First Quarter 2018 Earnings Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. Speakers for today's call will be Dave Jackson, President and CEO; Kevin Knight, Executive Chairman; and Adam Miller, CFO. Mr. Miller, the meeting is now yours.

Adam W. Miller - Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings, Inc.

Management

Thank you, Vincent, and good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining the call. We have slides to accompany this call posted on our Investor website, which is investor.knight-swift.com/events. So, first off, we'd like to welcome you to the Knight-Swift Transportation first quarter 2018 earnings call. Our call is scheduled to go until 5:30 PM Eastern Time, and will be structured similar to our calls in the past. Following our commentary, we'll hope to answer as many questions as time will allow. If we're not able to get your question, due to time restrictions, you may call 602-606-6349. During this call, we plan to cover topics and any questions specific to the results of the first quarter and provide our future outlook on the market. The rules for questions are one question per participant. If there is a follow-up question, we invite you to get back in the queue to ask your question. To begin, I'll first refer you to the disclosures on slide 2 and 3 of the presentation. I'll also read the following. This conference call and presentation may contain forward-looking statements made by the company that involve risks, assumptions and uncertainties that are difficult to predict. Investors are directed to the information contained in Item 1A Risk Factors, or Part 1 of the company's Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the United States SEC for discussion of the risks that may affect the company's future operating results. Actual results may differ. We'll now move to slide 4 and discuss the results of the first quarter. The table on slide 4 compares first quarter revenue and earnings results on a year-over-year basis. An important item to note, however, is that, due to the accounting requirements associated with the merger transaction, the 2017 figures represent only Knight Transportation's…

David A. Jackson - Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings, Inc.

Management

Thank you, Adam, and good afternoon everybody. I will start on slide 7. On March 16, we announced the acquisition of Abilene Motor Express. Abilene is based in Richmond, Virginia, and has an operating ratio typically in the low 90s, runs about 400 trucks and generates approximately $100 million in annual revenue. They're primarily an over-the-road fleet, providing dry van and some temperature controlled services with a customer base that provides unique customer relationships compared to the existing Knight and Swift brands. Our strategy at Abilene is very similar to other acquisitions. We will keep Abilene as a distinct brand and focus on developing synergies that will reduce costs and improve revenue. We're excited to have them join our team. They have great customers, great drivers and great people. Since the acquisition closed late in the quarter, our first quarter consolidated results include Abilene results for only the last two weeks of March. The results of Abilene are and will continue to be included in the Knight segments. Now, on to slide 8. In the first quarter, our Knight Trucking segment operated at an 81.6% adjusted operating ratio which was a 790 basis point improvement over the prior year, and resulted in operating income more than doubling from $20.3 million in the first quarter of 2017 to $40.8 million in the first quarter of 2018. This improvement was primarily driven by the increase in revenue per tractor, partially offset by an increase in driver related costs, the strong freight market from the back half of 2017 carried into 2018 and provided non-contract revenue opportunities throughout the quarter. Revenue, excluding trucking fuel surcharge and inter-segment transactions, increased 15.2%, driven by a 17.4% increase in revenue per tractor, partially offset by a 1.9% decrease in the average operational truck count year-over-year. While…

Kevin P. Knight - Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings, Inc.

Management

Thanks, Dave. The broader economy continues to show signs of growth. Consumer spending, durable goods and the prospects of increased manufacturing and construction, all point to positive growth in the future, especially considering the recent tax relief from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. These economic growth factors, however, may increase the competition for vocational labor, potentially resulting in a more challenging driver market. The driver shortage continues to be a headwind for the industry and will likely impact the ability to increase capacity in the space. We also believe that the ELD mandate had an impact throughout the quarter. So far in the 2018 bid season, we are seeing high single-digit to low double-digit rate increases, driven by the strong market conditions, as well as the increased inflationary pressures such as expenses associated with hiring and retaining drivers. We expect these rate increases to continue throughout 2018. In this environment, we will continue to monitor the markets in order to maximize both service levels and yield. On to slide 11, we are pleased with how well our Knight and Swift teams continue to work together. Groups from each brand are sharing and implementing best practices. And we feel we are gaining a sense of teamwork from our employees. We are seeing improvements from these best practices at both Knight and Swift. We remain committed to both brands with our goal of making Swift the best Swift it can be and Knight the best Knight it can be. And we have similar thoughts about Barr-Nunn and Abilene. Excelling at safety and service is of the utmost importance to all of our businesses. We have already begun to implement several initiatives to improve both safety and service at Swift. These changes do not happen overnight, but we are beginning to see positive trends in our performance metrics. While the teamwork we are witnessing and the opportunities ahead give us confidence, we continue to face a challenging driver environment. Longer term, we expect to overcome the near-term headwinds through the driver sourcing capabilities at Swift and Knight. Specifically, we believe Swift has an unmatched advantage to source and train new drivers through our academies and driver development capabilities. Knight plans to leverage Swift's competency to source and train new drivers. And Swift plans to further leverage Knight's approach to increase the sourcing of experienced drivers. Sourcing and retaining drivers remains a top priority across our fleet. We are encouraged with the margin improvement we have experienced at both Knight and Swift, but understand we have more opportunity to improve. Our teams remain committed to working together to enhance our performance in managing markets, improving safety and improving service, while also developing high-quality drivers and reducing our cost per mile and our cost per transaction. And with that, we will now open up the call, Vincent, for questions.

Operator

Operator

We have a question comes from the line of Tom Wadewitz from UBS. Your line is open.

Thomas Wadewitz - UBS Securities LLC

Management

Yeah. Good afternoon, Kevin and Dave, Adam. Let's see – I guess, I'm wondering if you can offer some thoughts on the mix that you had in the quarter and kind of how the pricing may change the function of seasonality that you had. You had a lot of trucks in legacy Knight in the spot market. I think in fourth quarter, I think you had over 20%. Was that kind of similar? And maybe if you can offer a thought on where Swift was? And then, just how you might see that changing as you look at the second quarter being seasonally stronger, would you kind of put more in spot and maybe more of kicker in your pricing from the amount you have in spot?

David A. Jackson - Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings, Inc.

Management

Okay. Thanks, Tom, for the question. This is Dave. I'll take a run at that. We estimate back in the fourth quarter, as you alluded to, that Knight was probably in that 20-something percentage of our business. It was in the non-contract market. And we would – we estimate that, likewise in the first quarter, we were somewhere in that 20% to 25% range in terms of what was non-contract versus what was maybe more of a contractual nature. Our best estimates at this point at Swift was that Swift was probably closer to the 10% to 12% range, but we'll get more and more refined in how we look and measure those things. I would say that just as it didn't change dramatically from one quarter to the next, as we look to the second quarter, we don't expect dramatic change in terms of the percentage of our fleet that has that kind of exposure. Of course, we're going through a bid season right now. And it's, as we recently, just a minute ago, alluded to the upper-single digits to low-double digits that we're seeing on – from an increased perspective there, that's encouraging to us. And so, we're not in a – you shouldn't expect us to try and make dramatic shifts or swings in kind of the composition of how that works.

Thomas Wadewitz - UBS Securities LLC

Management

Okay. So, we should anchor to your comments on contract rates to kind of figure out the contour of how your rates coming in – or are going to come in overall on second quarter, third quarter?

David A. Jackson - Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings, Inc.

Management

I think that's fair to look at, but the piece that makes these comparisons a little bit tricky is the non-contract market a year ago was at a discount; arguably, a double-digit discount. So, if you found yourself short loads last year in the first quarter, you were scraping and willing to sometimes move things at unsustainable rates. And you fast forward, and now you look at that non-contract market at a very healthy premium. And so, it makes it a bit exaggerated here in these first few quarters, while we have a comparison over what was a very weak market a year ago. And so, those will begin to go away as we get to the second half of 2018. But second quarter is going to be – second quarter is going to have favorable comparisons, when you look at non-contract rates.

Thomas Wadewitz - UBS Securities LLC

Management

Okay. Yeah, great. Well, good results, and thank you for the time.

David A. Jackson - Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings, Inc.

Management

Thank you. Vincent, I think we're ready for the next question.

Operator

Operator

Next question comes from the line of Allison Landry from Credit Suisse. Your line is open.

David A. Jackson - Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings, Inc.

Management

Hi, Allison. What's your one question? Allison M. Landry - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC: My one question is on the labor side, and I think you mentioned on the last call that for every dollar of a rate increase that you guys can attain that about $0.25 of every dollar will go to the drivers. Is that still how you're thinking about it? Or does the tighter labor backdrop and sort of how that's developed over the last few months, has that changed your thinking and sort of that equation as you think about 2018?

David A. Jackson - Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings, Inc.

Management

Yeah. Good question, Allison. I think that it's increasing. Historically, it's been in that 25% to 30% of the rate improvement would find its way to the driver fairly efficiently, fairly quickly. And so, we're definitely on the upper end of that range, if not pushing it up to even higher. If we look at what wages have been trending for the last two quarters, really, for Knight and for Swift, we're in that upper-single digit percentage range for them from a pay, call that, somewhere between 7%, 8%, 9%, give or take. And it varies sometimes by trainee versus experienced driver. And so it's very much a dynamic moving target. What we know is that when rates go up, driver pay goes up almost immediately. And now, we find ourselves where, across the entire industry, driver pay has gone up and it's gone up in all kinds of different ways, and it's been probably a little confusing to drivers out there in the market to understand what's really going on. So, it's very dynamic. So, we're walking the fine line of working with our customers to help us find a way to make sure that we can remain competitive to have enough drivers to be able to fill our trucks, to make sure that we have high-quality safe drivers at the same time. And so, by and large, to make it work for all stakeholders, if we share somewhere in that, call it, 30% of the revenue – of the increase that typically can work for the driver, for the business and, hopefully, it still is – provides a lot of value for the customer. Allison M. Landry - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC: Okay. Excellent. Thank you for the -

David A. Jackson - Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings, Inc.

Management

Thanks, Allison.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line...

David A. Jackson - Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings, Inc.

Management

Vincent, I think we're ready.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Brandon Oglenski from Barclays. Your line is open.

Brandon R. Oglenski - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Management

Hey. Good afternoon, everyone, and thanks for taking my one question. I guess...

David A. Jackson - Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings, Inc.

Management

Thanks, Brandon. I'm glad you'd asked. We always end up leaving people off unintentionally. So...

Brandon R. Oglenski - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Management

Well, I'll keep it fast for you. So – and I'm sure we've covered this on past calls, but as you guys get deeper in running the Swift business, is there any reason to think that the Truckload and Dedicated segment and even Refrigerated can't match the profitability levels in the legacy Knight business over time?

Kevin P. Knight - Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings, Inc.

Management

Yeah. Brandon, this is Kevin. Certainly, we have an expectation that under our approach to business at Swift that we can be just as profitable as we can at Knight. Now, that doesn't mean necessarily that we're going to get there the same exact way. For instance, I don't see Swift being as bigger a player in the non-contract market as I see Knight being. Certainly, we'll be a bigger player in the non-contract market than what we've been in the past. And you know – so, really we don't see anything fundamentally or structurally that will keep us from getting there. Now, you've got to realize that some things take time to improve. So, there are some things we can get fairly common, fairly quickly. There are some areas where Swift outperforms Knight already. And then there are some areas that you've got to lay the groundwork and the foundation, and three or four years later, you'll see the results. And those of us that have gray hair just have to keep convincing the guys that don't that just be patient. It's going to come. But, yeah, in our dry business, in our Refrigerated business, we see nothing. Now, from a dedicated perspective, Swift is a big dedicated player and probably bigger than people realize, because we have a massive amount of work we do in the grocery segment that actually is in our Refrigerated segment. And I would say between the two brands, we were probably approaching 6,000 dedicated trucks. Now, a small portion of those are Knight. So, some of those large dedicated contracts probably won't operate in the low-80s. And if you look at who our primary competitors are in that part of the world, those guys tend to be a little more happy with an 88% or an 89% or a 90% OR. In our culture, you're in trouble, if that's what you put up. I'm just teasing. But so, we just – all of our people at Swift and Knight, we want to be as efficient as we can. And as a result of that, we see no significant barriers other than possibly on the dedicated side. And from my perspective, this is new to me. In other words, we have not participated in large dedicated contracts in our past at Knight. But I'll tell you what, we've got a lot of good dedicated business at Swift. We love it. Our team over there is top-notch, and I really believe nobody does it better. And it doesn't matter whether we're talking about just dedicated or grocery or what, we have amazing people executing. So, no, don't give us any credit at Swift. I mean make us earn it. And we plan to earn it. And we don't see anything standing in our way that should keep us from financially performing close to the same.

Brandon R. Oglenski - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Management

Thank you.

David A. Jackson - Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings, Inc.

Management

Thanks, Brandon.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from the line of Scott Group. Scott Group, your line is open.

Scott H. Group - Wolfe Research LLC

Management

Hey. Thanks. Afternoon, guys. So, if I look at first quarter results and compare versus the fourth quarter, Knight Truckload did much better than normal seasonality, and Swift Truckload was sort of right in line with normal seasonality. So, I guess I'm wondering why you think we saw that difference this quarter. And maybe, more importantly, how should we think about this, going forward, Swift's margin and earning seasonality into the second quarter and the rest of the year? Do you think it should be sort of better than normal because of the synergies or maybe not because of the driver and fleet, as you guys were highlighting?

Kevin P. Knight - Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings, Inc.

Management

Yeah. I'll take that, Scott. I mean, first off, we told you when we released earnings at the fourth quarter that Swift historically has not performed the way that maybe people had hoped in the first quarter. And Swift has a massive amount of retail exposure and we pull out all the staffs in the fourth quarter to serve our customers and take care of the seasonal holiday. And we were very clear that in our fourth quarter call that it's going to take us a few quarters to get our arms around how Swift should perform seasonally. And I would say that Swift performed admirably in the first quarter compared to historical results in that area. Now, Knight performed especially well in the first quarter, and there at the Knight brand, our setup was very good. At the Swift brand, we came out of fourth quarter and recognizing that first quarters are typically very difficult and we just worked our you know what's off to try to make sure that we perform better than historically. And so, I would say Swift should build steam as we progress throughout the year, and Knight will be a little more of a consistent performer, as we progress throughout the year, is our expectation. Now, there's no promise there, but just based on how the two brands work, that's what we expect.

Scott H. Group - Wolfe Research LLC

Management

Just want to make sure I understand. Are you comfortable or suggesting that Swift should start doing now better than normal seasonality? Is that what you're trying to say, Kevin?

Kevin P. Knight - Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings, Inc.

Management

No, not necessarily. I'm saying that Swift's typically very strong in the fourth quarter and light in the first quarter. And quite honestly, I haven't been there in a second and third quarter. So, we're kind of learning as we go, Scott, but we have a large team of people that they get up better than we do. And we'll just help them and support them and work with them the very best we can to produce the very best second and third quarters that we can.

Scott H. Group - Wolfe Research LLC

Management

Okay. All right. Thank you, guys. Appreciate it.

Kevin P. Knight - Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings, Inc.

Management

Thank you.

David A. Jackson - Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings, Inc.

Management

Thanks, Scott.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Amit Mehrotra from Deutsche Bank. Your line's open.

Amit Mehrotra - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Management

Hey. Thanks so much. Thanks, guys. Appreciate you taking the question. So, first quick – very quick one, I guess, is could you give us the unseated truck count? How that trended for Swift in the quarter? And then, you guys have this $50 million of cost synergies for the year. Any sense on like how much of that was realized in the quarter? And then just lastly, quick one, Dave, you talked about the wage inflation, and that's helpful. But it would also be kind of more helpful if you talked about what the operating leverage profile of the business is ex the synergies that you're seeing. I mean, are you seeing drop-through or is the wage inflation on the driver side so severe that, without the synergies, you'd actually be seeing the decremental returns? Any help there would be appreciated. And those are the three questions that I had. Thanks.

David A. Jackson - Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings, Inc.

Management

Yeah, those are three. So, Amit, which one would you like us to answer for you?

Amit Mehrotra - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Management

That's a good question. Let me see. How about the incremental margin question, the last one?

David A. Jackson - Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings, Inc.

Management

Okay.

Amit Mehrotra - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Management

I can repeat it, if you want.

David A. Jackson - Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings, Inc.

Management

Why don't you repeat it, because I lost you after question two? Go ahead, quick.

Amit Mehrotra - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Management

Okay. You talked about driver wage inflation, but you really haven't talked about what the incremental margin profile of the company is over the next several quarters, ex the synergies that you're going to have. So, any thoughts there? Thanks.

David A. Jackson - Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings, Inc.

Management

Yeah. Well, if you look, the business saw a good revenue per mile improvement, but not 100% of that dropped to the bottom line, clearly. And so, a meaningful portion of that was drivers. When we talk about drivers, it's not just driver pay. It's everything associated with recruiting and sourcing a driver. It includes a greater effort on the recruiting side, the advertising expense goes up as more and more people are all working to try and find the same group. So, driver related is by far the largest portion of that. But in addition to that, there you were seeing inflation in the equipment. We're seeing inflation in even the non-driver side, clearly in the mechanics, in the shop, technical expertise side we see it as well, and the used equipment market continues to be soft, which you feel that on the gain (00:35:08) on sale. Fuel, depending on the month, but more often than not has been a headwind as of late. And now, more recently now, as we move into the second quarter, it's consistently been a headwind. So, those are our inflationary factors. You saw that we overcame some of those in order to be able to drop the improvement like we saw on the Knight side, in particular. We saw the 790 basis point improvement on the operating ratio on the asset-based Truckload business. So, this is where – this is what we feel like we get paid to do is to understand our business, understand the kind of rate increases that are needed in order to at least keep up with the inflationary costs we have and ultimately, to provide a return that allows us to exceed weighted average cost of capital and keep reinvesting in the fleet. So, Knight's approaching that level, but still isn't dropping as much to the bottom line on a rate per mile basis as historically it has done. On the Swift side, we have a lot more room to improve as I look and compare how much rate was able to drop to the bottom line at Swift and at Knight, and compare that to others in our industry that have released thus far. I see that Knight and Swift have both done better than most, if not led the charge in terms of dropping to the bottom line. So, when we look at second quarter, third quarter, just as we didn't issue earnings guidance today and we're not ready and we haven't decided yet when we will, if we will be ready to issue earnings guidance again, those are factors that we keep private, that we keep in our own internal projections and we wouldn't quite be ready to share. But we do try, just like I've done and outlined where some of the areas are and, hopefully, that'll help you to make your best estimates going forward.

Kevin P. Knight - Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings, Inc.

Management

Yeah.

Amit Mehrotra - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Management

Okay.

Kevin P. Knight - Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings, Inc.

Management

Amit, I would just add. Knight did a really good job in the first quarter. And I am grateful for all the good work that we got out of the red brand. But on the same token, at Swift, our folks did an amazing job. When I look at the ORs in the Trucking segment, last year, last first quarter, the Dedicated segment, the Refrigerated segment, the Intermodal segment, I mean, significant OR improvement in every one of those businesses. And when you look at our competitors, it's been interesting to me to see how dedicated just has not performed this quarter for our competitors. And in our Dedicated business, we improved I think a 200 basis points. So, it's – we kind of can't control the market, but we can control how we compete and how we finish at the end of the day. And so, that's just an additional comment that I have. Appreciate the question.

Amit Mehrotra - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Management

That's helpful. Thank you, guys. Appreciate it.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Brad Delco. Your line is open.

Brad Delco - Stephens, Inc.

Management

Good afternoon, gentlemen.

David A. Jackson - Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings, Inc.

Management

Hi, Brad.

Brad Delco - Stephens, Inc.

Management

Dave, how are you? I'll make this real quick. Dave, you often like to give your thoughts on what's going on in the industry. And I think you made some comments about concerns on whether or not truck wars, if they remained elevated, what that would mean for the market and they've remained elevated. So, tell me why that's not a bad thing. And that's it for me.

David A. Jackson - Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings, Inc.

Management

Wow. Yeah. Thanks for dropping that bomb and just popping off.

Brad Delco - Stephens, Inc.

Management

I'm sorry, Dave.

David A. Jackson - Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings, Inc.

Management

I can tell you're sleep-deprived with that new baby. Four babies in two years is a lot. So, hope the triplets are doing well with their new little baby sibling there. So, congrats to you.

Brad Delco - Stephens, Inc.

Management

Thank you so much.

David A. Jackson - Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings, Inc.

Management

So, I think bottom line, if you study supply and demand as closely as one probably should if you want to be in this industry, new truck orders are a negative, and it's a matter of to what degree and how soon can they be a negative. And so, there's a few things I think one has to take into account. I don't think it's a simple relationship, as most things in economics are not, where you've seen high truck orders, therefore supply goes up, because there's the second component that's really important and then there's a third component that's really important. Perhaps the second component would be the labor piece. And when we look at the vocational labor that is scarce already, that it's on its way to be even more scarce. And then because of, certainly, the growth in construction, we're even seeing growth in manufacturing, every vocation seems short labor. And on top of that, we have Trucking who seems to have a disproportionately number of baby boomers still as a significant portion of our workforce in the industry which – that's a group that's 59, 60 on the low end of the range of the age. And so, when we look at what this vocational – I don't know if I should call it a crisis or not, but the vocational labor challenge that the U.S. has, Trucking probably couldn't be in a worse position to try and deal with it both because of quality of life concerns and because of the average age of one of our workers that we're trying to replace with somebody in the current, that's coming into the vocational labor. So, you have this whole big piece that has to be taken into account at the same time we look at…

Brad Delco - Stephens, Inc.

Management

I appreciate it. We'll pay attention to used truck values. Thank you, sir.

David A. Jackson - Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings, Inc.

Management

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from the line of Brian Ossenbeck from JPMorgan. Your line is open.

Brian P. Ossenbeck - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Management

Hey. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my question. So, mine's on just the gain on sales, pretty strong in the quarter, $7 million, should we expect that to continue, I'm assuming primarily driven by the Swift side of the business, as you continue to see a bit of contraction on the truck count?

Adam W. Miller - Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings, Inc.

Management

Yes, Brian, I'll take that question. I'd say the used equipment or the gain on sale of equipment probably continues at that pace. I don't think it would – it could have a little volatility, but I don't think anything significant. Again, we just want to know – and I know we said that in our comments that it does – the $800,000 from last year does not include what Swift previously reported which was $4.2 million. So, the comparison is not as different as maybe it looks, just looking at the press release. But we would expect any significant changes in the trends from a gain standpoint.

Brian P. Ossenbeck - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Management

Okay. Thanks a lot.

David A. Jackson - Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings, Inc.

Management

Thanks, Brian.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of the Dave Ross from Stifel. Your line is open. David G. Ross - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: Yes. Good afternoon, gentlemen. Back to the drivers, is there a reason that – you mentioned some driver hiring standards might be more stringent at Knight than those are being applied to Swift, but outside of that, a reason for the drop off at Swift much greater than that at Knight in terms of number of trucks?

Kevin P. Knight - Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings, Inc.

Management

Well, I would just say, Dave, that that has more to do with it than you might expect. And I would also say whenever you go through a leadership change and whenever the culture starts to shift a little bit, it can create just a few issues. So, literally, Swift, we have been going negative company driver count since the second half maybe or last quarter or third quarter of 2015. And it built steam in 2016. It built steam in 2017, and boy, did it build steam when we got there for the first few weeks. But the good news is, for five out of the last six weeks, we've been either flat or positive on our driver count at Swift. So, I think it's just changed. I'll give you an example of, Dave, why we approach our acquisitions now like we do, and you all know that Barr-Nunn has been an extremely successful acquisition, and Abilene is shaping up to be an extremely successful acquisition. I think at Abilene, we've supported the management that we have there, and we've not culturally had to adjust anywhere that I'm aware of. And I'm not sure we've lost two or three or four drivers, if that. And so at Swift, especially as you announce a merger, and then it takes you how many months to close, and then you close, and then you have all that stuff going on, and then a C-suite leaves and a C-suite enters, I mean, it's tough. And it doesn't matter how much effort you put into it, it's going to be challenging. But I will say this. There was one of – an old Swift employee walking through the building yesterday. And he stopped and chatted with seven or eight of our associates over there.…

Kevin P. Knight - Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings, Inc.

Management

Thank you.

David A. Jackson - Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings, Inc.

Management

Thanks, Dave.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Matt Brooklier from Buckingham Research. Your line is open.

Matthew Brooklier - The Buckingham Research Group, Inc.

Management

Hey. Thanks and good afternoon. So, my question is around the sales synergies that you talked to at Swift. I was just curious to get an update in terms of where you think you are in terms of repricing that business, what are the prospects for the remainder of the year, and if there's any color you can maybe provide in terms of how impactful it could potentially be. I know you've given us a number in the past, but maybe there's like an example of some business that you were able to reprice and what that delta was and, yeah, just an update in terms of where we are in the sales synergy process. Thank you.

Kevin P. Knight - Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings, Inc.

Management

So, Matt, I appreciate that question. This is Kevin. I'll take that. I think you were more specific to Swift. And so, really, it takes a year to basically work through your book of business on irregular route. And on your Dedicated business, it can take two or three or four years depending on the lengths of your contract. Now, we also have the ability to go back on the Dedicated side and ask for help. And sometimes, we get supported and sometimes, we don't get supported. But so, we're well into the bid season, we're well into the bid cycle, and we are seeing high single-digit, even up to mid-double digit price increases. And it really just depends on where that business is, where it was, how it was priced. We have significant market intelligence in our brands and that we can get just through our technology that we have developed. And so we kind of know where our problems are, but it's just a matter of when do we have the opportunity to fix them. Are we still under a commitment that – were the customers honored their commitments in the past or are we in a situation where that hasn't been the case, and we're okay to change right now. And so, really, I would say we're about halfway through that process and the results that we are seeing both at Knight and at Swift are very good. And I would say we're no less bullish than we were a quarter ago, maybe a little more bullish and – but, hey, it's a process. And when you go through the process, sometimes you lose business. And then, you've got to figure out, okay, what do we do? We got to fill those holes up or we take our chances in the non-contract market. But I would say that the Swift team is doing a very good job in that area, but we're still a couple more quarters away from working our way through the first cycle. And then, if the market can stay strong, we'll start the next cycle because we're still not where we need to be from a driver pay perspective, in our opinion. So, I hope I answered your question.

Matthew Brooklier - The Buckingham Research Group, Inc.

Management

You did and I appreciate the color. Thank you.

David A. Jackson - Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings, Inc.

Management

Thanks, Matt.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Ken Hoexter from Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Your line is open.

Ken Hoexter - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Management

Great. Good afternoon. Kevin, you did concern me a little bit in one of your answers earlier about chasing competitors to the 90% margins, before your kidding commentary. But I just want to get your feeling on the returns on that business in Dedicated, whether it's in Dedicated or in Refrigerated, whether you look to shrink that business, if it's a much lower return profile, or is it all about rates and if you can completely change in how you structure that business you can keep and grow it?

Kevin P. Knight - Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings, Inc.

Management

Yeah. No, we have no intention or effort of shrinking our Refrigerated or our Dedicated business. We like both of those businesses. Those businesses at Knight have operated historically in the low-to-mid 80s depending on what environment we're in. And we plan to get those businesses more profitable, more efficient. And it isn't just about rate. We've got work to do on the cost side. And so, we've just – I love our Dedicated business at Swift, and we just – but like any part of our business at any of our brands, there's always room to improve. So, no, we would expect to continue to make improvements. It might not come as fast as the irregular route side of our business, but nonetheless, we expect to improve those businesses.

Ken Hoexter - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Management

Thanks, Kevin.

David A. Jackson - Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings, Inc.

Management

Thanks. Ken.

Kevin P. Knight - Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings, Inc.

Management

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Next question comes from the line of Ravi Shanker. Your line is open. Ravi Shanker - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Thank you.

David A. Jackson - Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings, Inc.

Management

Hi, Ravi. Ravi Shanker - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Good evening, gentlemen. Hey. I apologize, if I missed this in your prepared remarks, but how do we think of the truck count going forward for the rest of the year? Is it likely going to be flat sequentially from the latest number in the second quarter and then up slightly in the back half of the year? And also, now that you have better quality drivers, do you expect to see gains in claims and insurance costs in the coming years?

David A. Jackson - Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings, Inc.

Management

Ravi, I'm going to try and give you a quick answer, because we've got several in the queue, we're trying to get to still. So, what I would say, in terms of truck count in Swift, we're working to stabilize as we said at the – in January, for the fourth quarter call, our goal was to stabilize the fleet count by the middle of the year, which would suggest that, hopefully, we can stop the attrition that's happened and maintain the fleet size. And then, we'll – once we get to that point, then we'll decide where we'll go from there. But I wouldn't be modeling growth in the back half of the year on the Swift fleet. On the Knight fleet, given the progress made in the first quarter, we remain optimistic that maybe there's 2% or 3% that might be added as we move deeper into the year, which would basically add back the trucks that we went down in the Knight fleet in 2017. So, that's how we'd model fleet growth. And as to improving, if you will, the qualifications of the driving associates that we hire, we would expect to see that materialize in lower cost per mile, particularly in the insurance and claims line item. And so, hopefully, we'll, that will materialize. It will take some time. So, as we talked about, there is an immediate headwind, but a long-term, hopefully, tailwind to cost per mile over the next few years.

Adam W. Miller - Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings, Inc.

Management

And then, Ravi, I would add, I mean, the fact that the matter is we have inorganic growth opportunities. And at Knight, we've established the path to doing that, and we certainly hope that we continue to find opportunities on the inorganic side. So, we'll keep plugging away there. Ravi Shanker - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Very good. Thank you.

David A. Jackson - Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings, Inc.

Management

Thanks, Ravi.

David A. Jackson - Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings, Inc.

Management

Well, we were at our hour mark. Unfortunately, we have at least five, I believe, that were hoping to ask questions that we ran out of time to. We would encourage those that have questions that did not get answered to call us at 602-606-6349, and we'll do our best to reach back out to you. We appreciate you joining us. Have a lovely evening.

Operator

Operator

This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.