Forward Air Reports Revenue Growth, Smaller Net Loss in Q1
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Forward Air Corp. experienced a year-over-year increase in revenue and a smaller net loss amid efforts to improve operations during the first quarter of 2025, the company reported May 7.
The Greeneville, Tenn.-based ground transportation and logistics services provider posted a net loss of $61.2 million, or negative $1.68 a diluted share, for the three months ending March 31. That compared with a loss of $88.8 million, negative $2.81, during the same time the previous year. Total operating revenue increased 13.2% to $613.3 million from $541.8 million.
“Our goal is to double the business over the next five years,” Forward Air CEO Shawn Stewart said during a call with investors. “Obviously that assumes that we return to a normal freight environment and the macro headwinds do not persist for an extended period. While we are in uncertain times, what is certain is the tremendous opportunity we have ahead of us. It is an exciting time to lead our company as we continue to transform Forward Air into a global logistics leader.”
Forward Air has undergone corrective pricing actions in its expedited freight segment with the aim of fixing issues with its previous strategies. The prior approaches had been focused more on growth than profitability.
“We began taking corrective pricing actions during the fourth quarter of 2024 and finished implementing the improvement strategy in February of this year,” Stewart said. “We’re pleased to share that in the back half of the quarter, we began to see the improvement that we’re anticipating.”
Ancora Holdings Group issued a letter to shareholders the morning before the earnings report was released, outlining its reasons for why three board members should be voted out. The investor group took issue with the shareholders for their support of the Omni Logistics acquisition. Stewart briefly addressed the letter during the earnings call.
“The board and management team are entirely focused on taking deliberate actions to maximize shareholder value,” Stewart said. “The board is actively engaged in leading the strategic review process, which as we noted, is underway. And with the continued oversight of our transformation strategy, we firmly believe that all of our directors are vital to these efforts. We look forward to filing our definitive proxy materials in the coming days. Beyond that, we’re not going to comment any further.”
The results were below the expectations of investment analysts on Wall Street, who had predicted negative 47 cents per share and quarterly revenue of $618 million, according to Zacks Consensus Estimate.
Revenue by segment:
- Expedited freight segment decreased 8.8% to $249.4 million from $273.3 million year over year. Income from continuing operations fell 19.8% to $15.6 million from $19.5 million. The segment includes network and truckload operations.
- Network declined 11.3% to $190.2 million from $214.4 million.
- Truckload increased 5.9% to $39.3 million from $37.1 million.
- Omni Logistics reported an increase of 43.9% to $323.5 million from $224.8 million. Income from operations increased to $3.38 million from a loss of $28.6 million the prior year. The report did note that the prior-year numbers do not include the first 24 days of 2024 since the acquisition closed Jan. 25, 2024.
- Intermodal segment increased 0.7% to $62.5 million from $56.3 million. Income from continuing operations grew 17% to $5.54 million from $3.59 million. Drayage shipments increased 2.9% to 64,449 from 62,659 the prior year. Drayage revenue per shipment increased 7.4% to $883 from $822.
Forward Air ranks No. 41 on the Transport Topics Top 100 list of the largest for-hire carriers in North America and No. 1 on the air/expedited carriers sector list. It ranks No. 36 on the TT Top 100 list of the largest logistics companies.
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