CHARLOTTE, N.C. — RXO, a trucking brokerage business, has reported in its first quarter earnings for 2024 that with four consecutive quarters of double-digit increases in brokerage volume, company-wide sales are the largest they have been in four years.
“In the first quarter, gross margin increased every month, and we enter the second quarter with improve momentum,” said Drew Wilkerson CEO at RXO. “We expect to deliver a significant increase in adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) sequentially.”
Wilkerson noted that RXO continued to deliver exceptional brokerage volume and strong margin performance for the first quarter of 2024, achieving a gross margin of 14.2%.
He added, “Our complementary services continue to perform well.”
Brokerage contract volume increased by 18% year-over-year in the first quarter. Full truckload volume growth registered 8% growth, while less than truckload volume growth increased 29%.
Company-wide, financial reports were not as encouraging, however.
RXO’s revenue was $0.9 billion for the first quarter, compared to $1.0 billion in the first quarter of 2023. Gross margin was 17.4%, compared to 18.7% in the first quarter of 2023.
The company reported a first-quarter 2024 generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) net loss of $15 million, compared to $0 of net income in the first quarter of 2023. The first-quarter 2024 GAAP net loss included $12 million in transaction, integration and restructuring costs. The adjusted net loss in the quarter was $4 million, compared to adjusted net income of $13 million in the first quarter of 2023.
As for the future, Wilkerson says, RXO is well positioned.
RXO is expected “to continue to outperform and deliver significant earnings growth when the market improves,” he said.
Since retiring from a career as an outdoor recreation professional from the State of Arkansas, Kris Rutherford has worked as a freelance writer and, with his wife, owns and publishes a small Northeast Texas newspaper, The Roxton Progress. Kris has worked as a ghostwriter and editor and has authored seven books of his own. He became interested in the trucking industry as a child in the 1970s when his family traveled the interstates twice a year between their home in Maine and their native Texas. He has been a classic country music enthusiast since the age of nine when he developed a special interest in trucking songs.
