Radiant Logistics, Inc.

Please stand by, your program is about to begin. If you need assistance during your conference today, please press star zero. This afternoon, Vaughn Crane, Radiant Logistics founder and CEO, and Radiant's Chief Financial Officer, Todd Maycomber, will provide a general business update and discuss financial results for the company's first fiscal quarter ended September 30, 2023. Following their comments, we will open the call to questions. This conference is scheduled for 30 minutes. This conference call may include forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. The company has based these forward-looking statements on its current expectations and projections about future events. These forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and assumptions about the company, That may cause the company's actual results or achievements to be materially different from the results or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. While it is impossible to identify all the factors that may cause the company's actual results or achievements to differ materially from those set forth in our forward-looking statements, such factors include those that have in the past and may in the future be identified in the company's SEC filings and other public announcements which are available on the Radiant website at www.radiantdelivers.com. In addition, past results are not necessarily an indication of future performance. Now I'd like to pass the call over to Radiant's founder and CEO, Bon Crane.

Thanks, Angela. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining in on today's call.

Our results for the quarter end in September 30, 2023. continue to reflect the difficult freight markets being experienced by the entire industry, as well as our own operations. The confluence of shippers continuing to manage through elevated inventories, reduced imports, and slowing economic growth has had a cascading effect across virtually every mode of transportation. As in the prior quarter, these market conditions have negatively impacted not only our current results, but also the year-over-year comparison to our record results. for the prior year period. With that said, we remain optimistic that we're at or near the bottom of the cycle and would expect markets to begin to find their way to more sustainable and normalized levels in coming quarters. Notwithstanding the tough year-over-year comparisons, we're very proud to report that we generated $9.2 million in adjusted EBITDA and almost $8 million in cash from operations for our quarter ended September 30th. In addition, we continue to enjoy a strong balance sheet, finishing the quarter with approximately $36 million of cash on hand and nothing drawn on our $200 million credit facility. And as we detailed in our press release, we continue to allocate capital in support of our stock buyback program, as well as converting our agent stations to company-owned stores, as we did with our Delray transaction in Florida. As previously discussed, we believe we are well positioned to navigate through these slower freight markets as we find our way back to more normalized market conditions. At the same time, we believe our patience and discipline will be rewarded as market conditions become more conducive to our acquisition strategy, and we have ample dry powder to become more active on the acquisition front should the opportunity present itself. Looking ahead, we will remain focused on delivering profitable growth through a combination of organic and acquisition initiatives, and thoughtfully re-levering our balance sheet through a combination of agent station conversions, synergistic tuck-in acquisitions, and stock buybacks. Through this approach, we will continue to scale our business, leveraging our best-in-class technology, our extensive global network, which we believe over time will continue to deliver meaningful value for our shareholders, operating partners, and the end customers that we serve. With that, I'll turn it over to Todd Maycumber, our CFO, to walk us through our detailed financial results, and then we'll open it up for some Q&A.

Thanks, Vaughn, and good afternoon, everyone. Today, we will be discussing our financial results, including adjusted net income and adjusted EBITDA for the three months ended September 30th, 2023. For the three months ended September 30th, 2023, we reported net income attributable to Radiant Logistics of $2,622,000, on $210.8 million of revenues, or $0.06 per basic and $0.05 per fully diluted share, for the three months ended September 30th, 2023. For September 30th, 2022, we reported net income attributable to Radian Logistics of $8,433,000 on $331 million of revenues, or $0.17 per basic and fully diluted share. This represents a decrease of approximately $5,811,000 of net income over the comparable prior year period, or 68.9%. For adjusted net income, we reported $6,549,000 for the three months ended September 30th, 2023, compared to adjusted net income of $13,481,000 for the three months ended September 30th, 2022. This represents a decrease of approximately $6,932,000 or 51%. For adjusted EBITDA, we reported $9,167,000 for the three months ended September 30th, 2023, compared to adjusted EBITDA of $18,669,000 for the three months ended September 30th, 2022. This represents a decrease of approximately $9,502,000 or approximately 50.9%. With that, I will turn the call back over to our moderator to facilitate any Q&A from our callers.

At this time, if you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. You may remove yourself from the queue at any time by pressing star 2. Once again, that is star one to ask a question. We will pause for a moment to allow questions to queue. Our first question comes from Elliot Alper with TD Cowen. Please go ahead.

Great. Thank you, guys. This is Elliot Alper, Jason. I was hoping you could put some more context around the revenue decline sequentially in the quarter, maybe between the different business units. I know last quarter you pointed to kind of a slight uptick on the ocean booking side. I guess, how did that play out, and maybe what are you guys seeing on the ocean side of the business?

Thanks. So, you know, ocean remains soft, you know, for us, particularly compared to a prior year period. You know, I think everybody, what the narrative would suggest is there's some, you know, modest uptick in imports and a little more activity on the West Coast, but on a comparative basis, it's still down and I think expected to be down for, you know, a good bit yet with, you know, blank sailings, you know, from the steamship lines and, you know, they're under, while their coffers are full of cash, I think volumes are certainly down and they've got, you know, a lot of excess equipment at this point that they'll have to figure out what to deal with on that side of the equation. But we don't see any, I think, meaningful increase in ocean near term. To call it a muted peak might be a little bit of an understatement. But with that said, we are seeing volumes come back ever so slowly or at least not continuing to decrease. Our kind of looking at it on a kind of division by division basis or kind of that type of conversation, you know, our kind of core forwarding operations continue to kind of carry the day as well as, you know, Canada and our operations up there continue to be meaningful contributors to what we're doing while our ocean and brokerage business and brokerage, again, just as a reminder, we define as both our intermodal and truck brokerage business. That's obviously been soft in this market environment. Having said that, I would take a second to just give a little bit of a shout out to the we're making in Kansas City with the truck brokerage team that we were able to onboard there, kind of coming out of the wake of what went on with Yellow, and we stood up a truck brokerage team in Kansas City. And while that's effectively, you know, an organic start for us, you know, starting that business from a standing start, it's kind of far outseating expectations in terms of their kind of their growth and trajectory and path to profitability with the team that we put in place there. So we're really excited, you know, for that and what I would characterize as kind of expected incremental opportunities in the truck brokerage space. There's a lot of chaos in the marketplace right now in the wake of Convoy and, you know, others you know, who've recently gone down and others that are kind of expected or rumored to be under pressure. And so we're, you know, we're, you know, seeing what opportunities may present themselves out of some of those dynamics, you know, as we move forward. So, again, to recap, our core forwarding business, you know, along with the team in Canada, you know, continues to kind of lead the way for the organization. And while our ocean and brokerage businesses are profitable, you know, they could be a lot more profitable, you know, as the market gets better.

Yeah, no, absolutely. And maybe going off an earlier point, I know you guys do some LTL business. I mean, can you talk about how that performed in the quarter? Maybe just your high-level thoughts on how some of the LTL consolidation affects your offering.

You know, We don't do a lot of what I would call pure deferred LTL. Our LTL is more expedited, time-definite, so we weren't necessarily impacted to the good or the bad around what's going on within the LTL community. Obviously, we're some clear winners and clear losers you know, in connection with kind of yellow and what happened there. So not a significant or meaningful kind of direct impact to us from what's been going on in the LTL space.

Understood. And then maybe just last question, then I'll hand it over. I guess there's been a lot of mixed reporting on the Chinese economy. I know you guys have location in Shanghai. I would be curious to get your thoughts on maybe the outlook or anything you're seeing on the ocean booking side in China. Thank you.

It still remains soft. I think we're seeing a modest uptick in orders from our customers. While at the same time, we're also seeing some of our customers begin to pivot to either Southeast Asia or Mexico, which we're all reading and hearing a lot about. The volume's you know, are, you know, are anemic relative to historical levels. But, you know, we are, but, you know, certainly China's not going away, but, you know, it remains soft, you know, and we would, you know, I think as everybody on this call knows, you know, right now will typically be just the go-go time. You know, we would be in the absolute height of peak season right now. And it's, you know, it's muted as best and then we're going to be in the Chinese New Year. So, you know, we're not, you know, expecting any meaningful divergence from this kind of dampened ocean market, you know. At least, you know, we're probably looking to next year's peak season in the next fall to see what next fall looks like.

Helpful. Thanks, Bob. All right, you bet.

The next question comes from Mark Argento with Lake Street. Please go ahead.

Hey, guys. Yeah, just a couple quick ones. One, I guess, the balance sheet's in fantastic shape. Are you starting to see any opportunities out there? Do you think we need a little more distress to set in before deals start popping, but any kind of overview on the M&A market right now?

Well, I think, you know, there's a, you know, we're certainly as engaged as we can be, and we're, you know, we're hopeful, you know, that we'll have an opportunity to get, you know, some things done here in coming quarters. You know, at the same time, you know, we're going to continue to be kind of thoughtful in our approach, but I think there's going to be a lot of opportunities here I'm hopeful there will be lots of opportunities, you know, that we can consider. The fact is, I think, you know, at least a fair number of people in our space were, you know, were levered up and had their balance sheets geared at kind of higher earnings levels. And so as everything softened up, you know, while they might have thought they were at three or four times levered. They may now find themselves at five or seven times levered, which isn't a particularly good place to be in the current bank market. So there's really just not as many folks out there that are actionable to do deals. And so we're quite happy or appreciative to be in the position we are with the financial flexibility that we have Having said that, we still believe our stock represents a pretty compelling use or place for us to put our capital as we think about capital allocation. While we're looking at a number of things and we're certainly ready to action if things line up right, our feelings won't be hurt if we're continuing to buy in our own stock, you know, at what we think is a really attractive valuation.

That's helpful. And maybe Todd, can you just remind me kind of what's the typical, you know, conversion of EBITDA or adjusted EBITDA to free cash or given the capital structure you have right now?

Well, I, you know, I mean, I think the best, if you're trying to track it, I mean, I think, um, You know, adjusted net income is a good proxy for the free cash flow. That's probably the best metric.

Yeah, I think the probably plus or minus, correct me, Todd, but I think what he was asking for is effectively what are we going to be spending on CapEx, which is for us is largely technology. So I think plus or minus $5 million handle would be kind of, kind of normalized technology being capitalized.

Five million a year or over what period?

Yeah. Yeah, five million a year.

Okay, so like this quarter, you guys did adjusted even 9.2. I'm looking for adjusted net income. Adjusted net income 6.5, less, you know, a million and a quarter or whatever five divided by four is. So kind of five million bucks roughly would probably be a good kind of free cash flow. So just over half of EBITDA you're turning into free cash.

Yeah, I think that's fair. And kind of where we are, I guess I would put a big effort by that just in the context of I don't think anybody would characterize the current environment as being normalized, but in the current kind of where we collectively are in the cycle, I think that's reflective of the profile and kind of cash flow characteristics of the business kind of in this down market. But we would expect it to be obviously higher than that, you know, with a little less of a headwind.

Yeah, I mean, if you can make $15 to $20 million in free cash or generate $15 to $20 million in free cash in this environment, and obviously got a great balance sheet, so you guys are in great shape. But I appreciate it. Thanks for the questions, guys, for the answers.

The next question comes from Jeff Kaufman with Vertical Research Partners. Please go ahead.

Hey, gentlemen. How are you? Good, Jeff. Good, good. A couple minutes here. Could you talk a little bit about what the impact of the dollar rate acquisition is going to be to the financials? I guess since it's an agency, our former agency, Tuckin, we're not going to see a revenue impact, but we will see more of a margin impact.

Can you set me straight there? That particular transaction is – pretty small in the scheme of things, so I wouldn't look for, you know, any meaningful impact to that particular transaction. But I think it is indicative of kind of, well, not in terms of dollar value, but, you know, we do expect, you know, to have an opportunity to convert more agent stations to company-owned stores. But it's a great question, Jeff, because I was going to tease you a little bit. So for Everybody on the call, Jeff is notorious for modeling in M&A transactions into his guidance. So he's always high on guidance because he's modeling in M&A transactions. So don't model in any M&A transactions, Jeff. Just give us the baseline.

Well, I'm just skating to where the puck's going to be, not where it is. So I guess on that topic... You know, normally, in a normal environment, second quarter seasonality would see revenues up about 4% to 5% sequentially from first quarter and a little bit of deterioration on the net revenue margin because of mix. Given your comments on the kind of math peak season that we're seeing, would you – Guide is the wrong word, but would you convince us to be above or below that normal range, or do you think we should think about this as a muted but normal transition from fiscal 1Q to fiscal 2Q?

We're in such kind of foreign territory, I'm not sure I would rely on kind of those historical trends right now. Personally, you know, We'll see how it plays out, but I would kind of anticipate us being relatively flat on a sequential basis here through the end of the year and then likely a softer quarter-ended March.

Okay.

And then building back from there.

Maybe give you something fun to talk about here. You know, there's been a lot of discussion about nearshoring and reshoring and companies kind of moving supply chains around. I know in Asia it's resulted in some Chinese-based manufacturing going to, say, Vietnam or Thailand or Cambodia. Can you talk about where you're seeing the impact of reshoring, whether it's on the international side, whether it's, say, things going into Mexico and then coming into the U.S. through your networks. Just give us an idea of what you're seeing on that side.

Yeah, I think the short answer is yes, right, to both of those. And, you know, even before COVID and kind of the more recent challenges, those trends were occurring. You know, there was COVID. we're always, or kind of historically have been in this environment where manufacturing is seeking, you know, lower cost labor and all of that type of stuff. And so Mexico and Southeast Asia, you know, have been, you know, I think ever so slightly taking share away, you know, from China over time. But, you know, I think what we're seeing is, you know, an acceleration of some of those strategies, you know, with the kind of tipping more, even more heavily towards Mexico and kind of supply chain strategies. With that said, you know, I don't want to give the impression, you know, we would expect they're turning off the lights in China and those trade flows are going to stop, right? It's still going to be a, you know, an extraordinarily large market and an extraordinarily large, you know, opportunity set that we would expect to continue to participate in. So, you know, our conversations right now are more around what do we need to do to be, you know, to be in Southeast Asia, to be in Mexico, to support, you know, our existing and prospective customers as they're executing those types of strategies.

All right. And then one last one. You know, there's been a lot of movement. And I'm going to focus more on the domestic freight market, the domestic forwarding, domestic brokerage. You know, Yellow went down. You were opportunistic, came in, swooped up their logistics and brokerage efforts. we've seen some trucking companies and brokers go out of business in recent weeks, a lot of stress in the marketplace. Where has this created new opportunities for you that maybe six or eight months ago we might not have been talking about?

Well, I think for us, you know, it really has created a little bit of an interesting, you know, environment. And it's, you know, it's kind of too early to, you know, It's way premature to be dancing in the end zone, if you will. But, you know, we think we've got, you know, a strong balance sheet. We've got the technology platform. We have carrier relationships. And so as, you know, as some of these folks are coming on hard times, you know, we're in a great position to, you know, hopefully receive some of them and some of that business into our platform. And we even, you know, knock on wood, have a great little case study, you know, in terms of what we were able to do in Kansas City with that team and how quickly we were to bring that, you know, bring that team on board and begin to support those customers. So, you know, we've been spending, you know, I have – recently been spending an unusual amount of time on Zoom calls with individuals looking for a new home. We'll see how that plays out over time. At the same time, we're not the only platform out there that sees that opportunity set. Hopefully, we get our share of opportunities. We think we've got a unique you know, value proposition. And I guess one other aspect of this that I will call out because I think it's really interesting. A lot of these, you know, folks that might be looking for a new home out there, you know, they've got their historical customer relationships, you know, where they presumably were selling truck brokerage services. But, you know, if they cash their lots with Radiant, not only can they sell truck brokerage capabilities, but they can sell international affording, they can sell intermodal, they can sell customs brokerage, they can sell Mexico and Canadian cross-border. So we think we represent an attractive platform for some of these folks who are coming out of these distressed truck brokerage operations with kind of a broader platform and more of a suite of solutions that they can offer back into their account.

All right, Bon, thank you very much and congratulations.

Thanks, Jeff.

The next question comes from Kevin Ganey with Thompson Davis. Please go ahead.

Hi, Bon. Hi, Todd. Kevin over for David. How are you guys? Good, thank you. Actually, maybe one thing that I wanted to kind of dive into was if we're looking at adjusted gross margins for you guys, it's pretty much been a consistent step up the last few quarters. And I was wondering how you guys think about that and what kind of, at least visibility, that you guys can maintain these levels moving forward.

Sure. Well, you know, I mean, a lot of it's, we're comparing it to prior year, right? And in the year ago period, ocean was a bigger piece of our business. And ocean revenues, which have been small margin, I mean, it went from around, $9,000 to $3.8 per shipment this last year-over-year quarter. So it's really the product mix. So there's a much bigger piece of domestic, which is higher margin characteristics as, you know, results in the overall margin, you know, what I want to say, composite margin. So I think what you're seeing now, we'll continue to see as far as margin characteristics.

In this slower market, I'll give maybe a slightly broader answer to that question. We always try to think about the business in terms of growing our absolute gross margin dollars and getting as many of those gross margin dollars to the bottom line as we can. So in our comparative prior year periods, we had lower margin ocean and we had lower margin air charter business. And so with that kind of nod in this current quarter, you know, what we're seeing is, you know, something that domestic margins less diluted by some of these lower margin modes or service lines. But at the same time, our absolute gross margin dollars are down. So I would, although it may sound a little counterintuitive, you know, I would rather have lower gross margin percentages and more gross margin dollars to get to the bottom line. So that's kind of a long way of giving a more, I guess, comprehensive response to your question. But if your questions were targeted towards how should we be thinking about modeling kind of upcoming quarters in terms of margin characteristics, I think this quarter's margin characteristics are indicative of what we would expect for the next several quarters until we see some lift in ocean or if we get some surge in project work, which is entirely possible given the state of global affairs with ongoing dynamics in Israel and Ukraine.

No, that's very helpful. And maybe just to kind of circle back one last time on kind of just the macro as well, I think you guys expressed that we're pretty much right at the bottom, and I was wondering what do you see that gives you that indication maybe that we're kind of at the bottom?

Well, I... So I hold... Every Monday I hold staff calls with each of my operating divisions, and I ask them these very questions literally every week, so I think I've got a pretty good pulse on kind of how they're feeling, kind of what kind of feedback they're getting with our end customers. And so I think that's what I'm giving you is the best reflection based upon you know, kind of the team and their engagement with the end customers and feedback. So I think that's the best answer I can give you.

Well, that's fun. Appreciate the time, guys. Yeah, thanks.

It appears we have no further questions at this time. I will now turn the program back over to our presenters for any additional remarks.

All right, thank you. Let me close by saying that we remain optimistic about our prospects and opportunities to continue to leverage our best-in-class technology, robust North American footprint, and extensive global network to serve as partners to continue to build on the great platform we've created here at Radiant. At the same time, we intend to thoughtfully relever our balance sheet and through a combination of agent-station conversions, synergistic tuck-in acquisitions, and stock buyback. Through our multi-pronged approach of organic growth acquisitions and stock buybacks, we believe we will continue to create meaningful value for our shareholders, operating partners, and the end customers that we serve. Thanks for listening and your support of Radiant Logistics.

This does conclude today's program. Thank you for your participation. You may disconnect at any time.