Proficient Auto Logistics, Inc.

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Proficient Auto Logistics fourth quarter financial information conference call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Brett Wright, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Brett Wright, Chief Financial Officer of Proficient Auto Logistics. Thank you for joining us on Proficient's fourth quarter 2025 earnings call. Under SEC rules, our Form 10-K, covering the three- and 12-month periods ending December 31st, 2025 and 2024, will include financial statements for both the predecessor accounting entity Proficient Auto Transport, and the successor entity, Proficient Auto Logistics, Inc., are not required to provide and the Form 10-K will not contain pro forma financial data for the combined companies. Our earnings release provides comparative summary financial information for the fourth quarter and for the 12 months ended 2025 to the same periods of 2024 for the combined companies. Note that these results are preliminary as our financial audit for 2025 is not yet complete. Our earnings release can be found at the investor relations section of our website at proficientmodellogistics.com. Our 10-day win file can also be found at the investor relations section of our website. During this call, we'll be discussing certain forward-looking information. This information is based on our current expectations and is not a guarantee of future performance. I encourage you to review the cautionary statement in our earnings release forward-looking statements. Further information can be found in our SEC filings. During this call, we may also refer to non-GAAP measures that include adjusted operating income, adjusted operating ratio, EBITDA, and adjusted EBITDA. Please refer to the portions of our earnings release that provide reconciliations of those profitability measures to GAAP measures such as operating earnings and earnings before income taxes. Joining me on today's call are Rick O'Dell, Proficient's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and Amy Rice, our President and Chief Operating Officer. We'll provide a company update as well as an overview of the company's combined results for the full year and for the fourth quarter of 2025. After our prepared remarks, we'll open the call to questions during Q&A. Please limit yourself to one question plus one follow-up. You may get back into the queue if you have additional questions. Now, I would like to introduce Rick Podell, who will provide the company update.

Thank you, Brad, and good afternoon, everyone. I'd like to start by thanking our team members for their dedicated efforts in 2025. Together, we delivered over 2.3 million vehicles in 2025 and grew our business to over $430 million in revenue, up 11% versus 2024. Our team responded quickly and effectively to significant changes in the market throughout the year to meet customer needs of reliable quality service. Reflecting on 2025, the automotive market peaked in March and April ahead of tariff impacts, and the remainder of the year was weaker than our expectations. As we discussed in our last earnings call, the fourth quarter started out at a slower pace October SAR at 15.3 million units. And while November and December volumes improved modestly, the full quarter SAR result finished lower year-over-year and lacked a more typical seasonal year-end volume push. Despite this trend, our fourth quarter As a flow quarter of the Brothers acquisition and new business wins more than offset the weaker core market. With regard to profitability, adjusted operating ratio for the fourth quarter was modestly better than the prior year. Results for the quarter were unfavorably impacted by a reduction in operating leverage due to the core market volume decline, as well as higher than usual insurance claims. Importantly, these factors muted underlying cost control and efficiency improvements for the quarter. We remain confident in continued momentum in the operating ratio reduction from the foundational improvements achieved over the course of 2025 and additional opportunities ahead of us. Closing out the quarter, as part of our annual goodwill impairment review, we recorded a non-cash goodwill impairment charge of $27.8 million during the quarter. This charge represents an updated fair value based on a discounted cash flow analysis and primarily reflects downward changes in market conditions since the time of our initial public offer. Importantly, this charge is non-cash and does not impact our liquidity, cash flow, or the underlying operations of our business. As we look ahead into this year, January saw our finish lower than forecasted. And while still being finalized, may be the lowest monthly SAR in several years, as severe winter weather across multiple regions disrupted dealership operations and delayed consumer purchase decisions. As weather impacts ease, we expect healthy dealer inventory levels, continued sales incentives, and a stronger tax refund season to support improved consumer demand over the coming months. We continue to see underlying resiliency in the automotive market as replacement demand and aging vehicle fleet and lower interest rates support a stable demand environment. While automotive OEMs continue to face cost pressure and the pricing environment is not as strong as we'd like to see, Powell provides highly reliable quality service and is critical infrastructure in the automotive transportation supply chain. We continue to show discipline reinvestment. While financial performance in automotive trucking is not universally healthy in this market, we are well positioned to improve our performance in a down market, generate strong cash flow, and respond quickly and efficiently to customer needs as the market improves. The company has an increasingly stronger balance sheet position, and we will advance our strategic objectives for continued margin expansion and market share gains. Now, I'll turn it back over to Brad to cover key financial highlights.