Latest / Bloomberg Intelligence / Nestlé to Slash 16,000 Jobs as New CEO Speeds Up Turnaround
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- 0:00Speaker 1: Boom, Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. You're listening to
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- 0:24Speaker 2: You know, let's get our consumer preferences straight here. I'm
- 0:26Speaker 2: a coke person. Do you put pepsi in front of me?
- 0:29Speaker 2: I'm just as happy. Same thing with the chocolate front.
- 0:31Speaker 2: I identify as a kids say, as a Hershey our person,
- 0:34Speaker 2: but you put a Nessi's crunch in front of me boom, Okay,
- 0:37Speaker 2: very happy.
- 0:38Speaker 3: I don't know about either of those. I'm snobby and
- 0:39Speaker 3: I like European chocolate or Japanese chocolate. I don't like
- 0:42Speaker 3: this Nesli stuff.
- 0:43Speaker 4: All right?
- 0:43Speaker 2: Well, I mean now, John is reporting a slashing sixteen
- 0:46Speaker 2: thousand jobs. I went to the dees function. They have
- 0:49Speaker 2: two hundred and seventy seven thousand jobs, so not that big.
- 0:51Speaker 2: But let's check in with Duncan Fox. He covers all
- 0:54Speaker 2: the consumer saple stuff over there in the UK and Europe.
- 0:57Speaker 2: He's a Bloomberg Intelligence. They had pretty good numbers. Duncan,
- 1:02Speaker 2: but there's still this new CEO is taking some head
- 1:06Speaker 2: count out. Talked to us about what you learned at Nesley.
- 1:10Speaker 5: He certainly grabbed the headline with that sort of sixteen
- 1:14Speaker 5: thousand headcount company. As you said, it's six percent of
- 1:17Speaker 5: the overall headcount, so it's not huge in the context
- 1:20Speaker 5: of the group. But I think the main thing today
- 1:23Speaker 5: was that there was not a nasty surprise in that
- 1:27Speaker 5: I've had the second he's the third CEO in the year,
- 1:30Speaker 5: and obviously the chairman left about a month ago as well,
- 1:33Speaker 5: so I think there was fears that maybe there was
- 1:35Speaker 5: something underlying in.
- 1:36Speaker 4: The business that was going wrong. So the one on
- 1:39Speaker 4: halfers and organic.
- 1:40Speaker 5: Growth, albeit not huge, is a relief, and I think
- 1:44Speaker 5: that's why the shares have really bounced today rather than
- 1:47Speaker 5: the wonderful and the headline of the job cuts tell
- 1:51Speaker 5: us a.
- 1:52Speaker 3: Little bit more about this new CEO strategy overall. I'm
- 1:54Speaker 3: curious whether he is rolling out something new completely or
- 1:58Speaker 3: is he just kind of doubling down on the existing
- 2:01Speaker 3: strategy that his predecessor had laid out.
- 2:05Speaker 5: I think he's doubling down. Excuse me. I think there's
- 2:08Speaker 5: no doubt they were trying to become a lot more
- 2:11Speaker 5: focused on their key brands, but he's sort of broadened
- 2:13Speaker 5: that out to the sort of the broader categories, so
- 2:16Speaker 5: rather than just looking at say cold coffee with Nescaffee's
- 2:19Speaker 5: putting it out to the whole of the coffee brands
- 2:22Speaker 5: that they have. So he's definitely being far more aggressive
- 2:26Speaker 5: on trying to make sure that the market share on
- 2:28Speaker 5: their key brands goes up rather than sort of flat
- 2:31Speaker 5: or down. And it looks like he's probably pulled forward
- 2:35Speaker 5: some job cuts as well and pushed them into the
- 2:38Speaker 5: year to twenty twenty seven rather than sort of keeping
- 2:41Speaker 5: them maybe for later into the twenty eight and twenty nine.
- 2:44Speaker 5: So yes, he's definitely i think accelerated the process that
- 2:47Speaker 5: was probably being discussed anyway in the business.
- 2:51Speaker 2: Duncan, I'm just looking at the stock here and over
- 2:53Speaker 2: the last five years, Nesley's compounded and your return has
- 2:57Speaker 2: been about negative two and a half percent per year,
- 3:00Speaker 2: lagging the Swiss index. Here, what's the story? What's the
- 3:04Speaker 2: challenge for a company like Nastlie was such a great brand.
- 3:09Speaker 5: Well, it's such a big, big company in the food industry,
- 3:13Speaker 5: it's got to innovate very very quickly, or it's going
- 3:16Speaker 5: to die. They did quite a bit of vegan innovation
- 3:21Speaker 5: about two three years ago. Unfortunately, pretty much every one
- 3:24Speaker 5: of those products failed because it just didn't taste very good.
- 3:28Speaker 5: And I think, to be honest, that was the industry
- 3:30Speaker 5: I have the same problem, not just NSLE. You've then
- 3:33Speaker 5: got thread of GLP one drugs coming through, so they
- 3:37Speaker 5: pushed out a whole new bunch of products on that
- 3:40Speaker 5: so that you can have them in conjunction with the
- 3:43Speaker 5: drug that you do you're using, so that you don't
- 3:45Speaker 5: lose muscle mass and actually be malnourished. So there's a
- 3:50Speaker 5: lot of things they need to do, but they've probably
- 3:52Speaker 5: not done them quickly enough. That's part of the problem.
- 3:55Speaker 5: When you're such a huge company, you've got to make
- 3:57Speaker 5: sure that innovation comes out straight away, your first to market,
- 4:01Speaker 5: it's at the right price, and then you can win.
- 4:05Speaker 5: And when you've had inflation that's been sort of fifteen
- 4:08Speaker 5: to twenty percent two or three years on the trot,
- 4:11Speaker 5: because of course it's very very difficult to get that
- 4:14Speaker 5: right and get the pricing right so that we the
- 4:17Speaker 5: consumer buys it consistently and say that's not just I
- 4:20Speaker 5: think that's an industry issue which they have to address.
- 4:25Speaker 2: Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
- 4:31Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch Us Live
- 4:35Speaker 1: weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple, Coarclay, and Android
- 4:38Speaker 1: Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. Listen on demand wherever
- 4:42Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, or watch US Live on YouTube.
- 4:46Speaker 4: Well.
- 4:46Speaker 2: United Airlines reported better than expected earnings, citing demand for
- 4:50Speaker 2: international travel and premium customers. United CEO Scott Kirby joined
- 4:54Speaker 2: at Bloomberg earlier this morning, breaking down twenty twenty five's
- 4:57Speaker 2: earnings outlook.
- 4:59Speaker 6: First record are really good for United in a lot
- 5:01Speaker 6: of macro volatility that happened for the aviation industry. That
- 5:05Speaker 6: demonstrates the resilience of our revenue, diverse, brand, loyal business model.
- 5:09Speaker 6: But you look to the fourth quarter, it's even more
- 5:11Speaker 6: exciting because as the economy started to get back to
- 5:14Speaker 6: a solid footing at least for aviation, demonstrates a lot
- 5:17Speaker 6: of upside. We think we're going to be able to
- 5:18Speaker 6: grow earnings for the full year even in this environment,
- 5:21Speaker 6: so it really is creating value for all of our customers.
- 5:24Speaker 2: All right, That was United Scott Kirby, a graduate of
- 5:27Speaker 2: the United States Air Force Academy. He joined Bloomberg earlier
- 5:30Speaker 2: today breaking down the results for the company. Let's check
- 5:34Speaker 2: in with George Ferguson, he covers the airlines and aerospace
- 5:37Speaker 2: companies for Bloomberg Intelligence. George, what you make out of
- 5:41Speaker 2: the United numbers here today? Some of the commentary from
- 5:44Speaker 2: mister Kirby.
- 5:45Speaker 7: Market looks pretty saturated, So what's that mean. There's a
- 5:50Speaker 7: lot of capacity in the marketplace and fares are falling.
- 5:53Speaker 7: So if you look at yields at all of the
- 5:55Speaker 7: United markets, they're falling year over year. So the price
- 6:00Speaker 7: paid per mileflow, it's falling anywhere from sort of two
- 6:03Speaker 7: is percent and domestic up to mid single digits. In
- 6:07Speaker 7: international Atlantic was a bright spot in prior quarters. Again
- 6:12Speaker 7: down I think it was roughly around five percent if
- 6:14Speaker 7: I recall correctly. So they put enough capacity in that
- 6:17Speaker 7: marketplace that fairs are starting to fall. United grew at
- 6:22Speaker 7: like seven percent during the quarter. Capacity it's pretty it's
- 6:25Speaker 7: pretty aggressive in an economy that's grown I don't know,
- 6:28Speaker 7: two to three percent, So I think that you know,
- 6:33Speaker 7: to Scott Kirby's benefit there and Delta as well, you know,
- 6:38Speaker 7: the full service carrier is really having a good time
- 6:40Speaker 7: of it lately. Loyalty programs are really you know, putting
- 6:44Speaker 7: some wind in their sales. Premium is still outperforming basic economy,
- 6:50Speaker 7: although it seems like it's sort of we're seeing the
- 6:53Speaker 7: revenue growth from premium about the same as capacity growth,
- 6:57Speaker 7: maybe a little bit less, which tells me there's a
- 6:59Speaker 7: little little bit of price sort of you know weakness
- 7:04Speaker 7: maybe starting to show up in that premium world, and
- 7:06Speaker 7: basic economy still underperforming. That means Scott's competitors are going
- 7:10Speaker 7: to get are going to get banged up in the
- 7:13Speaker 7: in the budget world.
- 7:14Speaker 3: Right, competitors that are not named Delta specifically. Yeah, United
- 7:19Speaker 3: is always mentioned in the same breath as Delta, but
- 7:22Speaker 3: kind of as an also ran in comparison to Delta.
- 7:25Speaker 8: What would United need.
- 7:26Speaker 3: To do to beat Delta at this premium premiumization strategy.
- 7:31Speaker 7: You know, Delta really gets a lot of revenue and
- 7:35Speaker 7: more than United out of this, you know, the co
- 7:38Speaker 7: branded credit card agreement. I think you know what one
- 7:42Speaker 7: Delta sort of in there with American Express. It's got
- 7:45Speaker 7: you know, maybe American Express lives in its own special
- 7:49Speaker 7: world if credit cards I don't know. It feels, you know,
- 7:51Speaker 7: to me, I think most of the maybe younger consumers
- 7:54Speaker 7: carrying around things like visas and master cards. I don't know,
- 7:57Speaker 7: but it seems like that agreement with American Express really
- 8:01Speaker 7: drives a lot of revenue for Delta, and I think
- 8:04Speaker 7: is a big differentiator. And I think Delta has used
- 8:07Speaker 7: that as well as sort of, you know, their premium
- 8:10Speaker 7: seating and lounges to put some distance. But when you
- 8:13Speaker 7: look at the revenue number, it's all about that credit
- 8:16Speaker 7: card agreement with the X.
- 8:18Speaker 3: I'm so glad you bring this up because my current
- 8:19Speaker 3: obsession is to look on Reddit and look at people
- 8:22Speaker 3: who are talking about AMEX Platinum versus the Chase, Sapphire
- 8:24Speaker 3: reserve these partnerships with credit card companies, building loyalty for
- 8:29Speaker 3: these passengers. How costly is it for Delta to maintain
- 8:33Speaker 3: this relationship with AMEX, How costly is it for United
- 8:36Speaker 3: to maintain its relationship with Chase.
- 8:39Speaker 7: I think it's not costly. I think it's lucrative for them,
- 8:41Speaker 7: right because it seems to me that the American consumer.
- 8:45Speaker 7: I don't know that I fully understand this, but feels
- 8:47Speaker 7: like people go out and buy the credit card for
- 8:50Speaker 7: the airline they love. They go put all their groceries,
- 8:53Speaker 7: all their Starbucks, all their did dinners out on that card,
- 8:56Speaker 7: take those points, accrue them for their summer vacation. Pay
- 9:01Speaker 7: five hundred dollars so they get lounge access. They don't.
- 9:04Speaker 7: They're not like Paul Swingey just get lounge access because
- 9:07Speaker 7: who he is. So they got to pay for it.
- 9:09Speaker 7: And so they're willing to spend and hold that card.
- 9:12Speaker 7: And the credit card company's sort of taken down as
- 9:15Speaker 7: what four or five percent per transaction and buying those
- 9:19Speaker 7: miles for the consumer. You know, those miles are some
- 9:23Speaker 7: of them do waste away, people don't use them in time, others. Right,
- 9:26Speaker 7: the airline provides you the opportunity to get a seat.
- 9:29Speaker 7: They don't put all the you know, they don't put
- 9:32Speaker 7: all sort of benefit travel in one airplane, right. They
- 9:36Speaker 7: they give you the opportunity and airplanes that aren't sold
- 9:38Speaker 7: out to get benefit travel. So they kind of, you know,
- 9:43Speaker 7: juices up their load factors. They upgrade you if they
- 9:46Speaker 7: have space. So I think it's I think it's super
- 9:48Speaker 7: lucrative for the airlines. It's really important what credit card
- 9:51Speaker 7: deal you cut right now?
- 9:52Speaker 8: Yeah, for your bottom line?
- 9:54Speaker 3: How much do the airlines talk about this with analysts
- 9:57Speaker 3: on their earnings calls, the injured.
- 10:00Speaker 7: Seats of this, so you're hearing I mean, look, nobody
- 10:03Speaker 7: likes to give away the total intricacy, right because you know,
- 10:07Speaker 7: they make it hard for us to figure out what
- 10:09Speaker 7: the wastage numbers are, you know, but you can see
- 10:12Speaker 7: how this flows to the bottom line quite well. But
- 10:15Speaker 7: Delton United talk about it a lot because it really
- 10:18Speaker 7: works for them, or maybe I should say talk about
- 10:20Speaker 7: it the most in the industry because it really works
- 10:22Speaker 7: for them. I think that it's telling that we do
- 10:26Speaker 7: hear the you know, the budget low cost carriers talking
- 10:29Speaker 7: about their loyalty programs too, but they just pale in comparison.
- 10:33Speaker 7: They typically don't give us numbers, but they pay in
- 10:35Speaker 7: comparison with what can get done up at Delton United.
- 10:39Speaker 2: Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
- 10:46Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live
- 10:50Speaker 1: weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple, Coarclay, and Android
- 10:53Speaker 1: Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. Listen on demand wherever
- 10:56Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
- 11:01Speaker 8: Let's switch gears and take a look at tech.
- 11:03Speaker 3: We can't straight too from tech given that it's the
- 11:06Speaker 3: driver of this stock market rally, and today is once
- 11:09Speaker 3: again the best performing sector as well, up nine tens
- 11:12Speaker 3: of one percent. Led buy the chip makers, and in
- 11:16Speaker 3: large part that is because Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing TSMC has
- 11:20Speaker 3: raised its outlook once again. And I say once again
- 11:23Speaker 3: because it did it not so long ago. Man Deep
- 11:25Speaker 3: saying is Bloomberg Intelligence is senior tech industry analysts and
- 11:29Speaker 3: joins us now. So it seems like very little is
- 11:32Speaker 3: stopping TSMC's momentum.
- 11:34Speaker 9: Yeah, and look, it's the AI demand that gets reflected
- 11:38Speaker 9: in TSMC's margins, like gross margins nearing sixty percent for
- 11:44Speaker 9: a fab maker. I mean, look at Intel in its
- 11:47Speaker 9: glory days, they were around sixty to sixty five percent
- 11:50Speaker 9: gross margins. So clearly TSMC is kind of hitting it
- 11:54Speaker 9: stride from a gross margin perspective. But I think when
- 11:57Speaker 9: it comes to TSMC, it's obvious to everyone regardless of
- 12:02Speaker 9: whether the accelerator is a GPU or a Broadcom custom chip,
- 12:08Speaker 9: everyone has to go to TSMC to manufacture the chip.
- 12:12Speaker 9: And you want to be in that sort of position
- 12:14Speaker 9: because you don't want to pick. Okay, is Nvidia demand
- 12:18Speaker 9: going to sustain you through twenty thirty and everyone is
- 12:23Speaker 9: kind of trying to reach that point where they have
- 12:27Speaker 9: a substitute for Nvidia, So even if there is a substitute,
- 12:30Speaker 9: you still go to TSMC. And that's where I feel
- 12:33Speaker 9: they are in an NBS position when it comes to
- 12:36Speaker 9: the mode that they have developed.
- 12:37Speaker 2: Is ASML, the direct competitor to t SMC.
- 12:42Speaker 9: No, ASML is one of their suppliers. So TSMC's capex
- 12:48Speaker 9: goes to ASML and TSMC by the way they raise
- 12:52Speaker 9: their revenue outlook, they also raise their capex because they're saying,
- 12:57Speaker 9: we need to expand capacity to fulfill all the demand
- 13:00Speaker 9: that the twenty six gigawatts that open Ai has signed
- 13:04Speaker 9: up for in the last one month. Yep, they need
- 13:06Speaker 9: more capacity to TSMC and they need to buy more
- 13:10Speaker 9: SML equipment. So I think it's that chain where TSMC
- 13:14Speaker 9: suppliers also benefit because of that insatiable demand.
- 13:18Speaker 3: Okay, So tsbm C plays this critical role in the
- 13:21Speaker 3: supply chain, and I guess the idea is to get
- 13:24Speaker 3: Intel to become kind of like a TSMC.
- 13:27Speaker 8: How long of an effort is that going to be.
- 13:29Speaker 3: I mean, this is not something that can be done
- 13:31Speaker 3: before the end of President Trump's term, is it.
- 13:34Speaker 9: Well, so the way things work in the semiconductor manufacturing
- 13:37Speaker 9: world is you go, you know, step by step, and Intel,
- 13:42Speaker 9: for the longest time under Pat Gelsinger try to jump,
- 13:46Speaker 9: you know, three steps and directly go from like twelve
- 13:49Speaker 9: nanometer to five nanometers.
- 13:51Speaker 2: I see that didn't happen.
- 13:52Speaker 9: So you really have to go step by step. And
- 13:55Speaker 9: that's where Intel has struggled because there is no shortcut
- 13:59Speaker 9: you've become a leading note manufacturer overnight. Even if you
- 14:02Speaker 9: buy the best ASML equipment. It doesn't happen that way,
- 14:06Speaker 9: and you need that expertise, both on the human talent
- 14:09Speaker 9: side as well as the latest equipment, which is where
- 14:13Speaker 9: Intel faltered. So I don't see a shortcut. But that
- 14:17Speaker 9: being said, there are parts of that AI chip ecosystem
- 14:21Speaker 9: where Intel may get some business if the government pressures
- 14:25Speaker 9: you know, all the hyperscalers and these guys to say, okay,
- 14:29Speaker 9: you have to use Intel capacity because we want to
- 14:32Speaker 9: onshore manufacturing and that should help Intel.
- 14:34Speaker 2: All right, let me ask my question another way. Who
- 14:37Speaker 2: is the competitor to TSMC? Is there a viable competitor
- 14:40Speaker 2: TSMC today.
- 14:42Speaker 9: Well, so Intel is the closest competitor on the foundry side.
- 14:47Speaker 2: You have sound very close, it's not very close.
- 14:49Speaker 9: You have some Chinese foundry competitors too, which China wants
- 14:54Speaker 9: to be self sufficient in everything they do when it
- 14:56Speaker 9: comes to the chip side, from accelevators to manif factoring.
- 15:00Speaker 9: They have their own foundry. But it's the same problem.
- 15:03Speaker 4: Even if you.
- 15:04Speaker 9: Switch to internal foundry, they are way behind in terms
- 15:07Speaker 9: of leading node manufacturing.
- 15:08Speaker 2: That's how did we get here? How did we get
- 15:10Speaker 2: to a place if I'm the global if I'm an
- 15:13Speaker 2: Apple or whatever, How did I let my industry get
- 15:15Speaker 2: to the point where I have to depend upon one supplier?
- 15:17Speaker 9: Well, Apple helped them get there because before this AI
- 15:21Speaker 9: mave happened, smartphones is where you needed the latest manufacturing capabilities.
- 15:27Speaker 9: And Apple, I mean clearly, they had such a big
- 15:30Speaker 9: ramp when it comes to their smartphone install base and
- 15:33Speaker 9: they did the entire thing in Asia with the help
- 15:36Speaker 9: of PSMC and Fox con. So it's really led by Apple.
- 15:40Speaker 9: Why if you're here.
- 15:41Speaker 8: They're chasing growth. I mean that's what you do. You
- 15:43Speaker 8: go for the most efficient way possible. And that was CSMC.
- 15:46Speaker 2: Pretend that I know about technology.
- 15:48Speaker 8: I just know these are great questions, These are fantastic.
- 15:51Speaker 2: I mean, I'm like John Tucker character level.
- 15:55Speaker 8: Fortunately, we have man Deep here with us.
- 15:57Speaker 3: Mandy, very quickly, just tell us about what's going on
- 15:59Speaker 3: with Apple AI efforts, because every day it seems to
- 16:02Speaker 3: be some other executive who was doing something AI at
- 16:05Speaker 3: Apple has moved on.
- 16:07Speaker 9: Yeah, and so Apple is great at making hardware, but
- 16:10Speaker 9: when it comes to AI and llms, they've missed the boat.
- 16:14Speaker 9: And right now the researchers are saying Meta or a
- 16:17Speaker 9: Google has a lot more compute to offer in terms
- 16:21Speaker 9: of you know, being a researcher. And that's where you know,
- 16:24Speaker 9: all the deals that Opening Eye is doing, that Meta
- 16:27Speaker 9: is doing, it's basically getting the compute for the researchers,
- 16:30Speaker 9: not for deploying AI, but for the researchers. So it's
- 16:33Speaker 9: a great magnet for all the researchers to come in
- 16:36Speaker 9: and you know, use that compute.
- 16:38Speaker 2: Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming.
- 16:41Speaker 4: Up after this.
- 16:45Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live
- 16:49Speaker 1: weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple, Coarplay and Android
- 16:52Speaker 1: Auto with the Bloomberg Business App, listen on demand wherever
- 16:55Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
- 17:00Speaker 2: Nice sleepy old transportation company JBHT JB Hunt, big, big
- 17:05Speaker 2: trucking company, which is really I think a great bell
- 17:08Speaker 2: Weather for just kind of where the economy is or
- 17:10Speaker 2: how's commerce out there? You can track it by talking
- 17:13Speaker 2: to some smart people who cover the whole logistics space
- 17:15Speaker 2: like Lead Clascow for Bloomberg Intelligence. Ley talk to us
- 17:19Speaker 2: about JB Hunting. For those are listeners and viewers that
- 17:23Speaker 2: don't know JB Hunt tells what this company does and
- 17:25Speaker 2: why it's important.
- 17:27Speaker 4: Yeah. Sure. They are actually more than just a truck
- 17:29Speaker 4: and company.
- 17:30Speaker 10: They're really a diversified transportation provider and they have a
- 17:32Speaker 10: lot of different businesses. Trucking is one of their businesses,
- 17:35Speaker 10: their truckload business, and they also do its. Their biggest
- 17:39Speaker 10: and most profitable is their intermodial business, so that is
- 17:44Speaker 10: a container that will start on a truck and then
- 17:47Speaker 10: goes on a rail and then is final delivered by
- 17:49Speaker 10: a truck. And they also in addition to that, they
- 17:52Speaker 10: have a final mile business, so think of getting your
- 17:55Speaker 10: exercise equipment or furniture delivered to your home. They have
- 17:58Speaker 10: a freight broker in business, which is kind of it
- 18:02Speaker 10: brings together capacity providers and shippers. It's a non asset business,
- 18:08Speaker 10: and they also have a dedicated business. So a lot
- 18:10Speaker 10: of companies will kind of outsource their fleet to companies
- 18:14Speaker 10: like JB.
- 18:14Speaker 4: Hunt.
- 18:15Speaker 10: So there their hands are in a lot of different
- 18:18Speaker 10: parts of the freight UH freight markets. And to your point,
- 18:22Speaker 10: they are a bellweather because they do touch on so
- 18:25Speaker 10: many different modes and industries.
- 18:30Speaker 3: Who's their competitor, who's their biggest competitor in doing all
- 18:32Speaker 3: this or is the market kind of split up based
- 18:35Speaker 3: on geographic location.
- 18:38Speaker 10: Sure, well, there are companies that are similarly set up
- 18:41Speaker 10: to Jbhunt, like a Schneider those are those orange trucks
- 18:44Speaker 10: that you see on the road, but like a Werner,
- 18:47Speaker 10: trucking company has a big dedicated business. C. H. Robinson
- 18:52Speaker 10: has is a huge brokerage business. Hub Group is another
- 18:56Speaker 10: intermodial marketing company who does the intermodial UH stuff.
- 18:59Speaker 4: So they have a lot.
- 19:01Speaker 10: Of different competitors within within the market. But some of
- 19:05Speaker 10: the largest publicly traded trucking companies besides JB. Hunt, Werner,
- 19:09Speaker 10: and Schneider are Heartland and Knights Swift or some of
- 19:13Speaker 10: the large truckload carriers, and there's a whole sub segment
- 19:16Speaker 10: of less than truckload which JB. Hunt plays very little,
- 19:19Speaker 10: and it's only their playing in their brokerage business.
- 19:22Speaker 2: So leave based on your history covering the trucks, how
- 19:25Speaker 2: do you look at them and their business models as
- 19:28Speaker 2: kind of reflective of maybe how the US economy is going.
- 19:32Speaker 4: Well.
- 19:33Speaker 10: You know what I would say is, you know, their
- 19:34Speaker 10: stock is on fire right now, and that's really driven
- 19:37Speaker 10: the fact that they outperformed in the third quarter. A
- 19:41Speaker 10: lot of that has to do with them doing company specific,
- 19:44Speaker 10: company driven cost cutting measures.
- 19:47Speaker 4: So it's not so much about the macro. It's kind
- 19:50Speaker 4: of more about you know, what is JB. Hunt doing?
- 19:52Speaker 10: And they've increased their productivity or reduced costs around twenty
- 19:56Speaker 10: million dollars, which added sixteen cents to the bottom line
- 19:59Speaker 10: and helped fuel that beat. You know what I would
- 20:02Speaker 10: say though to the macro is we were pretty interested
- 20:05Speaker 10: in management's comments on the peak season. So you know,
- 20:09Speaker 10: they are expecting a peak season this year, maybe not
- 20:12Speaker 10: a very strong one, but you know, we're going into
- 20:15Speaker 10: the peak season. I think it's going to be pretty muted.
- 20:17Speaker 10: We still kind of think that, but you know, we'll
- 20:20Speaker 10: see how it ends up playing. You know, our thoughts
- 20:23Speaker 10: are the consumers weakening. Consumer confidence is going down, and
- 20:27Speaker 10: you had a lot of pull forward demand and you
- 20:29Speaker 10: know what Jabi Hunt would say is some of that
- 20:31Speaker 10: freight just got to the ports and now it needs
- 20:33Speaker 10: to move inland. So we'll see what transpires. But you know,
- 20:36Speaker 10: we're not expecting a very robust peak season this year.
- 20:40Speaker 8: Paul, what were you saying earlier about turnover for jab
- 20:42Speaker 8: Hunt drivers?
- 20:43Speaker 2: Yeah, the turnover is super super high in the trucking industry.
- 20:46Speaker 2: Really talk to us about the state of the of
- 20:49Speaker 2: that part of the business just I guess attracting and
- 20:52Speaker 2: retaining drivers.
- 20:54Speaker 4: Yeah, so it's really interesting.
- 20:56Speaker 10: I'm going to pivot a little bit because you know,
- 20:58Speaker 10: with the new with THEE well they're so new anymore.
- 21:00Speaker 10: With the Trump administration, they're really focused on enforcing rules
- 21:05Speaker 10: that are already on the books and so you know,
- 21:07Speaker 10: there are certain standards that drivers have to have to understand,
- 21:11Speaker 10: understand and read the English language, and they are really
- 21:15Speaker 10: going out there and kind of enforcing those rules. You know,
- 21:19Speaker 10: we had Werner's CEO, Derek Leathers on our podcast to
- 21:23Speaker 10: do a podcast by the way called Talking Transports. There
- 21:25Speaker 10: you got available wherever you get podcasts, good anyway, and
- 21:30Speaker 10: he said that you know, that could impact five to
- 21:32Speaker 10: fifteen percent of supply, and truckload rates have been really
- 21:35Speaker 10: depressed over the last three years.
- 21:36Speaker 4: We've been in a freight recession.
- 21:37Speaker 10: A lot of that has to do with the fact
- 21:39Speaker 10: that there's so much capacity out there, and this could
- 21:41Speaker 10: take some of that capacity out. Also, there's something the
- 21:46Speaker 10: DOT issues non domicile CDLs. They are stopping doing that,
- 21:50Speaker 10: and any non domicile CDLs that get try to get
- 21:53Speaker 10: renewed are probably not going to get renewed.
- 21:55Speaker 4: Act.
- 21:55Speaker 2: That's actually the driver's license right.
- 21:58Speaker 4: Yeah, for on US citizens.
- 22:01Speaker 10: So you're going to see that kind of leave the
- 22:05Speaker 10: market as well, and that could be the catalyst to
- 22:08Speaker 10: tighten the market. And we don't think it's going to
- 22:10Speaker 10: like flip on a dime. It's going to be gradual
- 22:13Speaker 10: and that is a good thing because the capacity that's
- 22:17Speaker 10: been out there, the slack capacity has been really stubborn
- 22:19Speaker 10: to get out of the market.
- 22:21Speaker 3: What are the prices or what are the wages for
- 22:24Speaker 3: a truck driver? I'm just curious given all the challenges
- 22:26Speaker 3: that you just explained.
- 22:28Speaker 10: Yeah, well, most truck drivers get paid by the mile.
- 22:32Speaker 10: I don't really know what the latest rates. I think
- 22:34Speaker 10: it's like fifty cents a mile or something like that.
- 22:37Speaker 10: And so you know, that's how they tend to get
- 22:39Speaker 10: paid by the mile. And you know, being a truck driver,
- 22:44Speaker 10: as Paul, as you mentioned, there is a lot of turnover.
- 22:46Speaker 10: A lot of that has to do with people get
- 22:47Speaker 10: into the industry not really knowing what to expect.
- 22:51Speaker 4: It is not an easy job. It's a tough job.
- 22:55Speaker 10: It's an important job because obviously most of the things
- 22:57Speaker 10: that you and I buy at the stores come via
- 22:59Speaker 10: truck and kind of moves the economy. It's very important
- 23:03Speaker 10: to the economy. But it is a tough job because
- 23:05Speaker 10: some of these jobs, these these folks are away from
- 23:08Speaker 10: their friends and families for weeks at a time, and so,
- 23:12Speaker 10: you know, the industry is trying to do what it can,
- 23:15Speaker 10: you know, at least, if you're a company driver, you know,
- 23:17Speaker 10: trying to get them home as much as possible and
- 23:21Speaker 10: at least having a schedule which they can rely on
- 23:23Speaker 10: so if they need to be somewhere, they know, you know,
- 23:25Speaker 10: they'll be home in time to go to their daughter's
- 23:28Speaker 10: wedding or their son's birthday party or something.
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