A.M. Executive Briefing - Oct. 26
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PNV Cutting 15% of Workforce
PNV Inc. (PNVN), which offers communications and information services to the trucking and logistics industries, said Wednesday it will eliminate about 50 jobs, or 15% or its workforce, as a cost-cutting move.These job cuts are necessary because of the impact of higher fuel costs and less demand on the trucking industry, and are expected to save PNV about $2 million annually, the company said.
PNV provides bundled communications, cable TV and Internet services to professional truck drivers, their families, suppliers, manufacturers, operators and fleets. Transport Topics
Oshkosh 4Q Earnings Up
Oshkosh Truck Corp. (OTRKB), makers of specialty trucks and truck bodies, announced Thursday that its fiscal fourth-quarter earnings increased 44% over the previous year's fourth quarter, to 86 cents per share from 77 cents.Double-digit increases in fire and emergency truck sales helped offset slower commercial truck sales, which dropped 3% to $141.8 million, the company said.
Oshkosh services the defense, fire and emergency, concrete placement and refuse hauling markets. Transport Topics
Goodyear Acknowledges Tread Separations, 60 Lawsuits Consolidated
Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. (GT) is now the focus of suits over tire-tread separations, acknowledging 15 deaths and at least 150 injuries, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.Trailers, passenger vans and large sport-utility vehicles were involved, and the tires were 16-inch Load Range E. Such vehicles are often found in utility and municipal fleets across the country.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has not opened an inquiry into the Goodyear incidents.
A federal judge in Indianapolis has been assigned to a consolidated block of tire 60 suits, both class-action and individual. Transport Topics
New Web Exchange for Airlines Will Include UPS
A new Web-based trading exchange has been formed by nine large airlines to handle jet fuel and spare parts, among other things, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.
Announcement of the site is expected Thursday. It will include United Parcel Service (UPS) as well as United, Delta and Continental airlines.
The agreement was reached before General Electric's (GE) bid to acquire Honeywell International (HON), which has a major equity stake in the new site. Transport Topics
FedEx Pilots Union Talking With Teamsters, Air Line Pilots Assoc.
The independent union representing FedEx Corp. (FDX) pilots is talking with larger unions, including the Teamsters, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.The Air Line Pilots Association is also talking with the FedEx Pilots Association, the paper said.
No deal is imminent - the talks began when members said in a survey that they wanted to consider such a possibility, according to the paper. Transport Topics
Rollins Truck Leasing Reports Lower 4Q
Rollins Truck Leasing Corp. (RLC) reported fiscal fourth-quarter earnings of 10 cents per diluted share, down from 29 cents per diluted share in the fourth quarter of 1999.The company said increased expenses related to recent acquisitions, such as maintenance and start-up costs, negatively affected earnings for the quarter. Rollins also signed a record level of full-service lease contracts in 2000 - 19% more than in 1999 - and anticipates that will provide a base for continued revenue growth in 2001.
Rollins Truck Leasing is the third largest full-service truck leasing and rental company in the United States. Transport Topics
Oil Prices Jump on Iraq Export Worries
The price of crude oil rose more than 2% Thursday on concerns that Iraq may halt oil exports next week over a currency dispute with the United Nations, Bloomberg reports.U.S. crude oil rose as much as 74 cents to $33.70 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, and Brent crude rose as much as 73 cents to $32.09 per barrel on London's International Petroleum Exchange, the report said.
Iraq, OPEC's fourth-largest oil producer, has not told the UN about its oil pricing plan for the next month, which suggests it may suspend exports, according to a Middle East Economic Survey report cited by Bloomberg. Transport Topics
Canacar Ends Protest - For Now
Canacar, Mexico's trucking organization, completed a four-hour protest that blockaded three major Mexican highways, but may stage additional protests later, the Journal of Commerce Online reported Wednesday.
The protest, which included about 200 trucks, was aimed at Transportes EASO, a subsidiary of U.S.-based M.S. Carriers, Inc. (MSCA), the story said. Canacar says EASO is in violation of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which limits domestic deliveries in Mexico to Mexican carriers, because it is half-owned by M.S. Carriers, the Journal noted.
The truckers did not form physical blockades of the highways, as that would be illegal in Mexico; instead, they parked alongside the roads or traveled in slow-moving convoys, the story said. Transport Topics
AmeriQuest, TradeOut Take Aim at Excess Inventories
Excess inventories and idle assets are targets of an alliance between AmeriQuest and TradeOut.AmeriQuest – which arranges preferred pricing from suppliers – currently represents more than 160,000 transport units, including partnership fleets. "These companies routinely sell used tractors and trailers, and have previously not had avail-able an effective total solution to the challenges they face in conducting these transactions," said Joseph Ciolino, AmeriQuest's executive vice president for corporate development.
TradeOut is a leading business-to-business marketplace for excess and off-lease assets. Transport Topics
Global Warming Getting Worse, Partly Due to Particulate Reduction
Scientists have heated up their estimate of global warming, stating its projections could be even higher than numbers calculated in 1995 – in part due to particulate pollution controls – the New York Times reported Thursday.The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will discuss a paper next month that represents a shift to a "confident" tone that human activity, mainly fossil fuel burning, is a major cause of climate change.
Over the next 100 years, the average global temperature could rise 11 degrees Fahrenheit from where it stood in 1990, the paper said. In 1995, that "worst-case scenario" stood at 6.3 degrees.
Scientists said pollution controls tearing at the "veil" of particulate from unfiltered coal and oil contributed to the revised estimate. Transport Topics
Headlines From Yesterday's P.M. Briefing
- Sysco Strike Settled, Workers Back on Duty
- Daewoo Cuts Executives, Misses Payroll
- Norfolk Southern 3Q Intermodal Revenues Hit All-Time High
- Mullen Transportation Reports Record 3Q
- U.S. Oil Prices Back Down As OPEC Expected to Boost Output
- WPI Group to Become Nexiq
- Bare Spots on Some Safeway Shelves as Teamsters Pickets Continue
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