Roadrunner Reports Nine-Month 2017 Results
Roadrunner Transportation Systems in the past week traveled a bit further on its path to earn a profit and remain a publicly listed company, releasing results for the first nine months of 2017.
The Downers Grove, Ill.-based truckload and less-than-truckload carrier has been amending its financial filings since announcing more than a year ago that a company-led investigation found that the previous management team made substantial accounting errors.
The company’s stock plummeted as the problems surfaced. It is trading around $2.50 a share, down from its 52-week high of $9.75.
On March 30, Roadrunner released its 2017 results through September. The company reported a net loss for the period of $67.9 million, for a loss of $1.77 per share, on revenues of $1.5 billion. For the same period in 2016, the company had a net loss of $321.5 million, for a loss of $8.39 per share, on revenues of $1.5 billion.
The truckload segment in the first nine months of 2017 had operating income of $100,000 on revenues of $926 million. For the same period in 2016, truckload lost $143.4 million on revenues of $890.8 million.
The LTL segment for the period had an operating loss of $14.2 million on revenues of $348.4 million, compared with an operating loss of $194.1 million on revenues of $355.6 million in 2016.
The Ascent Global Logistics segment had operating income of $15.9 million on revenues of $261.5 million. In the 2016 period, the segment reported income of $3 million on revenues of $250.3 million. Ascent provides freight management and forwarding and other services.
In September, Roadrunner completed its sale of Unitrans for net proceeds of $88.5 million that it is using to reduce debt.
In a conference call April 2 with analysts, Roadrunner CEO Curtis Stoelting said, “We are making progress on our strategies to improve operational performance in our TL segment, integrate and expand our Ascent segment, invest in the long-term recovery of our LTL segment and position Roadrunner for long-term growth and shareholder value creation. Our financial results for the first three quarters of 2017 showed stability in our revenue base.”
Stoelting said the company plans to release its fourth-quarter and full-year 2017 results in this quarter.
Roadrunner ranks No. 15 on the Transport Topics Top 100 list of the largest for-hire carriers in North America.
The release of financial information is part of Roadrunner’s efforts to remain listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Last December, it received an extension until April to amend and file its quarterly numbers.
In January, the carrier released amended financial results dating from 2011 through 2016 that showed it overstated its earnings by $66.5 million. It also disclosed it was cooperating with an investigation by the Department of Justice and Securities and Exchange Commission of accounting errors at the company from two acquisitions it made in 2011.
The amended results for full-year 2016 showed revenues climbed 2.1% to more than $2 billion, but earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization plunged 92% to $7.8 million. Roadrunner ended the year with a $35.6 million net loss compared with $25.6 million in net income for 2015.
Stoelting told analysts in January the company’s problems were due to poor business practices under former CEO Mark DiBlasi and Chief Financial Officer Peter Armbruster as the company began a buying frenzy in 2011, purchasing 25 privately owned companies over 3½ years.
In 2017, Roadrunner’s board replaced DiBlasi with Stoelting and Armbruster with Terence Rogers. It also has hired a new chairman of the board, chief operating officer, chief information officer, chief compliance officer and leaders in five operating companies.
