CH Robinson reports flat 2016, but forwarding and LTL hold up

02/02/2017

CH Robinson saw full-year revenues fall 2.5% to $13.1bn – but net income rose 0.4% to $2.27bn. It had a good fourth quarter, with revenues up 6.4%, driven by volume growth – but total net revenues were down 1.6%. Its LTL business and global forwarding did well, following its APC acquisition, but the intermodal business saw an 18.4% decline in net revenues for the year.

It said in an earnings’ call that its focus for this year would be growing its air freight business where net revenue increased 32.3% and the forwarding division saw 20% more shipments. It also noted it would continue to invest in technology, and and would explore M&A opportunities in both North American and European surface transportation.

John Wiehoff CEO, explained: “In terms of the corridors where there are opportunities, we have been for the last several years focusing in on Asia to Europe and really leveraging the platform and the strength that we have in Asia and the carrier relationships to sell more into the Asia to Europe lane. …We’re building and investing in the competencies around air freight and we’re very happy with the market share gains that we had in those corridors this year.”

You can read the full results here, or turn to JOC for analysis.