Universal Logistics Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:ULH) Q1 2022 Earnings Conference Call May 6, 2022 10:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Tim Phillips – Chief Executive Officer

Jude Beres – Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Eli Winski – Citi

J. Bruce Chan – Stifel

Operator

Hello and welcome to the Universal Logistics Holdings First Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker for today, Mr. Tim Phillips, Universal Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead, sir.

Tim Phillips

Thank you Erika (ph). good morning and thank you for joining Universal Logistics Holdings First Quarter Earnings Call. Before we jump into the details, I want to take a moment to recognize Universal's over 12,000 associates who have worked so hard to get us to where we are today. We have believed for quite some time the earnings power of Universal was much greater than reflected in past results, and it has been a Herculean effort of these incredible team members who have gotten us to this point. While Universal continues to experience headwinds associated with the supply chain disruptions, automotive production, and talent acquisition, I remain impressed with our employees continued ability to adapt while providing an elevated level of service to our valued customer base.

You are beginning to see the next level of execution that will expand our service levels and provide value to our customers and shareholders alike. Make no mistake, adding new team members to address the demands of new and existing project remains a challenge. We will focus on evaluating the expectations of our employee base and continue to shape the company to be an employer of choice in logistics and transportation. As we will outline in our remarks, performance in the first quarter of 2022 was just a glimpse of Universal hitting its stride with newly shaped contractual rates and a high level of execution. Now, for the quarter. In yesterday's release, Universal reported first quarter earnings of $1.56 per share on total operating revenues of $523.9 million.

Our reported first quarter performance reflects not only record results for the first quarter, they represent Universal's highest quarterly revenues, operating margin, and earnings per share in our company's history. While first quarter was a financial win for our company, it has also brought into light the hard work and success of on-boarding and positioning talent to expand oversight and increase efficiencies. I firmly believe yesterday's release reflects Universal's capabilities when we operate in a somewhat stable productive environment and we are paid fair rate to deliver quality services. Now, for some color on each of our service lines. In Contract Logistics segment, we continue to chase consistent production cadence at the auto plants that we serve. While there has been some minor disruption in early Q2, mainly driven by available supply of parts, our continued training and talent acquisition leaves us well-positioned to take advantage of any production uptick.