TFI International Inc. (NYSE:TFII) Q3 2024 Earnings Conference Call October 22, 2024 8:30 AM ET

Company Participants

Alain Bedard - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer

Conference Call Participants

Ravi Shanker - Morgan Stanley
Walter Spracklin - RBC
Scott Group - Wolfe Research
Konark Gupta - Scotia Capital
Jordan Alliger - Goldman Sachs
Paul Stoddard - Goldman Sachs
Adam Roszkowski - Bank of America
Kevin Chiang - CIBC
Jason Seidl - TD Cowen
Daniel Imbro - Stephens
Brian Ossenbeck - JPMorgan
Ben Moore - Citi Group
Cameron Doerksen - National Bank Financial
Benoit Poirier - Desjardins Capital Markets
Andrew Cox - Stifel

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to TFI International's Third Quarter 2024 Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions]

Please be advised that this conference call will contain statements that are forward looking in nature and subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that can cause actual results to differ materially. Also, I would like to remind everyone that this conference call is being recorded on Tuesday, October 22, 2024.

I will now turn the conference call over to Alain Bedard, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of TFI International. Please go ahead, sir.

Alain Bedard

Well, thank you, operator, and thank you, everyone, for joining today's call. Yesterday, after market closed, we reported quarterly results that reflects industry wide challenging condition. We generated strong free cash flow, which has always been one of our primary areas of focus with a year-over-year increase of 37% to more than $270 million. This continued strong cash flow, as I've said many times, allows us to opportunistically consider strategic M&A, intelligently invest in the business and return excess capital to shareholders. We do this while maintaining a conservative balance sheet and indeed during the quarter we were able to significantly pay down debt as I'll discuss later on.

Let's begin with a review of our consolidated results, which as always reflect the skill and hard work of our team members, especially during cyclical challenges for the industry. During these times, we collectively redouble our focus on the important details of the business, striving for added efficiencies through quality of freight, optimizing weight and revenue per shipment and other important operating fundamentals that have served us well over time.