HUBG - Hub Group Inc. (HUBG) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript
2024-02-01 23:21:04 ET
Hub Group, Inc. (HUBG)
Q4 2023 Earnings Conference Call
February 01, 2024, 05:00 PM ET
Company Participants
Phil Yeager - President and CEO
Brian Alexander - COO
Kevin Beth - CFO
Conference Call Participants
Scott Group - Wolfe Research
Jon Chappell - Evercore
Jason Seidl - Cowen and Company
Bruce Chan - Stifel
Brian Ossenbeck - JPMorgan
Bascome Majors - Susquehanna
Brady Lierz - Stephens
Thomas Wadewitz - UBS
Christyne McGarvey - Morgan Stanley
David Zazula - Barclays
Allison Poliniak - Wells Fargo
Presentation
Operator
Hello, and welcome to the Hub Group Fourth Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. Phil Yeager, Hub's President and CEO, Brian Alexander, Hub's Chief Operating Officer, and Kevin Beth, Hub's CFO are joining me on the call. [Operator Instructions]
Any forward-looking statements made during the course of the call or contained in the release represent the company's best good faith judgment as to what may happen in the future. Statements that are forward-looking can be identified by the use of words such as believe, expect, anticipate and project and variations of these words. Please review the cautionary statements in the release. In addition, you should refer to the disclosures in the company's Form 10-K and other SEC filings regarding factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected in these forward-looking statements.
As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to your host, Phil Yeager. You may now begin.
Phil Yeager
Good afternoon, and thank you for joining Hub Group's fourth quarter earnings call. Joining me today are Brian Alexander, Hub Group's Chief Operating Officer, and Kevin Beth, our Chief Financial Officer.
I'm proud of the way our organization executed to support our customers and one another in 2023 while also delivering the second best financial performance in our company's history in a challenging year. We faced difficult market conditions with higher inventory levels, excess capacity and slowing import demand. This led to challenging fundamentals that are more transactional service life.
However, our execution of our strategy over the last several years of delivering world class service, investing in equipment and technology to drive productivity, diversification of our service offerings to deepen our value to our customers, and maintaining cost discipline enabled us to successfully manage through those challenging conditions and deliver strong results.
We completed several key strategic priorities this past year that will pay dividends for years to come. We improved our rail and taxi agreements, providing us with expanded reach and flexibility while enhancing our cost structure. We achieved a record level of share of our controlled drayage, enabling improved service and costs.
We continued our diversification strategy, closing an accretive acquisition that helps us build scale and capabilities in the big and bulky final mile space. And finally, we completed our capital allocation plan, delivering a clear growth and returns-oriented investment strategy. These are just a few of the many strategic initiatives we executed on this past year which we delivered while prioritizing our team and customers, positioning us for long-term success....
Hub Group, Inc. (HUBG) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript