Wednesday, October 22, 2008
CHRW earnings call
chrobinson transcript
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Gainey Transportation Bankruptcy
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich., Oct. 14, 2008 – Gainey Corporation today issued the following statement:
“As we noted in our Sept. 30 announcement, the nation’s financial crisis has compelled our lenders, including Wachovia Bank, to make ill-advised decisions based on their own cash constraints. Those constraints have placed Gainey Corporation and its operating companies in a very difficult situation,” said Harvey Gainey, CEO.
“Our exhaustive efforts to negotiate a constructive agreement with our lending group have been met with a series of increasingly aggressive actions by these lenders.
“Faced with recent actions by Wachovia Bank, the Company has decided that the only reasonable course that will allow us to serve our customers and preserve jobs is a Chapter 11 reorganization filing. Our sound business fundamentals – which include positive cash flow and operating income – will continue to ensure our uninterrupted operations, including paying all suppliers, delivering all freight and meeting our payroll.”
Good Article
How to Ruin the U.S. Economy
by Ben Stein
Posted on Monday, October 6, 2008, 12:00AM
1) Have a fiscal policy that creates immense deficits in good times and bad, burdening America's posterity with staggering burdens of repaying the debt.
2) Eliminate regulation of Wall Street and/or fail to enforce the regulations that already exist, instead trusting Wall Street and other money managers and speculators to manage other people's money with few or no regulations and little oversight.
3) Have an energy policy that disallows producing our own energy and instead requires that we buy energy from abroad, thus making our oil prices highly volatile and creating large balance of payments deficits, lowering the value of the dollar and thus making the problem get progressively worse.
4) Have Congress mandate that banks and other financial entities lend money to persons they know in advance to have poor credit ratings or none at all.
5) Allow investment banks, insurers, and banks to bet their entire net worth and then some on the premise that borrowers known to be improvident will in fact repay those loans.
6) Allow the creation of large betting pools called "hedge funds" that can move markets and control the outcome of trading, thus taking a forum for savings and retirement for families and making it into a rigged casino game that exists primarily to fleece suckers like ordinary working men and women.
7) Have laws that protect corporate officers from being sued for misconduct but at the same time punish lawyers in the private sector who ferret out such misconduct and try to make accountable the people responsible for shareholder and investor losses. If one of those lawyers gets particularly aggressive in protecting stockholders, put him in prison.
8) Appoint as head of the United States Treasury Department a man whose whole life was spent on Wall Street, who became fantastically rich through his peddling of junk bonds at his firm while the firm later sold short those same sorts of bonds.
9) Scare Americans into putting up $750 billion of their hard earned money to bail out the billionaires and their friends who created the market for loans to poor credit risks (The "subprime" market) and the unbelievably large side bets on those loans, promising that such a bailout would save the retirement savings of Americans, then allow the immense hedge funds to make the market crater immediately afterwards.
10) Propose to save the situation by surtaxing the oil industry, which is owned by our fellow Americans, mostly in their retirement plans, thus penalizing Americans for investing in companies that efficiently and legally produce an indispensable product.
11) Insist that the free market requires that banks and insurers with friends of the Secretary of the Treasury be saved but allow other entities not so fortunate to fail, thus creating total uncertainty and terror among financial institutions, and demolishing all of the confidence built up in financial circles since the days of FDR.12) Then have the Republican candidate say he would keep on the job the Treasury Secretary who facilitated the crisis, failed to protect the nation from the crisis, got the taxpayers to pony up to save his Wall Street buddies, and have the Democratic candidate, as noted, say he would save the day by taxing the stockholders of energy companies.
There, that should do it.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Priority Transportation
| Celadon Group to Assist Priority Transportation with Customer Loads, Collection of Accounts Receivable, and Marshalling Equipment |
| INDIANAPOLIS, Aug 26, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Celadon Group Inc. (Nasdaq:CLDN) announced today that one of its wholly-owned subsidiaries has signed a receivables collection and equipment marshalling agreement with Priority Transportation, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Priority America ("Priority"). Under the agreement, Celadon has agreed to use reasonable efforts to cover certain customer loads, to assist a secured lender in retrieving tractors and trailers under defined circumstances, and to assist in the collection of accounts receivable. Celadon will not purchase any assets under the contract.
Andy Howley, Priority Chief Executive Officer, stated, "Due to continued high fuel prices, weak freight demand and escalating operating costs, as well as a tight credit market, Priority will be phasing out of most of its over the road operations, which include its trucking operations in Farmington, N.Y. and Chesterton, Ind. We have entered into an agreement with Celadon to assist in the wind-down of operations and to help ensure continuity of customer service." Steve Russell, Celadon Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, stated, "We are delighted with the opportunity to assist Priority and its customers in an orderly transition of business. In this situation, a strong carrier can provide needed stability for all involved, and we believe Celadon fits that role. On a longer term basis, one of our goals is to continue to broaden our customer base with quality customers, and add density in our primary traffic lanes. We believe that Celadon can enhance service to Priority's customers through an upgraded equipment fleet, excellent technology, more available assets for dispatch, and an outstanding safety record. Further, Celadon is a SmartWay Transport Partner, with the highest score possible from the standpoint of fuel efficiency. Through its international operations in Canada and Mexico, Celadon can provide a broader range of service to Priority's customers." Celadon Group Inc. (www.celadongroup.com), through its subsidiaries, primarily provides long-haul, full-truckload freight service across the United States, Canada and Mexico.The company also owns TruckersB2B Inc. (www.truckersb2b.com) which provides cost savings to member fleets; Celadon Dedicated Services, which provides supply chain management solutions, such as warehousing and dedicated fleet services; and Celadon Brokerage Services. This press release and statements made by Celadon in its stockholder reports and public filings, as well as oral public statements by Celadon representatives, may contain certain forward-looking information, usually identified by words such as "anticipates," "believes," "estimates," "projects," "expects," "plans," or similar expressions. These statements are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such statements are based upon the current beliefs and expectations of Celadon's management and are subject to significant risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ from those set forth in forward-looking statements. With respect to the Priority agreement, the risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the risk that Celadon may not receive a significant number of loads or ongoing customer business; and the risk that providing service will distract from existing operations. With respect to general business operations, the following factors, among others, could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements: excess tractor and trailer capacity in the trucking industry; decreased demand for our services or loss of one or more of our major customers; surplus inventories; recessionary economic cycles and downturns in customers' business cycles; strikes, work slow downs, or work stoppages at our facilities, or at customer, port, or other shipping related facilities; our ability to execute our strategic plan; increases in compensation for and difficulty in attracting and retaining qualified drivers and independent contractors; increases in insurance premiums and deductible amounts; elevated experience in the frequency or severity of claims relating to accident, cargo, workers' compensation, health, and other matters; fluctuations in claims expenses that result from high self-insured retention amounts and differences between estimates used in establishing and adjusting claims reserves and actual results over time; increases or rapid fluctuations in fuel prices, as well as fluctuations in hedging activities and surcharge collection, the volume and terms of diesel purchase commitments, interest rates, fuel taxes, tolls, and license and registration fees; fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates; increases in the prices paid for new revenue equipment; increases in interest rates or decreased availability of capital or other sources of financing for revenue equipment; decreases in the resale value of our used equipment; seasonal factors such as harsh weather conditions that increase operating costs; competition from trucking, rail, and intermodal competitors; regulatory requirements that increase costs or decrease efficiency, including revised hours-of-service requirements for drivers; our ability to identify acceptable acquisition candidates, consummate acquisitions, and integrate acquired operations; the timing of, and any rules relating to, the opening of the border to Mexican drivers; challenges associated with doing business internationally; our ability to retain key employees; and the effects of actual or threatened military action or terrorist attacks or responses, including security measures that may impede shipping efficiency, especially at border crossings. Readers should review and consider the various disclosures made by Celadon in this press release, stockholder reports, and in its Forms 10-K, 10-Q, and other public filings. Celadon disclaims any such obligation to update or alter its forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. SOURCE: Celadon Group Inc. |
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Truck Sales Overseas
| 5.08 More Truckers Selling Their Rigs, Times Says |
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Thousands of U.S. truckers unable to make money because of rising fuel prices are selling their trucks, in what may be the biggest cut in the U.S. trucking fleet since trucking deregulation in 1980, the New York Times reported Tuesday. More than 45,000 vehicles — about 3% of the U.S. trucking fleet — have been taken out of service since early last year, the Times said, citing America’s Commercial Transportation Research Co., based in Columbus, Ind. Although small operators have been the most affected, 935 larger trucking business shut down in the first quarter compared with 385 last year, marking the highest quarterly failure rate since 2001, the Times said, citing American Trucking Associations data. Some trucks are also being sold abroad, the paper said. Nearly 24,000 used tractors have been exported since early last year, according to Commerce Department data, the Times reported. That was three times the number in 2006. |