ArcBest (ARCB) Q3 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Image source: The Motley Fool.

DATE

Wed, Nov. 4, 2026

CALL PARTICIPANTS

• Vice President, Treasury and Investor Relations - Amy Mendenhall
• President and Chief Executive Officer - Seth Runser
• Chief Financial Officer - Matt Beasley

TAKEAWAYS

• Consolidated Revenue -- $1.2 billion, representing a 15% year-over-year increase driven by stronger performance across both the Asset-Based and Asset-Light segments.
• Non-GAAP Operating Income -- $85 million, increasing from $50 million in the prior-year period due to disciplined pricing and organizational cost savings.
• Adjusted EPS -- $2.62, compared to $1.46 in the third quarter of last year.
• Asset-Based Revenue -- $798.6 million, up 10% on a per-day basis reflecting higher weight per shipment and disciplined pricing.
• Asset-Based Non-GAAP Operating Ratio -- 90.4%, an improvement of 210 basis points year over year.
• Asset-Based Tonnage -- 10% increase year over year, driven by a 13% increase in weight per shipment that offset a 3% decline in daily shipments.
• Asset-Based Contract Renewals -- 5.1% average increase, reflecting customer demand for reliable service and yield discipline.
• Asset-Based October Tonnage -- 15% year-over-year increase, supported by a 14% rise in weight per shipment and a 1% increase in daily shipments.
• Asset-Based Q4 Outlook -- Management expects the non-GAAP operating ratio to increase sequentially by 50 basis points to 150 basis points.
• Asset-Light Revenue -- $446.3 million, a 25% increase on a per-day basis led by growth in managed logistics and higher revenue per shipment.
• Asset-Light Non-GAAP Operating Income -- $14 million, representing a $13 million improvement over the prior-year quarter.
• Asset-Light Q4 Guidance -- Non-GAAP operating income is projected to be $7 million to $10 million based on seasonal volume trends and continued productivity gains.
• Asset-Light October Revenue -- 27% daily increase, driven by an 18% rise in revenue per shipment and 8% shipment growth.
• Managed Logistics Growth -- 40% compound annual growth rate since 2017, achieving another record quarter for the solution.
• Share Repurchases -- $40 million total capital returned to shareholders, including $26 million during the third quarter and $14 million in October.
• Restructuring Savings -- $10 million per quarter, following organizational changes implemented in July 2026.
• City Route Optimization -- $15 million in cumulative financial benefit, reflecting technology-driven improvements in terminal operations.
• Asset-Light Productivity -- 8% year-over-year increase in shipments per person per day, supported by new tools and process improvements.
• Union Wage and Benefit Rates -- 3.2% all-in rate increase for 2026, with pre-negotiated increases providing cost certainty through 2027.
• ArcBest View Users -- 3,600 monthly users, following the digital platform's launch in May 2026.
• Billed Revenue per Shipment -- 14% increase year over year in the Asset-Based segment, reflecting the heavier freight profile.
• Employee Productivity -- 8% year-over-year increase in shipments per person per day within Asset-Light, driven by the rollout of the ATOM platform.
• Capital Allocation -- Management maintained a balanced approach, investing $36 million in property, plant, and equipment during the first nine months of the year.

Need a quote from a Motley Fool analyst? Email pr@fool.com

RISKS

• Beasley stated, "The most that we could see in a particular year would be low single-digit millions, and felt that that was very reasonable for the trade-off that we got in premiums overall for the program," regarding the potential financial impact of higher retained risk in the structured insurance renewal.
• Beasley warned that "Excluding fuel surcharge, revenue per hundredweight declined in the low single digits," in October, reflecting the impact of a heavier freight profile on yield metrics.
• Management noted that year-over-year growth in weight per shipment is expected to moderate in the fourth quarter as the company laps the benefits of its 2025 freight selection initiatives.

SUMMARY

ArcBest Corporation (NASDAQ:ARCB) reported earnings growth and margin expansion driven by organizational restructuring, pricing discipline, and significant gains in the Asset-Light segment. Management reported a 15% increase in consolidated revenue to $1.2 billion and a sharp rise in adjusted earnings per share to $2.62. The company noted that organizational changes made in July 2026 provided a $10 million quarterly cost benefit, while improved freight selection strategies increased Asset-Based tonnage and average weight per shipment. Executives emphasized continued investment in technology, including artificial intelligence tools and a new operations management system, to drive further productivity gains and enhance the customer experience.

• CEO Runser noted that the company restructured its commercial organization to include a dedicated acquisition sales team to land new customers while account teams focus on retention and cross-selling.
• The company launched the Asset-Light Transportation Operations Management System, or ATOM, starting with its expedite solution to reduce manual work and create more connected processes.
• CFO Beasley reported that the insurance program renewal maintained overall coverage limits while reducing base premiums through a structured component that provides premium certainty over the next three years.
• CEO Runser stated that since 2019, revenue per shipment in the dynamic quote pool has increased 70% as the company uses a larger quote base to optimize network mix and profitability.
• Management reported that 60% of truckload shipments are now digitally augmented by AI agents, which simplifies work tasks and allows employees to focus on more complex customer supply chain decisions.
• The company confirmed it has added over 800 doors to its Asset-Based network and maintains one of the newest fleets in the industry to prepare for potential market inflection.

INDUSTRY GLOSSARY

• LTL: Less-than-truckload, a shipping mode for relatively small freight that does not require a full trailer.
• Operating Ratio: A measure of efficiency calculated by dividing operating expenses by revenue; a lower ratio indicates higher profitability.
• Asset-Based: A segment where the company uses its own equipment and union workforce to provide transportation services.
• Asset-Light: A segment where the company provides brokerage and managed logistics services using third-party carrier capacity.
• Hundredweight (CWT): A standard unit of weight in the shipping industry equal to 100 pounds.
• Dynamic Quote Pool: A pricing system that provides real-time freight quotes based on current market prices and available network capacity.
• ATOM: Asset-Light Transportation Operations Management System, an in-house platform designed to match freight with capacity more efficiently.
• ArcBest View: A digital platform providing customers with shipment visibility, quoting, and reporting in a single interface.
• Vaux: A digital freight movement system that includes hardware and software for dock and warehouse automation.

Full Conference Call Transcript

Operator: Good morning, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the ArcBest Third Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. During the presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. Afterwards, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. As a reminder, this call is being recorded. I will now turn it over to Amy Mendenhall, Vice President, Treasury and Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Amy Mendenhall: Good morning. I am here today with Seth Runser, our President and CEO, and Matt Beasley, our Chief Financial Officer. Other members of our executive leadership team will also be available during the Q&A session. Before we begin, please note that some of the comments we make today will include forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, which are detailed in the forward-looking statement section of our earnings release and SEC filings. To provide meaningful comparisons, we will also discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures that are outlined and described in the tables of our earnings release. Reconciliations of GAAP to non-GAAP measures are provided in the additional information section of the presentation slides.

You can access the conference call slide deck on our website at arcb.com, in our 8-K filed earlier this morning, or follow along on the webcast. Now, I will turn the call over to Seth.

Seth Runser: Thank you, Amy, and good morning, everyone. Before we begin, I would like to recognize the talented ArcBest team. Throughout the quarter, our people executed with discipline as conditions continued to evolve. I am grateful for their dedication and proud of the way they continue to serve our customers and support one another. I am pleased to report ArcBest grew earnings and improved operating margin in the third quarter. The organizational changes we made in July continued to lower our costs, and we also had help from a freight market that was tighter than a year ago. In today's dynamic environment, customers place a premium on reliable execution, responsive service, and partners who understand their business.

Those are areas where we continue to earn our customers' trust and where ArcBest continues to differentiate itself. In the third quarter, we benefited from initiatives that we had underway for several years. This includes our integrated service offering, investments in our network, equipment, and technology platforms, and our refined commercial approach, which all continue to provide our customers with greater flexibility as their transportation needs evolve. Our team is focused on improving how we operate, and we continue to execute against our three strategic pillars of accelerating profitable growth, increasing efficiency, and driving innovation. With that broader perspective, let me turn to our progress by segment. In Asset-Based, our focus remains on profitable growth.

Daily tonnage increased, primarily reflecting higher weight per shipment, while shipment counts declined modestly. Revenue per shipment also increased, supported by disciplined pricing, higher fuel surcharge revenue, and the heavier freight moving through our network. Over the past year, our dynamic quote pool has continued to expand, and we are taking a more intentional approach to the freight we select to help us align demand with the strengths of our network, support the service our customers expect, and optimize profitability. Contract renewals were another highlight of the quarter, averaging a 5.1% increase, which is a strong result and reflects how customers view the quality of our service.

We continue to pursue new business opportunities that generate appropriate returns and strengthen relationships with new and existing customers who value our service, reliability, and flexibility. Our commitment to an excellent customer experience is clear. In this year's Mastio survey, ABF showed one of the largest service improvements among national carriers, with gains across nearly every category that customers rated. ArcBest was recently recognized as a 2026 Great Supply Chain Partner by SupplyChainBrain, earned three Quest for Quality awards from Logistics Management, and was once again named a Top 100 Trucker by Inbound Logistics. These recognitions reinforce the progress we're making and how our teams show up for customers every day.

When customers trust us, they bring us more of their freight. That's how a great customer experience turns into growth. In Asset-Light, we delivered another strong quarter, including another record quarter for managed logistics. Profitability improved through disciplined pricing, more effective carrier procurement, and lower cost to serve. Our teams are pairing market expertise with better tools and processes to serve customers and carrier partners more effectively. That's what lets us scale without adding costs at the same pace, and it's why Asset-Light earned $13 million more this quarter than it did a year ago. That same practical focus guides our portfolio of technology and AI projects.

We're simplifying work for our people so they can make faster, better-informed decisions and improve the customer experience. We see AI as a major tailwind in our industry, and we're utilizing it across ArcBest to drive greater productivity and profitable growth. One example is our new Asset-Light Transportation Operations Management System, or ATOM. We began the rollout during the third quarter, starting with our expedite solution, and we expect additional service lines to move onto the platform over time. Developed in-house, ATOM brings together the experience of teams across ArcBest to reduce manual work and create more connected processes. It helps our people match freight with available capacity more quickly and work with more consistent information.

That means more time to solve customers' challenges and deliver an even better experience. We firmly believe these capabilities will strengthen customer relationships and support growth across our Asset-Light business. We continue to expand and enhance ArcBest View, our unified platform for shipment execution and visibility, which has grown to more than 3,600 monthly users since launching in May, and integrates AI tools to drive a more elevated customer experience. We recently introduced new capabilities that help customers simplify everyday shipping tasks, including improved shipment visibility, streamlined freight classification, and expanded cargo protection options. We also added features that provide customers with more actionable information throughout the shipment lifecycle.

Our goal is straightforward: to make transportation easier to manage, reduce friction in our customers' operation, and give them greater confidence in their supply chain decisions. Another encouraging development this quarter was the successful renewal of our insurance program. We maintained our overall coverage limits while reducing our base premium, an outcome we're pleased with given the focus on the insurance environment across the transportation industry. Our objective was not simply to minimize premium expense, but to appropriately balance retained risk, cost, coverage limits, insurer quality, and protection against significant losses. To that end, we added a structured component to one excess layer that provides greater premium certainty over the next three years in exchange for modestly higher retained risk.

Overall, the renewal strikes the right balance and reflects our favorable claims experience and continued focus on safety and risk management. As I look ahead, I'm encouraged by what I'm seeing across the company. Our network is performing well, Asset-Light performance continues to improve, and we're operating with greater focus and efficiency. We've always believed in taking a longer-term view and continuing to invest in our business through every cycle. That approach has put us in a stronger position today and gives me confidence in where we're headed. But what gives me the most confidence is our people.

I see it every day, how hard they work, how much they care about our customers, and how committed they are to moving our company forward. I'm incredibly grateful for everything they do. We remain focused on executing consistently and investing thoughtfully in the business. As the market continues to strengthen, we believe we are well-positioned to build upon our improving operating performance and capitalize on the opportunities ahead to create long-term value for our customers, our people, the communities we serve, and our shareholders. With that, I'll turn the call over to Matt to review the financial results.

Matt Beasley: Thanks, Seth, and good morning, everyone. Our third-quarter improvement was broad-based. Higher tonnage and disciplined pricing supported Asset-Based results, while continued progress in Asset-Light and savings from our organizational changes contributed to stronger earnings and margins. At the same time, we invested in the business and returned capital to shareholders. These results build on the progress we've made over the past year and represent another step toward achieving the long-term targets we outlined at Investor Day. Turning to our consolidated results, third quarter revenue was $1.2 billion, up 15% year-over-year. Non-GAAP operating income increased to $85 million from $50 million in the prior-year period. Adjusted earnings per share rose to $2.62 from $1.46.

At the segment level, Asset-Based non-GAAP operating income improved by $22 million year-over-year, while Asset-Light delivered non-GAAP operating income of $14 million, a $13 million improvement from last year. In the Asset-Based segment, third quarter revenue was $799 million, up 10% on a per-day basis. ABF adjusted operating ratio was 90.4%, an improvement of 210 basis points year-over-year and consistent with our strong second quarter performance. Daily tonnage increased 10% year-over-year, driven by a 13% increase in weight per shipment, partially offset by a 3% decrease in shipments per day. Billed revenue per shipment increased 14% year-over-year, primarily reflecting a heavier freight profile and a 1% increase in revenue per hundredweight.

The increase in revenue per hundredweight was attributable to higher fuel surcharge revenue. Operating expenses increased year-over-year, primarily due to contractual increases in union wage and benefit rates, higher fuel prices, and increased purchase transportation expense. In October, Asset-Based daily tonnage increased approximately 15% year-over-year, driven by a 14% increase in weight per shipment and a 1% increase in shipments per day. The increases in weight per shipment we have seen this year reflect the expansion of our dynamic quote pool and the intentional approach to freight selection that Seth discussed. As we move through the fourth quarter, we expect year-over-year growth in weight per shipment to moderate as we begin to lap the benefits of these initiatives.

That reflects a stronger prior-year comparison, not a change in our approach. October billed revenue per shipment increased 18% year-over-year, driven by the heavier freight profile and a 4% increase in billed revenue per hundredweight. Excluding fuel surcharge, revenue per hundredweight declined in the low single digits, primarily reflecting the heavier freight profile. Historically, excluding years with significant market disruptions, ABF's non-GAAP operating ratio has increased by approximately 180 basis points on average from the third quarter to the fourth quarter. Based on current trends, we expect ABF's fourth quarter 2026 non-GAAP operating ratio to increase sequentially by approximately 50 basis points-150 basis points.

This outlook reflects our continued focus on yield discipline, cost management, and productivity, and the impact of higher fuel prices. Turning to Asset-Light, third quarter revenue was $446 million, up 25% year-over-year on a daily basis. Shipments per day increased 1%, led by growth in managed logistics. Revenue per shipment increased 24%, reflecting higher rates in a tightening capacity environment and higher fuel costs. Employee productivity, measured by shipments per person per day, increased 8% year-over-year. Selling, general, and administrative expense per shipment declined 2%, driven by our productivity initiatives and a higher mix of managed logistics business, which has a lower cost to serve.

These improvements in revenue, yield, and productivity contributed to Asset-Light non-GAAP operating income of $14 million for the third quarter, up $13 million year-over-year. In October, Asset-Light daily revenue increased approximately 27% year-over-year, driven by an 18% increase in revenue per shipment and an 8% increase in shipments per day. Higher revenue per shipment reflected a higher pricing environment, including higher fuel prices and tighter truckload capacity, while shipment growth was led by managed logistics. For the fourth quarter, we expect Asset-Light non-GAAP operating income of approximately $7 million-$10 million, reflecting normal seasonal volume trends, current pricing trends, and continued progress on productivity.

We continue to allocate capital with a focus on attractive long-term returns while maintaining a strong balance sheet. Consistent with that approach, we repurchased $26 million of shares during the third quarter and an additional $14 million in October. Overall, we remain confident in our strategy and focused on achieving our long-term targets. With that, operator, we are ready to open the call for questions.

Operator: We will now begin the question-and-answer session. Please limit yourself to one question. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one again. We ask that you pick up your handset when asking a question to allow for optimum sound quality. If you are muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. If you would like to submit a question on the webcast, you may do so by clicking on the Q&A button in the bottom right corner of your screen. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Jordan Alliger of Goldman Sachs.

Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Jordan Alliger: Yeah. Hi. Morning. Just curious, looking at morning, the tonnage obviously strong, a lot of things you are doing from a freight profile mix standpoint. Maybe is there a way to sort of assess how, pulling that back, how you are thinking about the core demand, and what you are seeing in the industry from an underlying demand standpoint? Thank you.

Seth Runser: Hey, Jordan. This is Seth. Thanks for the question. We are really encouraged by what we are seeing as we move through the fourth quarter. The environment is obviously still mixed, but there is more positive indicators today, and we are seeing some of those early green shoots across our business. If you look in October, Asset-Based tonnage increased approximately 15% year-over-year. Shipments increased 1%. The weight per shipment Matt mentioned in his prepared remarks, we continue to benefit from that heavier dynamic tonnage, which we expect to normalize as we lap some of that history. But we have continued to maintain a strong posture on yield.

That has tempered some of the shipment growth somewhat, but we believe those are the right decisions to make. Our focus has really been on having our book of business in a very healthy position, and pricing appropriately for the value that we provide. We're seeing some encouraging activity across several of our verticals, building materials, automotive, food service, 3PL. What gives me a lot of confidence is we're creating some of this momentum ourselves through just better service to our customers, stronger customer relationships, and improved commercial execution. Our pipeline remains strong across all of our solutions. The changes we made with our commercial organization are supporting that effort. We stood up a dedicated acquisition sales team.

They have a greater focus on landing new customers, while our account teams can concentrate on retention and cross-selling, and we're seeing some early wins there. As we look forward to 2027, we're not assuming a significant freight recovery, but we're seeing some early signs that are encouraging.

Operator: The next question is from the line of Ken Hoexter of Bank of America. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Ken Hoexter: Hey. Great. Good morning, Seth and Matt.

Seth Runser: Morning.

Ken Hoexter: Maybe thoughts a little bit more on that, Seth, on the weight per shipment. Is that maybe delve back into the history of this? Is this just truckload spillover? Is this the dynamic quote pool shifting? Maybe talk about what's going to drive that. Given your expectation for the moderation weight per shipment, should revenue per hundredweight ex-fuel flip positive in the fourth quarter? I know you mentioned it was down low single digits. Just thinking about timing and when we should see that flip if we're looking at moderation. Thanks.

Seth Runser: Thanks, Ken. This is Seth. As you know, as weight per shipment increases, heavier shipments generally have a lower freight class and have an effect on revenue per hundredweight, so we've seen that. But we are seeing some improvements in our weight per shipment on our core business. But the majority of the increase that we've seen throughout this year is really around the Dynamic shipments being heavier, and that's because of the expansion of our quote pool. That's really allowed us to be more selective in real time to help us optimize yield and productivity in the Asset-Based network. In October, the year-over-year weight per shipment, it continues to be impacted by that.

But as we move through the fourth quarter, we really expect that year-over-year growth in weight per shipment to moderate compared to when we started all these initiatives last year. This is a comparison really against a stronger base, not a change in our approach. Our approach with Dynamic, as we move through the fourth quarter, is going to look a lot like the first, second, and third quarter in what we did. We've seen some of that truckload spillover. I think we're still early stages into that, but we are seeing that continue.

What I always go back to is customers are ultimately looking for a partner that they can trust, that offers multiple solutions in one place, and that's really what the commercial team has brought. And we feel very encouraged by what they've been able to accomplish throughout the third quarter and what we're going to see for the remainder of the year.

Operator: The next question is from the line of Ravi Shanker of Morgan Stanley. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Nancy Hipp: Hi, this is Nancy Hipp on for Ravi. Thanks for taking my question. It would be helpful to hear a bit more about Asset-Light following the Montgomery litigation. How are you thinking about implications for Asset-Light heading into 2027? And beyond the insurance renewals you mentioned, do you see any elevated litigation or liability risk there?

Seth Runser: Thanks, Nancy. This is Seth. I thought it was important in my prepared remarks to cover how our insurance renewals went because we just finalized those. Despite the challenging insurance market, we did achieve a favorable liability insurance renewal, with a reduction in base premium while maintaining our overall coverage. As part of that renewal, we incorporated an additional structured component in one of our excess layers of our program, and that helps us get greater premium certainty over the three-year period. In exchange for that, we assume some additional risk within that portion of the program. That layer has only been impacted by two claims over the past 25 years.

Based on that historical loss experience, we really believe that trade-off is appropriate. We really focused on the appropriate balance between retained risk, premium expense, insurer quality, and the protections against significant loss. We really believe that the longstanding focus on safety, compliance, disciplined carrier qualification positions us well in the current environment.

Matt Beasley: Nancy, this is Matt. I'll just comment on the outlook. I mean, certainly feel very good about the Asset-Light business, where that performance is, the trajectory that we're on. I mean, if you look at year-to-date, we've reported around $24 million of operating income through the third quarter. Certainly, substantial improvement year-over-year. Feel pleased about the outlook for the fourth quarter of $7 million-$10 million. You take that together, you're looking at a year probably in the low $30 million for that business.

Looking ahead to 2027, certainly we expect continued shipment growth in that business, continue to be pleased with how that managed logistics solution continues to grow for us, continue to see a lot of benefit from the productivity initiative, the technology initiative, some of which that Seth talked about in his opening comments, and then just expect continued benefits from some of the restructuring actions and savings from what we did in July.

Operator: The next question is from the line of Scott Group of Wolfe Research. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Cole: Hey, guys. This is Cole on for Scott. You guys alluded to how the comparisons in November and December swing around a bunch. Can you expand on what we should assume for tonnage yields, like fuel or weight per shipment in 4Q, as well as maybe your diesel assumption? Can you also talk about maybe how much fuel is helping margins right now? Thanks.

Seth Runser: Yeah. Thanks, Cole. This is Seth. I think about it in terms of sequentially and what we're seeing. Sequentially from September to October, tonnage generally decreases about 3.4%. We're ahead of that. We're down only about 1%. Shipments per day generally decrease about 3%. We're slightly ahead of that, being down 2%. Then weight per shipment generally decreases about .4%, and we're ahead of that by about 1%. If you look at that on a go-forward basis, that's really what you'll see. What we're trying to highlight is you'll start to see some year-over-year changes in weight per shipment in November and December, as those initiatives took hold last year. Not a change in strategy.

We're going to continue to do what we've been doing in the first, second, and third quarter, but we just wanted to highlight that. When you think about fuel, it's an important component of our overall pricing model, but customers ultimately make the decision based on the total value of the service we provide, and fuel surcharge is just one element of a broader pricing discussion. It's designed to offset the fuel charges that we have. We operate in the same manner with all of our competition. It's just on a weekly basis. But a reminder, our costs go up as well.

So, the price of fuel, propane for our forklifts, we have 240 facilities, so utilities, think of all those things. Really what we focus on is the larger consideration for us isn't fuel surcharge itself. It's just what happens to demand, and we're paying close attention to that, but we're also encouraged by what our pipeline is seeing. The greater focus over the long term for us is remaining disciplined on price, delivering that premium service, making sure that we're efficient with our resources, because that's going to have a greater long-term impact than short-term fuel volatility.

Operator: The next question is from the line of Brian Ossenbeck of JPMorgan. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Brian Ossenbeck: Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking the question.

Seth Runser: Morning

Brian Ossenbeck: Follow-ups for you guys. On the weight per shipment, I know U-Pack has been a unique situation for you guys, and it's obviously housing market's not in great shape. Is that pretty much troughed out in terms of impact on your comps from a weight per shipment perspective? Then, Seth, maybe just to go back to the premium statement a little bit more. It sounds like lower premiums, but a bit different risk profile, but it sounds like you're okay with that trade-off given the history there. Also, is there an auto liability, I guess, from a contingent perspective? Do you have to do any of the actuarial reviews here? Maybe that's a question for Matt.

Just remind us when that starts to come to the balance sheet potentially, if you guys do that before the end of the year. Thanks very much.

Matt Beasley: Yeah. Hey, Brian. It's Matt. On your first question on U-Pack, you're right. I mean, those shipments are generally substantially heavier shipments and do impact our overall weight per shipment. But in terms of the change there, really volume levels are relatively consistent, so not expecting any significant impacts year-over-year. On the renewal, like Seth said, we do feel really good about where we ended up there. We certainly really leveraged our strong performance that we've had, strong safety record, our good relationships with our carriers. We have some talent that we brought on in the risk group that has really helped us in that area. And so, overall, we were able to achieve some savings.

We did, as Seth mentioned, add a little bit of structure to one of the layers, but felt really good about the trade-off there. Had some savings in the low single-digit millions for some trade-offs in a layer where we've only seen a couple of claims impact that layer in our history, and feel good about the trade-off. Really, it's assuming that we have performance in line with what we have seen historically, wouldn't expect any additional impact there. The most that we could see in a particular year would be low single-digit millions, and felt that was very reasonable for the trade-off that we got in premiums overall for the program.

You mentioned the accruals and how we think about the auto and general liability program. Certainly, we look at that throughout the year, but we do take a deeper look at that with our actuaries in October, and so that'll be coming up here in the fourth quarter.

Operator: The next question is from the line of Chris Wetherbee from Wells Fargo. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Chris Wetherbee: Hey. Thanks. Good morning, guys. Maybe we could talk a little bit about the outperformance sequentially. So, curious, maybe, Seth, if you could break down how much you think is what you guys are doing specifically with the initiatives and the Dynamic business, and then maybe what the market is. I guess maybe trying to sort of decouple demand and company-specific actions. And then maybe just some broader commentary on the pricing environment. So, do you feel like things are kind of the same as what we've seen before, or sort of the opportunity getting a little bit better in the LTL market broadly around pricing? So, two questions there. Thank you.

Seth Runser: Yeah. Thanks, Chris. I'll start out, and then I'll pass the pricing question over to Eddie to fill you in with stats and what we're seeing in the business. Really, when I think about the outperformance in the third quarter, it's really a combination of multiple things, and it's really tied to our three strategic pillars of growth, efficiency, and innovation. We've been pleased with our pipeline and what we've been able to see there. We talked at our Investor Day about how expanding the quote pool gives us more optionality, and we've seen that come to life throughout the year. We've been able to be more selective with the freight we've brought on.

We've been disciplined with our price to make sure that our customers are seeing the value that we deliver. I'm really encouraged by the 5.1% increase that we were able to achieve in the third quarter, which builds upon what we've been doing throughout the year. From an efficiency standpoint, both in Asset-Based and Asset-Light, continue to be encouraged by the results we've seen. Record load average numbers, historically low claim statistics. Just when you look across the board, we continue to accelerate those technology initiatives, which ultimately drive benefit to our bottom line. On the innovation side, there's just a lot going on in AI.

We have over 30 AI agents working at our company and doing tasks that our people don't have to do, so they can focus on higher-value work. At the end of the day, that gives us more opportunities to grow, improve our cost to serve, and think about what we want the future to look like from a tech perspective. We spent a lot of time throughout the third quarter, and what I'm most proud of the team about is we've invested through this entire cycle. We have one of the newest fleets on the road. We've continued to invest in technology.

We've built out over 800 doors in the network, so as volume starts to inflect positively, we're well-positioned to take advantage of that. I'm so proud of the team and what they've been able to accomplish throughout the entire year. I feel so good about the management team, our team in the field. Everyone continues to execute at a high level. I'll turn it over to Eddie to talk about pricing.

Eddie Sorg: Yeah. Good morning, Chris. From a market standpoint, pricing still is very rational. I would say it's, I would see signs of improvement from earlier this year, and definitely compared to last year. If you look at what we've been trying to accomplish, really starting at the end of last year, to improve our account mix, our yield metrics, I've seen a lot of success. A lot of hard work with our sales and pricing teams, with support from our operational teams to give us a great product to sell. We've been successful. We talked about our renewal increase being at 5.1% for the quarter. That's a really strong number.

It's a different account mix in third quarter than it was in second quarter, but we're really confident that we got the most out of those negotiations we could, but still with an emphasis on retaining good profitable business for the system. We have been on a journey to improve our mix, some of our pricing action has resulted in loss of business. Again, it is really meant to improve our overall profit for the company, and I think we've been very successful doing that. You can see it in our weight per shipment numbers, with that improvement in weight per shipment for our core LTL business.

We did target some lower revenue business, which is generally tied to lower weight business, and so that's helping us really achieve a higher weight per shipment, higher revenue per shipment, and ultimately a higher profit per shipment. A lot of what we're doing is resonating with customers, and when we do run into situations, we have a great option with managed logistics to still meet what the customer's looking for, improve our margins, and then provide a solution that helps our customers be successful.

Operator: The next question is from the line of Thomas Wadewitz of UBS. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Mike Triano: Hey, good morning. This is Mike Triano. I'm on for Tom.

Eddie Sorg: Go ahead.

Mike Triano: Yeah. Hey. I wanted to ask on Dynamic. I imagine the tightness in the truckload market has led to more opportunities this year within Dynamic, and the quote pool, you mentioned, continues to increase. Just wondering how much Dynamic has contributed to tonnage growth this year, and where the yield profile in Dynamic sits today relative to the core LTL freight. Thank you.

Seth Runser: Yeah. This is Seth. I'll take that question. We've talked about Dynamic in the past many different times, and really, what I want to remind everybody of is our business is primarily core, and transactional business and Dynamic helps us maintain consistency in the network and allows us to adapt to what's going on in the market. We feel great about our pipeline. We're seeing new core business. We saw our weight per shipment increase 1%, like I said earlier. We're going to continue to focus on profitable growth, mix management, and delivering that great service to our customers.

What's really important, and I've said this on previous calls, to just understand about what we do at Dynamic is, we optimize our mix on a daily basis, and it's based on profit maximization, based on current market prices and available capacity in our network. What the expansion of this quote pool has allowed us to do as it's continued to get larger, it's really increased the visibility and optionality. Since launching the Dynamic quoting pool since 2019 when we launched that product, our revenue per shipment has increased by 70% because we need approximately the same number of shipments, but you're just doing it on a larger quote pool base, which ends up improving profitability of the overall result.

Hopefully everybody has seen the improvements in our results over the long term, the investments in our tool set. This was really about reaching a customer base that we didn't have access to in the past. We gave them a new channel, and it's continued to produce positive benefits for us.

Operator: The next question is from the line of Jeff Kauffman of Citizens Bank. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Jeff Kauffman: Thank you very much, and congratulations on the quarter.

Seth Runser: Thanks, Jeff.

Jeff Kauffman: You got it. You talked about the changes you made to the customer asset profile in LTL more or less subsiding in future quarters as you anniversary that. Can you talk about kind of the next step of customer base or freight profile dynamics as we're looking forward maybe next 12-18 months, and not only Asset-Based, but also maybe talk about some of the changes you're looking at with the consolidation and Asset-Light?

Eddie Sorg: Yeah. Good morning. From an LTL standpoint, we saw some growth in 2025, and that growth, even though it was profitable, it did come with a different profile. Really, the last four quarters, we've really been focusing on driving a more profitable profile into the LTL network. That emphasis on larger weight shipments has kind of coincided with truckload tightening, which has given us some opportunities to really kind of, both from a transactional standpoint and a core standpoint, to go after the business that we think produces the most profit for our system.

One of the things we look at when you look at over the next few quarters and really maybe even next year, all this is really without a change in demand. If you see a change in demand, there's an expectation that generally our weight per shipment, the amount of freight that our customers are shipping, would coincide with that. So, we would see continued improvements in that metric, which should produce our ability to continue to improve yield at an even better pace. I think we obviously are well-positioned now with the profitability of our core book of business, that if that demand change occurs, we're going to be in a great position to take advantage of that.

Seth Runser: Yeah. Jeff, I'll mention on the Asset-Light side of things, I'm really proud of the team for delivering $14 million in non-GAAP operating income in the third quarter, especially when you consider just the year-over-year, where we were at last year, only delivering $1.5 million for all of 2025. So that's just a meaningful step-up change. Really what's driving some of the shipment growth is really around that managed logistics that Eddie mentioned before. We highlighted this at our Investor Day, and it continues to hold true. We've been on a 40% growth rate on a combined annual basis since 2017, and this quarter was another record for managed.

Really what we tried to do with some of the changes in July was simplify how we operate, make it easier for our customers to do business with us, and better position ArcBest to grow over the long term. That's exactly what we've accomplished in the third quarter, and we're looking forward to the future. Managed continues to be a good success story, but ultimately, it's about finding ways to say yes to the customer supply chain, because there's so much uncertainty and things going on in the world.

If we can position ourselves in a way that says yes to the customer, we've seen that as we cross-sell business, it improves revenue, profit, and retention, and that's exactly the position we want to be in.

Operator: The next question is from the line of Ari Rosa of Citi. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Ari Rosa: Great. Thank you, and good morning. It seems like a lot of nice progress here, and you spoke about something of an improving macro backdrop. I am curious to get your updated thoughts on how you are thinking about mid-cycle margin potential across both Asset-Based and Asset-Light. If you could speak about that ideally in the context of your long-term targets and just kind of progress getting there and confidence levels that those targets are achievable, feasible, and kind of where we stand on that progression. Thank you.

Seth Runser: Hey, Ari. This is Seth. I will start out with my comments and then turn it over to Matt Beasley. We are really confident in our long-term strategy and the earnings potential of the business, and I feel like we made meaningful progress against many of those objectives throughout the quarter. In all parts of our business, both Asset-Based and Asset-Light, we really work to build a scalable operation, where we can take full advantage of operating leverage, and the investments that we have made throughout this cycle have really positioned us well. I will turn it over to Matt to give his thoughts as well.

Matt Beasley: Yeah. Hey, Ari. So, very pleased with the 2026 result. I mean, like I talked about early on, Asset-Light, just a great story there, great trajectory, look to be in the low $30 million for the year in op income. Asset-Based, great result as well. I mean, if you look at our guide for the fourth quarter and our results for the first three quarters of the year, that would put you around a 92 OR for the year. We are in the process of putting our plan together for 2027 to discuss with our board, so I do not want to get too far ahead of that.

But I think, based on what we see today, we expect 2027 to be another year of improvement, a good step towards our 2028 targets.

Certainly, we will have some of just the normal inflationary items that we see each year, but feel great about the growth that we continue to expect to see in the Asset-Light business, the continued work on pricing that Eddie has talked about in the Asset-Based business, just all the work that we are doing across both segments with technology and productivity, and expect to see that full run rate from the restructuring savings starting in the first quarter as well, and that is the $10 million a quarter that we disclosed a few months ago.

So, really feel good about the way things are shaping up for 2027, and again, we do believe that is going to represent another meaningful step towards the 2028 targets.

Operator: The next question is from the line of Bruce Chan of Stifel. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Bruce Chan: Hey, thanks, and good morning, everyone. I think there has been some focus on labor costs this earnings season, and Seth, you mentioned that you are seeing inflation in the business, as I am sure everyone else is. But maybe just specific to that line item, can you give us a sense of what your experience has been like there with the union on the ABF side, and are you seeing any, call it, relative benefits in terms of hiring pressure and cost trends? Then I know you have got some runway, but maybe just remind us when you started thinking about negotiations ahead of the next contract.

Seth Runser: Yeah. Perfect, Bruce. This is Seth. I will start, and then I will turn it over to Matt Godfrey to answer a little bit of that. But obviously, we have seen cost inflation across different areas of our business. Really, what we outlined at Investor Day is ensuring that our revenue per shipment is ahead of our cost per shipment by 80 basis points, and that is what we are going to continue to focus on. If you think about our contract rates, throughout 2026, really the all-in rate was around 3.2%. Those went into effect from a wage standpoint in July, and then from a health, welfare, and pension in August.

So those are in some of our third-quarter and also in our fourth-quarter outlook. And then we also have the 2027 wage and benefit increases, which are already pre-negotiated, which gives us a lot of certainty about where our labor inflation is going to end up. We feel good about that. I'll have Matt comment on the actual recruiting side of things, so I'll turn it over to him.

Matt Godfrey: Thanks, Seth. Appreciate it. You mentioned the way we look at capacity earlier when we talked about it, but physical capacity in our network to serve our customers is a mix of our door capacity, which we've grown significantly over the last five years, equipment capacity, which we've continued to invest in, as we talked about, and obviously manpower. We take a very analytical approach to manpower planning, and so that provides insights not only at the system level, but at the location level. So we can project our current and future hiring needs based on business needs, projected attrition with employees, and what we see coming in the pipeline. Those models have really evolved over time.

We're not only looking at the long range, three, six months out to a year, but we're providing enhanced tools to our frontline leaders to hit weekly targets that are matching our labor to the business levels to ensure we provide an efficient, reliable, and premium service to our customers. We're consistently focused on building that flex capacity in our network with all three legs of the capacity that we talked about, and that way we can flex up or down as needed to serve our customers. When you think about our great union workforce, generally a higher tenure, lower turnover, and what that means for our customers is better service through productivity and improved freight handling.

What that means in our operation is we can be more strategic with our resource deployment while meeting our customers' needs. We look at hiring overall. We're on track to hire slightly less than we did last year, more than 2024. But for us, using those models, our needs around recruiting and hiring expense has scaled with the employees that we need to hire. So really pleased with the progress we've made there and the way we've been able to service our customers throughout the year.

Operator: The next question is from the line of Stephanie Moore of Jefferies. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Stephanie Moore: Hi, good morning. Thanks, everybody.

Matt Godfrey: Morning.

Seth Runser: Morning.

Stephanie Moore: Good morning. At your Investor Day, I think you spent a good amount of time outlining just a number of technology-enabled productivity initiatives. I mean, I think route optimization, dock management, labor planning, you touched on a lot of those maybe already. But I would love if you could just give us an update on where you are in the rollout of some of those tools, what you're seeing in terms of kind of early measurable productivity benefits, and what this can mean as we get into 2027 from some of those initiatives. Thank you.

Seth Runser: Hey, Stephanie. Good morning. This is Seth. Yeah, we outlined a lot of technology initiatives at Investor Day, and I've been continued to be proud of what our team has been able to accomplish. It was interesting. A few weeks ago, we actually had an AI expert come in and talk to our leadership team, and he made a comment that really stuck with me, and it was, "Automation is not transformation." That's really what we're focused on in our business, is how can we transform our business, because we operate in markets with over $400 billion worth of opportunity.

So, we're trying to think about ways that we can upskill our people to focus on growth, efficiency, ways to improve our cost to serve while improving the customer and employee experience. We really try to create differentiation with our technology, enhance the customer experience, and ArcBest View and what we announced in the middle of this quarter and when we announced the platform, that is a technology with AI built into it, and it is improving the customer experience. We have received incredible feedback with over 3,600 people signed up for that so far. When I think about the most impactful areas, obviously we have talked about city route optimization before.

We have seen over $15 million in benefit from that initiative. When I think about appointment optimization, we have a lot of people making appointments on a day-to-day basis, so we are focused on enhancing their visibility, communication to customers, texting customers, all those different type things around appointments. Matt Godfrey mentioned our suite of manpower planning tools, and that is just an analytical approach to day-to-day operations, which has really improved our Asset-Based productivity. I mentioned AI agents. 60% of our truckload shipments are now digitally augmented, which really just allows our team to focus more time on the customer experience and complex problems. We are still focused on automating the quote-to-cash cycle.

We are making good progress across the board there. I just feel really good about the technology roadmap. I feel like we are in probably the third inning of that, and I am super proud of the team and what we have been able to execute, because technology can get you a lot of benefits, but at the end of the day, it is people that make it happen. I love the expertise of our team and how we partner with customers to build these tools. That ultimately drives value for our customers, our people, and our shareholders.

Operator: The next question is from the line of Bascome Majors of Stephens. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Bascome Majors: Good morning, and thanks for taking my questions. In the asset side of the business over the last few years, it feels like it has been more about optimization than just growth for growth's sake. If an opportunity were to come up to consolidate and grow more significantly, is that something that you guys would consider? Thank you.

Seth Runser: Hey, Bascome. This is Seth. When I think about the ways we try to grow our business, it is really through the lens of capital allocation in a way. When we look at the way we allocate capital, we take a pretty balanced approach to that. We have organic investments that we make in the business, which I have mentioned a lot of those throughout this call already. We look at M&A and where can it accelerate a strategic gap we have, a customer need. Ultimately, it comes down to what value is it going to provide, and that is either a technology value, a scale value, a solution we might not offer.

We really think about it through that lens, and then obviously, how we return capital to shareholders, whether through our dividend or share repurchases. We really are attacking it from all lenses, and really where I think about where we want to invest our time and resources and effort is where are we going to see the most value for our customers. Because we are a customer-led organization, if we continue to invest in solutions that resonate with them, that provide differentiated value, I feel like that is going to win over the long term. We are focused on both, and we feel confident in our approach, and we will continue to evaluate opportunities as they come up.

Operator: There are no further questions at this time. We have reached the end of the Q&A session. I will now turn the call back to Amy Mendenhall for closing remarks.

Amy Mendenhall: Thank you to everyone who joined us today. I certainly appreciate your interest in ArcBest and hope everyone has a great day.

Operator: This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.

This article is a transcript of this conference call produced for The Motley Fool. While we strive for our Foolish Best, there may be errors, omissions, or inaccuracies in this transcript. Parts of this article were created using Large Language Models (LLMs) based on The Motley Fool's insights and investing approach. It has been reviewed by our AI quality control systems. Since LLMs cannot (currently) own stocks, it has no positions in any of the stocks mentioned. As with all our articles, The Motley Fool does not assume any responsibility for your use of this content, and we strongly encourage you to do your own research, including listening to the call yourself and reading the company's SEC filings. Please see our Terms and Conditions for additional details, including our Obligatory Capitalized Disclaimers of Liability.

The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.