Greenville, TN-based expedited trucking firm Forward Air this week reported strong profits for 2006 – though its net income stagnated in the fourth quarter last year – and announced giving the added title of chairman to president & CEO Bruce Campbell.
For the fourth quarter of 2006, Forward Air’s revenues jumped to $93.2 million vs. $89.1 million for the same quarter in 2005. However, net income stayed flat at $12.2 million. For all of 2006, however, profits rose 8.9% to $48.9 million on a 9.9% growth in operating revenues to $352.8 million compared to 2005.
“The difficult market conditions that we began to experience in the third quarter continued to provide an even more challenging freight environment in the fourth quarter,” said Campbell. “Despite this soft environment, we managed to post a 20.3% operating margin and achieve quarterly revenue growth thanks in large part to the significant increase in our logistics revenue. Additionally, while we experienced a 2.3% weekly tonnage decline during the quarter, we continued to see our weekly shipment count rise by approximately 2%.”
He added that while the carrier’s airport-to-airport freight business remains “extremely important,” more of Forward Air’s attention and resources will be focused on expanding its new services in 2007 – specifically P&D, truckload brokerage, value-added handling and airline road feeder services.
The company added that Campbell will officially assume the additional role of chairman in May, replacing Richard Hanselman, who will move into the newly created role of lead director.
