聯邦快遞 (FDX) 2017 Q2 法說會逐字稿

Good day, ladies and gentlemen.

Welcome to the FedEx Corporation second-quarter FY17 earnings conference call.

Today's program is being recorded.

At this time I would like the to hand things over to Mickey Foster, Vice President of Investor Relations for FedEx Corporation.

Please go ahead, sir.

Good afternoon, and welcome to FedEx Corporation's second-quarter earnings conference call.

The second-quarter earnings release, 28-page stat book and earnings presentation slides are on our website at FedEx.com.

This call is being streamed from our website, and the replay and presentation slides will be available for about one year.

(Caller Instructions)

I want to remind all listeners that FedEx Corporation desires to take advantage of the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act.

Certain statements in this conference call, such as projections regarding future performance, may be considered forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Act.

Such forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors which could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements.

For additional information on these factors, please refer to our press releases and filings with the SEC.

Please refer to the Investor Relations portion of our website at FedEx.com for a reconciliation of the non-GAAP financial measures discussed on this call to the most directly comparable GAAP measures.

Joining us on the call today Fred Smith, Chairman; Alan Graf, Executive Vice President and CFO; Mike Glenn, President and CEO of FedEx Services, Chris Richards, Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary; Rob Carter, Executive Vice President, FedEx Information Services and CIO; David Bronczek, President and CEO of FedEx Express; Henry Maier, President and CEO of FedEx Ground; and Mike Ducker, President and CEO of FedEx Freight.

And now Fred Smith will share his views on the quarter.

Thank you, Mickey.

Welcome to our discussion of results for FedEx's second quarter FY17, and happy holidays to everyone.

Let me note on the front end, we are reaffirming our FY17 earnings forecast.

Now, remember that the earnings forecast is before year-end mark-to-market pension adjustments and excluding TNT Express integration and TNT's outlook restructuring program cost and intangible asset amortization.

But given those considerations, the range we put out there was $11.85 to $12.35 per diluted share, and of course, Alan has more detail on that later.

This will be a record peak for FedEx and to date, with the exception of several local weather issues, our service levels have been outstanding.

We appreciate the efforts of hundreds of thousands of FedEx team members who work very hard to make peak operations successful and who try to keep our Purple Promise daily, which states: I will make every FedEx experience outstanding.

Our traffic mix this year is a bit different by design, as part of our longer-term commitment to continue to grow earnings, margins, cash flows and returns.

Christmas falling on a Sunday has created anomalies in shipping patterns, and this week will see disproportionately higher demand versus other holiday seasonal patterns in the past.

FedEx's integration of TNT and FedEx Ground's continued integration of GENCO are well along and going very well, with high morale and excellent execution.

FedEx Express' integration expenses will peak next year in FY18, and Express operating margins should widen in FY18, FY19 and FY20.

As previously noted, there are significant operational synergies in the TNT transaction, particularly in Europe.

FedEx Express peak operations this year were a result in excellent year-over-year profit and margin improvements, foreshadowing the longer-term outlook I just mentioned.

Of course, our earnings outlook assumes continued modest global economic growth.

FedEx Ground results will be affected this peak, followed with improving margins later this fiscal year versus the current quarter.

This is due to the recent opening of four major hubs and 19 automated stations year over year.

It's one of the most remarkable things I've seen since I've been in business, to tell you the truth.

And two, an effort to grow Ground traffic in a more profitable manner than last year's trend at peak, which saw challenging growth, of 20%.

While we're committed to being a leader in the e-commerce market, it's important to recognize that non-e-commerce deliveries to residences and business-to-business traffic represents the vast majority of FedEx Corporation's estimated $60 billion in FY17 revenues.

Regarding business-to-business traffic, we are making major systems investments at FedEx Freight which will result in significant margin improvement by year end FY20.

We believe this initiative will change the LTL landscape in a major way.

Let me emphasize FedEx is much more than a last-mile carrier.

FedEx is a global transport and logistics Company that can connect almost every person and business in the world in one to two business days door-to-door, and we provide unique value-added services across many industries.

It's also important to reiterate that we do not manage our operating companies to maximize margins in each segment all the time, much less each quarter.

Over 92% of our US revenue comes from customers using both Express and Ground, and 76% of that US revenue is generated by customers that use Express, Ground and Freight.

We therefore may be investing in one segment of the portfolio at any given time to produce improved results for the Corporation as a whole in the future.

Now, before I ask Mike Glenn to comment on the economic environment and traffic trends, let me again thank him for his 35 years of dedicated service to FedEx.

At the end of the call I'll have a few concluding comments about Mike's contribution before his retirement at the end of this month.

Alan Graf will follow Mike with more detailed financial analysis.

Mike?

Thanks, Fred.

I'll open with our economic update and outlook, and then discuss our performance and business conditions in each segment including revenue, volume and yield, and provide some commentary on broader industry trends as we come to the close of another record holiday shopping season.

We see moderate growth in the global economy.

After growing just 1.6% in calendar 2016, we expect US GDP growth of 2.2% in calendar 2017, anchored by continued robust consumer spending and strong business investment.

Industrial production should rebound after contracting 0.9% in calendar 2016 to a forecasted 1.6% growth next year.

For the global economy we forecast growth of 2.2% for calendar 2016 and 2.6% for calendar 2017.

Now, I'll review revenue volume and yield trends by segment.

US Domestic Express package revenue grew 2% year over year during the second quarter.

Yield per package increased 3% as a result of improved rate and discount.

Fuel, for the first time in a long time, did not have a material impact on yield per package and revenue during the quarter.

Domestic Express package volume declined 1% year over year during the quarter.

FedEx International Export package revenue increased 2% year over year in Q2.

FedEx International Priority volume increased 2%, while International Economy volume also grew 2%.

International Export yield increased 1%, primarily driven by the positive impact of rate and discount changes, higher weight per package and region mix, which outweighed the negative impact of exchange rates.

Again, fuel did not have a material impact on yields.

Ground transportation revenue increased 9% year over year, while average daily volume increased 5% year over year.

Ground yield per package increased 4% year over year, benefiting from yield improvement in both Ground and SmartPost.

Fuel did not have a material impact on increases in revenue or yield per package.

FedEx Freight segment revenue increased 3% year over year in Q2.

If you exclude the impact of the fuel surcharge revenue, Freight revenue increased 3.6%.

Average daily LTL shipments increased 4% year over year.

The continued strength in shipment volume is driven by our sales efforts and reflects the speed, reliability and choice of Priority and Economy service for our LTL customers.

Revenue per LTL shipment in Q2 was flat year over year, and was impacted by slightly lower diesel fuel prices and lower weight per LTL shipment.

Excluding fuel surcharge revenue, revenue per LTL shipment was up slightly.

We're closing out what has been another busy peak season for FedEx, largely driven by the continued rapid growth of e-commerce.

Trends continue to evolve, as Fred noted, and we're proud of the year-long preparation and collaboration with customers that has allowed us to deliver outstanding service during this period of intense increase in demand.

As e-commerce grows, so does the challenge of peak, with multiple days of volume levels approaching or surpassing double our average daily volume.

It should be noted that this surge in demand is driven primarily by a relatively small number of customers.

Less than 50 large retail and e-tail customers are responsible for the majority of peak demand, so it's extremely important that we understand their forecast well in advance to allow us to plan resources properly.

While a few customers this year have experienced demand below their forecast, the majority of our large retail and e-tail customers are meeting expectations.

Again, we're proud of the outstanding service that we've been able to provide.

The secret, of course, is our people.

We continue to work hard to deliver for our customers throughout the holiday season and beyond.

The rapid rise in e-commerce continues to drive the need for alternative delivery options.

FedEx understand that the ways people live, work and connect are ever-changing.

We have long recognized that information about the package is as important as the package itself, and our long-term investments and focus on IT and mobile technologies has allowed us to offer customers truly innovative and useful alternative delivery options.

This of course includes FedEx Delivery Manager, which gives customers access with a phone or tablet to options such as appointment delivery and the ability to reroute packages to one of our FedEx office locations or third-party locations for secure pickup.

We continue to have strong growth and demand for Pack Plus, which features dedicated packing professionals and supplies inside FedEx office locations.

The professionals at FedEx Office work with customers, large and small, to provide standard and customized packaging options for even large, bulky and fragile items.

None of this would be possible without the dedication of our more than 400,000 team members at work right now around the world to help the holidays arrive.

Our service levels have been outstanding, with on-time deliveries at record levels, even on some of the busiest days in the history of FedEx, and it's all because of our people.

I want to share a special acknowledgement and commend them for their hard work and outstanding effort this peak season.

Alan?

Good afternoon, everyone.

I have a couple of introductory comments and we'll then move to my financial review and outlook.

First to Mike Glenn.

Mike, in our 35 years of working together, we have done literally scores of earnings calls.

As this is your last one, I want to thank you for everything you have done to help make this Company great.

You are a consummate professional and the best marketing, sales and communications executive anywhere.

You've been a fantastic business partner.

I look forward to many future years of friendship, [BZ].

(Applause)

Okay.

The FedEx Corporation second-quarter FY17 results.

Today we announced second-quarter FY17 adjusted earnings per share climbed 8.5% to $2.80.

Adjusted operating income increased through the inclusion of TNT Express and improved results at FedEx Express, as it continues to grow base yields and control costs.

This performance was partially offset by lower operating income at FedEx Ground and FedEx Freight.

Our effective tax rate was 35.1% for the second quarter and 36.3% for the first half of 2017 compared with 34.5% in the second quarter and 35.3% in the first half of 2016.

The first-half tax rate in 2017 has been negatively impacted by local country losses in some entities within TNT Express for which no tax benefit could be recognized due to the uncertainty as to the utilization of these losses.

This year-to-date negative impact was partially offset from the benefit of early adopting the accounting standards update share-based payments in the second quarter.

Longer term, as the synergies from the TNT Express acquisition result in greater international profits, we expect our effective tax rate to be lower than the rate in recent years.

The tax rates in 2016 were favorably impacted by the resolution of a state tax matter.

There was also a gain from the sale of an investment in other income that added $0.08 per diluted share.

Looking at Express, revenues increased 2% to $6.7 billion, as base yields improved and package volume grew.

Adjusted operating profit increased by $32 million, or 5%.

Adjusted operating income and margin improved as higher base yields drove revenue growth.

Base yield growth was driven by US domestic and International Export package.

Revenue growth due to volume increases was driven by International Priority package and Freight.

Expense growth was driven by merit pay increases, higher insurance costs, and increased depreciation due to aircraft introductions.

Fuel price and exchange rate changes had little net impact for the quarter.

Adjusted operating margin increased to 9.7%.

At TNT, revenues were $1.9 billion with an adjusted operating profit of $90 million.

Adjusted operating margin was 4.7%.

The TNT Express integration continues to proceed as planned.

We estimate approximately $250 million in expenses during FY17 as a result of the TNT Express integration and outlook restructuring programs.

We continue to expect the aggregate integration program expense over the four years to be in the range of $700 million to $800 million.

The TNT Express intangible asset amortization declined to $10 million in Q2, as we continue to update our purchase price allocation.

We now expect the intangible asset amortization to be $38 million in the second half of FY17 and $75 million for the full year.

We still expect our FY17 integration CapEx for TNT to be about $100 million, with total TNT CapEx at about $500 million.

We expect annual pretax synergies following the completion of the integration program in FY20 to be $750 million.

We will have a full update on the TNT integration outlook on the March call, and are not going to say much more about that today.

At FedEx Freight, higher average daily LTL shipments helped FedEx Freight increase revenues 3%.

Rates, competitive advantage, having the fastest published transit times in the LTL industry is driving higher growth in its Priority service.

The impact of lower weight per shipment and higher information technology expenses drove operating income lower.

Freight continues to face a difficult macro environment, and is working to manage costs and increase yields.

FedEx Ground volume growth in residential services and commercial business along with yield growth helped push revenues up 9%.

Operating income fell 12% and operating margin declined to 10.5% due to increased rent, depreciation and staffing related to network expansion, as well as higher purchase transportation rates.

E-commerce continues to drive revenue growth, which provides great opportunities, as well as significant challenges.

After challenges from higher than expected volumes in certain parts of the country during last peak, Ground invested increased capacity and technology.

This year we completed 185 facility projects, including four major distribution hubs, 19 fully automated stations and 69 relocations.

This equates to more than 10 million square feet of additional sortation space in the network.

All that comes at a cost above and beyond CapEx investment, including rent, building insurance and property tax.

We also incurred higher costs from significant additional of staffing as we hired and trained people, sometimes months in advance of a facility opening.

Of course, purchase transportation increased, as we pay contracted service providers to pick up, deliver and transport a growing number of packages.

While these buildings and their state-of-the-art technology are a significant investment, they ensure we have the capacity, flexibility and efficiency needed to handle e-commerce and commercial growth.

Although our network projects are impacting Ground's near-term profitability, the investments will enhance long-term returns and cash flow.

We are also working to better balance capacity and volume through improved revenue quality and margins.

These actions contributed to the second-quarter volume results, and are also expected to mute third quarter volume growth.

FedEx Ground home delivery and SmartPost network integration and delivery optimization initiatives continue.

They will increase facility productivity and delivery density over time.

We are also investing in technology to improve safety and mitigate rising insurance costs.

We are committed to increasing margins at Ground over the longer term.

Turning to our corporate outlook.

Based on the moderate economic forecast that Mike discussed, we reaffirm expected earnings before year-end mark-to-market pension adjustments and excluding TNT Express integration and outlook restructuring costs and intangible asset amortization, $11.85 to $12.35 per diluted share for FY17.

Our total capital expenditure forecast remains at $5.6 billion in FY17, including TNT.

This month we made a $178 million contribution that was required to our pension fund, and next month plan to make a $1 billion debt-funded voluntary contribution to our tax-qualified US domestic pension plans.

Now we look forward to answering your strategic questions.

(Operator Instructions)

Up first we'll hear from Tom Wadewitz, UBS.

Yes, good afternoon.

Let's see, I wanted to ask you a couple questions, or a couple broader question, you can answer what you want, on Ground.

I thought there was some comment, I don't know, Alan or Fred, about you were maybe holding volumes back a little bit, or constraining them to enhance profitability.

Just wonder if you could elaborate on that, and if I heard that right?

And then just whether the very large investments in network, if that's -- you recover profitability in Ground pretty quickly over the next few quarters?

Or does it kind of take longer, look further out for the Ground margin to recover a bit from what we saw in the quarter?

Thank you.

This is Fred Smith.

Let me make a comment about Ground expansion and then ask Mike to put more color on my remarks about Ground growth and our effort to manage our traffic a bit better than was the case in the past, and then Henry can jump in on margins.

First, as it applies to the network expansion, I mentioned this in my remarks, but these facilities that FedEx Ground has put in place are enormous operations.

Some of these things, correct me in I'm wrong, Henry, are like 250 acres plus.

And the amount of sortation equipment inside are measured in miles, not in feet.

And they're able to sort tens and tens of thousands of packages.

So as the scale of this network has increased, the reality is, we have to put the employees and the training in there.

You can't just open them up when the traffic is required.

And the only reason I bring this up is that I'm consistently surprised, maybe more so by the popular media, with just the misunderstanding of the gigantic scale of the FedEx and UPS operations.

And of course, the Postal Service as well, but the Postal Service is much more last mile rather than upstream.

So I just want to put that in perspective.

And given the level of capital that we put into the Ground business, it is very important for us that we get a good return on it.

Now, we don't have to get an immediate return, as I've said over and over again, and again today.

We don't manage FedEx Corporation as a sum of the parts.

We manage it as a broad market segment.

And a few years ago when Ground had less residential traffic, it was basically supporting increased growth in the Corporation's earnings when we put a lot of effort into reengineering the Express system.

So with that in mind, let me talk -- let me ask Mike, then, to give some color to our traffic management efforts.

Hello, Tom.

You've obviously followed us a very long time, and I think you understand we've demonstrated industry leading growth rates at Ground on a consistent basis.

But as I've said many times on this call, our objective is to strike the right balance between volume growth and yield improvement to maximize operating margins at each operating Company.

In that regard, we're constantly looking at opportunities to do that.

And over the last several months or so we've made some decisions to discontinue relationships with a few customers where we couldn't candidly agree on pricing and capacity requirements for this peak season.

And that's something we do on a regular basis.

But we made that decision earlier this year, and as a result of that we have been managing volumes and we'll continue to do that.

But clearly it's had some effect on this peak season.

But that was intentional on our part, and we'll continue to do that going forward.

Up next --

This is Henry Maier.

Let me just add, as Alan noted in his remarks, the integration of FedEx Ground home delivery and SmartPost yields a number of benefits that positively impact Ground margins.

To name a few, we get improved delivery density and revenue per stop.

We get lower cost through improved pickup and delivery geographies.

We get a lower cost structure due to fewer nodes on the network.

We reduce our postage expense, and we move to a single contracted service provider model.

All of these things will improve our operating margins over the longer term.

Alan wanted to add a bit to this reply as well.

Tom, thanks for the question.

Take it back up to the 50,000-foot level.

From a financial standpoint, earnings, EPS standpoint, this year's going just as I thought it was going to go and my team thought its was going to go.

We were well aware that this big increase in capacity and the hiring that we had to do in advance of peak was going to hurt the second quarter at Ground.

We also knew that Express was going to outperform expectations.

And if you take a look at Ground's second-quarter results starting in FY13 and look through this FY17, you'll see how well that they've delivered on that promise.

So we haven't changed the year.

We still expect to hit the year.

And this wasn't very surprising to us at all.

We knew this was coming.

It's a little shocking to see a 250 basis point drop year over year in the margin.

And as I said, it will probably be restrained a bit in the next quarter.

But believe you me, we have really good plans to get the returns, as Fred mentioned on this.

Next up from Barclays we'll hear from Brandon Oglenski.

Thanks for taking my question, and congrats on a career Mike.

So Henry or Alan, I want to follow up on that.

Your revenue was up 9% at Ground.

You're Op income was down 12%, so a delta arguably wider than 20%.

And if I look at your major hubs, I think at the end of last year it was like 33.

So if you add four to the mix and we just think about cost, maybe 10% to 15% additional cost from the new hubs assuming no revenue even comes from them.

The longer-term issue that I think is investors are concerned, that as you take more B2C residential deliveries, obviously there's less density there.

Is that where the margin degradation really is occurring, or is there some competitive pressure from the Post Office?

Can you guys talk more?

Because it feels a little bit more than capacity additions, but maybe we have that all wrong.

Brandon, it was 185 real estate projects.

In the history of the Company we've never opened up four hubs in a year, so it is a big deal.

If you ant to look at the expense line, the biggest drivers were rent appreciation, building insurance and property tax, which were all driven by the expansion.

In addition, in second quarter not only did we have to staff those facilities, and as Fred noted, these are sizable operations.

Some of them take not hundreds, but up to almost 1,000 people to staff and train.

And in addition to that, at the same period of time that these facilities are coming online, we're staffing up for peak.

So those are the two major expense drivers.

Obviously when volume goes up, revenue goes up.

We must pay higher purchase transportation expenses because we pay contractors more.

There's higher postage and higher line haul settlement in moving that volume.

Those are the drivers here.

Brandon, Let me just go back real quick to my comments where I said we're working to better balance capacity and volume to improve revenue, quality and margins.

We have opportunity there.

We have an opportunity, I think, to be better priced for the very precious capacity that we offer, not just during peak but all season long, all year long.

So we have opportunity on that side as well.

Yes.

Let me just add one other thing here because I think you hit the nail on the head.

It relates back to Mike Glenn's comments.

As I mentioned in my remarks, what keeps the lights on here, the vast majority of our revenue in FedEx Corporation is business to business.

And a lot of it is business to consumer, but it's not e-commerce.

It may be all kinds of things.

We look at these accounts every day.

You'd be surprised.

So e-commerce is basically residential deliveries.

And you have to keep in balance the business to business and the business to consumer e-commerce, or you can put extreme pressure on our Ground business.

So that is exactly what we were doing in making the decisions on these accounts that Mike mentioned.

So no question, we're trying to manage that in an appropriate manner, because just business to residential business?

The Postal Service is the biggest of all, makes no money at it.

That should tell you something right there, and they're making millions of stops a day.

So you can't be into our side of the business and not manage this.

That's a very good point that you bring you up.

Now we're going to do two Internet questions.

Okay.

Here are two Internet questions.

Well, this is from Ken Hoexter.

Where can you continue to increase technology investments to decrease the need for peak seasonal hiring?

We're going to ask Rob Carter to mention this, but let me just emphasize one more time.

The FedEx Ground system is the most automated such system that you could possibly imagine.

The reason for that is FedEx Ground was built in the age of computerization.

So if you go to these great big facilities, it may require a lot of people to offload and load trucks, but it requires no people to sort things.

Now the FedEx Express system is a bit different because you have to have the flexibility to move things from one ramp to another and on down the line.

But these things are marvels of automation.

And over time we will get even more out of this automation.

And in that regard I'll ask Rob Carter to comment on it.

Well, that's right, Fred.

In fact we have 105 fully automated facilities in the Ground network now, not just the hubs that we're talking about but the auto stations that exist that drive incredible automation in that network.

And that automation contributes not only during peak, per Ken's question, but all year long.

My button's pushed.

There's just no light on it there for the microphone.

Sorry about that.

But virtually all of our technology investments and operations contribute to increased efficiency and productivity throughout the operation, and they are incredibly valuable to us.

Route optimization, for example, is driving incredible efficiencies.

As we're out on the road we're increasing route density and stop density all across the network in Freight, Ground and Express with the route technology.

Mike also mentioned in his comments the customer-facing technologies, which are improving these efficiencies as well.

Things like Delivery Manager that are giving customers more choices that increase security and convenience, but at the same time with those choices customers are then driving into some of our convenience network, increased stop density and route density, that improves our operational efficiency as well.

So all down the line, everything from analytics about better ways to load trailers to sensors that are automating and optimizing scan technology, are driving really incredible efficiencies in the network.

And all this is already in market today but is being perfected year by year by year to increase and improve efficiency in the network.

So the answer is yes, Ken.

But the reality is, it's improving efficiencies all year round, not just in peak.

So by the way, for those of you don't know, I didn't give the paid commercial announcement.

Ken is with Merrill Lynch.

So I should have said that.

Next question.

Are FedEx Ground ISPs seeing any increased competition or wage pressure in hiring delivery drivers?

David Vernon, Bernstein.

Henry?

Hey, David.

This is Henry Maier.

Not that we're aware of.

I would add here we're increasingly challenged in seven to nine markets to find package handlers.

Those markets tend to be markets where many of our customers are operating fulfillment centers, and we tend to try to source those handler jobs from the same pool of labor.

And as a result of that we're seeing, particularly this time of year, the need to increase hourly pay rates, offer surge pay and peak bonus pay in an effort to source an adequate number of people to staff these facilities.

We'll go take questions from the call.

Back to the phone.

We'll hear from Scott Group, Wolfe Research.

Thanks.

Good afternoon, guys.

Wanted to ask about Express.

So we saw that the US Express volumes turned negative.

Just curious if you have any insight on kind of the deceleration of volume there?

And then Alan, on Express margins, we typically see good margin improvement sequentially from the first quarter to second quarter and didn't see that this year.

And any thoughts on what's driving the margin sequential -- the lack of sequential margin improvement at Express this quarter?

Thanks, Scott.

Let me answer the question by telling you that, first of all, we're he very proud of the quarter we just finished.

It's our record highest quarter we ever had, $654 million of FedEx Express segment is the highest we've ever had, the second highest operating profit margin we've ever had in the history of our Company at 9.7%.

Sequentially, oddly enough, you asked the question and I actually knew the answer.

It's four years in a row that we've actually had in the second quarter increasing profits and increasing margins, and actually since the profit improvement plan went in, in FY13 we're up 140%.

So how about those numbers?

On the issue of the volume in the United States domestic, we had some issues in the volume off the West -- the East Coast, primarily due to Hurricane Matthew.

We had a typhoon too that actually hit the West Coast.

We had a little bit of an issue on both sides of the coast for us.

But in the main, we were about where we thought we were -- would be.

The overall yield increased so that our revenue for domestic packages went up 2%, and across the world it's actually gone up 2%.

For us we're in the sweet spot.

Our costs are right where we want them to be and our profits are record high.

This is Alan.

As to Q2 over Q1, nothing to worry about there.

It's mostly just a bucketful of little timing issues.

I think just keep watching how we do on the year-over-year quarters and how we finish out the year.

And I think you'll be fairly pleased.

There was also at the Express segment a single customer who moved some traffic out of the quarter in the last part of the quarter that hit into peak.

So absent that, it would have been an up quarter.

So that's a little bit of an item that you see in those numbers.

From Citi we'll hear from Chris Wetherbee.

Great.

Thanks.

Wanted to ask about pricing.

So it sounds like there's a couple of accounts that you've walked away from to some extent, but wanted to get a sense of the momentum around pricing and how you think about pricing out what you've stated?

And I agree it's a very valuable capacity and network as you go through these peak seasons.

Just wanted to get a sense of that balance as you're incurring these costs, particularly on the Ground side, how you can offset that?

And what you think maybe the potential is over time of pricing this business.

This is Mike Glenn.

Let me first say that I think the pricing environment is pretty stable at this point.

I think our yield improvements that we've noted here today will continue to be industry leading type year-over-year improvements.

We'll wait to see if that's the case, but if you look at our pricing management, our yield management activities over the last several years, you can certainly say that's the case.

Having said that, I've also said for a long time that the most important thing that we can do regarding peak is to make sure we price right year-round.

If we get the pricing right year-round, we'll be fine at peak.

We just have to manage the capacity.

Beyond that, we're not opposed to looking at alternatives for the valuable peak capacity that we have, and we'll continue to explore options in that regard as the market continues to grow at a substantial rate.

So we're pretty pleased with how we've taken on these revenue management activities to date.

I think we've demonstrated time and time again we're not afraid to walk away from a relationship if it's not in our best interest to do so.

We'll continue to do that.

And we'll be open-minded about other opportunities to maximize the value of the network we have.

So let me mention one other thing here that seems to be not clear to a lot of people.

These huge facilities that we're opening up at FedEx Ground are being opened with the firm belief that our FedEx Ground traffic is going to grow, whether it's B2B or whether it's B2C.

And for all of the reasons that Rob Carter mentioned to you and Henry commented upon, these facilities when they open up aren't nearly at their max capacity.

So as more volume goes through these sorting facilities, the marginal cost of sorting, because it's all automated, is shockingly low.

So there's huge amount of leverage into these network investments, or as Alan and I both have said, we wouldn't be making them.

Now you get to the point on the yield side of the house, because you start talking about pickup and delivery and line haul expenses versus the network infrastructure.

There's where it's important to have the appropriate mix of traffic so that you keep your line haul and your PUD cost at a reasonable relationship.

But the bow wave of putting these fix facilities out will be accretive to margins as more volume goes through there, regardless of whether it's B2B or B2C.

And particularly as Henry puts one network together with these initiatives that he's described to you and which culminates, I think, in FY19?

FY20.

FY20.

So that's why we say with some confidence these results will pop back up.

You can't just put these facilities out and operate them at full capacity day one.

They are put out there in advance of volume that we think will be growing over many years and will be accretive to volume -- accretive to profits, sorry.

Let's go back to two more Internet questions.

Okay.

Two more Internet questions.

Could you please provide us with an update on the integration of SmartPost in the Ground?

Well, that's timely.

Have you begun to incorporate dynamic capabilities?

And if not, when do you expect this to ramp up?

Amit Mehrotra, Deutsche Bank.

Henry?

Thanks for the question.

Listen, there's three distinct phases of the integration of SmartPost into Ground.

And I apologize because we probably haven't been as clear on this as we need to be.

The first was dissolving the corporate entity and moving SmartPost employees and management into Ground.

That happened back in September of last year, September of 2015.

What I would call phase two was the beginning of the diversion of outbound SmartPost volume from their facilities into Ground hubs, which helped improve load factor, drove down line haul costs and improved service.

There are two parts to what we call delivery optimization, or internally here we call it the terminator.

The first part of that came in January of 2016, which was really the ability to manually divert volume that we knew had a high likelihood of matching the Ground package, or better yet, just needed to be in the Ground network.

The second phase of the second part of this comes in July of 2017, next summer, when we will get the ability to virtually divert packages where the system will see matches and automatically divert them out of SmartPost into FedEx Ground.

We won't fully realize the benefits of that capability until FY19 and beyond.

So I have several questions here on the election and what we think that might mean for FedEx.

In fact, there are two or three of them.

I'm going to hold that for -- and I'll address it a little bit later.

But let me get some more, for lack of a better word, technocratic questions out of the way here.

There's one about how we handle foreign exchanging hedging following the acquisition of TNT.

Will their program be carried over and implemented?

That's from Brian Ossenbeck, JPMorgan.

Alan?

Thanks for the question, Brian.

What we find at TNT is a excellent program, very well thought out, well controlled and well executed.

We are getting our hands around what our total corporate strategy is going to be for hedging.

We will be hedging.

We'll probably be using a lot of instruments.

But we'll only be hedging known exposures that we believe are real.

And at the end of the day, with where the dollar's been going you can't hedge it all the way.

You've got to continue to use pricing.

I don't know where you think the euro's going to end up, but I know where I think it's going to end up.

No amount of hedging's going to protect us from that and that profitability translation.

So it's a mixture of hedging and pricing.

Now we'll have questions from the call.

And our next phone question will come from Jack Atkins, Stephens Investment.

Great.

Thanks for the time.

Could you comment, or just expand on your comments, around the Freight segment and your expectation for improved margins there in 2020?

What do you think's going to be driving that?

You mentioned how you think this will impact the overall industry.

Would just be curious to get your expanded comments on that.

And then more broadly, when we think about the three different segments, everything seems to be pointing to 2020 being a very big year in terms of all these projects coming together.

Is there any sort of thought of maybe putting together some long-term guidance for the consolidated corporation, given that time frame?

Yes.

Thanks for the question.

This is Mike Ducker.

Just a word or two about the FedEx Freight margin.

It's certainly our goal to deliver sustainable double-digit margins for the Freight entity.

We've had good progress on productivity.

Our yield, in terms of contractual increases, is improving.

And you heard of the investments that Fred's had at the outset in terms of new technology.

Those are both in safety systems installed in our Company, and also some legacy systems which we expect to greatly improve overall efficiency and productivity.

So those are some of the components for the improvements that we expect at FedEx Freight in the future.

Yes, it absolutely is customer automation that also connects all the backend systems together, so.

The answer to, are you we going to give you any long-term guidance is no.

I will tell you that it's not a switch where all of a sudden, boom, in 2020, we have this Nirvana.

We'll be improving every year, all the way up and through 2020 and beyond.

I've tried to give you that forecast and the General Counsel came over and grabbed my tie and started pulling it.

(Laughter).

We'll go to our next phone question.

It's from Scott Schneeberger, Oppenheimer.

Thanks very much.

This is the first quarter of International Priority volume growth in about two years, and also nice International Export yield.

So curious, just if you could elaborate a little bit on what drove it, how sustainable is it.

And Fred, maybe I'd pull you into the political discussion, just thoughts on trade influence there.

Thanks.

You're right, we're very pleased with that on the international front.

And I think it's our expanded service capabilities and offerings, quite frankly.

We have a different array of offerings now.

We have a deferred service offering in the marketplace, and that's growing very nicely, 4% overall.

International Priority now has more space and capacity in our existing fleet, and that's now growing, too.

Our sales team is very comfortable selling both.

So I would say across the world, and especially in Asia and the United States back to Asia, we're doing very nicely.

In fact, this quarter we're doing, starting in December, as Fred mentioned in his comments, and Mike Glenn, we're off to a very good start.

So yes, we're pleased.

We continue to see it going that way, and those are some of the reasons why.

Two more Internet questions.

Well, there's a couple of questions on tax, and I'm going to have Alan answer this.

I would just say this on the political side of the house.

There is a lot of confusion and concern over what has been proposed in the House bill, as most of you know, particularly this border adjustment.

Having said that, I do think that there will be tax reform, which will be beneficial to us.

And I'll ask Alan to put his thoughts on that.

The question came from Helane Becker at Cowen.

Thanks, Helane.

It involves discussing the potential impact of 100% expensing significant earnings that could be -- outside the US that could with repatriated and impact to our healthcare plan.

So let me take those in reverse order.

We have an outstanding healthcare plan for our teammates, but it does not meet the definition of a Cadillac plan.

So like everyone else, we'll be watching these developments as they unfold, but we're very pleased with what we're delivering for our teammates.

At May 31 we had about $1.6 billion of permanently reinvested offshore and have about $775 million cash offshore.

We currently plan to use that cash to fund Express TNT needs offshore, and have no plans to repatriate that to the US.

That also is a statement that says we're not going to be taxed on those earnings that we've left outside.

If we are, we probably will bring some of that back to pay those taxes.

The bigger issue for all of you to look at longer term for us is the features that are in the GOP blueprint and President-elect Trump's plans that we like a lot.

Those include materially lowering the tax rate, the effective territorial treatment of foreign earnings and current expensing of CapEx.

We think that will positively impact our top line through stronger economic growth, and of course, the bottom line potentially in a very big way through the lower tax rate.

Having said that, we are concerned about the border adjustability concept and are trying to figure out how it would affect us directly, as well as our customers and trade and global growth in general.

Right now there's a huge debate going on that.

So as always, the devil's going to be in the details and we'll just have to report back to you later as this begins to unfold.

But if you think about our tax rate this year in the 36% to 37% range, a 20% tax rate would be mighty fine Christmas gift.

Let me just add some detail on what Alan just said.

Alan mentioned that we're not a Cadillac plan at the moment.

The reason we're not a Cadillac plan is because we adjusted our plan when the Affordable Care Act to move to more consumer-driven healthcare with much better tools for our teammates to buy healthcare more expertly and at lower cost.

We did things like put in clinics at our high employment locations, and we also gave all of our employees HRAs in order for them to pay for some of their deductibles and so forth.

So we avoided hitting the Cadillac tax because of the steps that we took.

Now, if ACA is not modified in that respect, given healthcare inflation, there's a good chance we would hit the Cadillac tax in the out years which would result in truly onerous taxes on the benefits above the Cadillac tax level of 40%.

So one of the most important things that we would like to see in the reform of the Affordable Care Act is to do away with the Cadillac tax limit.

And that would give us the freedom to do some other things in our healthcare that we might not be able to do as long as we're on that trajectory towards a 40% excise tax.

It really penalizes excellent healthcare plans like we have relative to other folks.

So it's important to understand that context of our healthcare plan design which was a reaction to the Affordable Care Act and the very significant cost that would be incurred and the excise tax on the Cadillac tax plan.

I might say just parenthetically to that, that this past year we paid how much in ACA taxes, was it, Alan?

$65 million.

$65 million in extra taxes that would have gone into our healthcare plan but went into the Federal Treasuries in the form of ACA taxes.

It was so much per covered life, I think, or plan participant, I forget which.

But $65 million.

This thing has been a major, major issue to employers who have good healthcare plans like we have had, and we've tried to keep great healthcare plans within the context of the ACA.

Okay, one more.

So there are about three or four questions here on macro and trade in particular.

There's one from David Vernon.

There's another one from Amit Mehrotra of Deutsche Bank, David Ross of Stifel.

I'm going to put this all together, if you don't mind.

Obviously we are very concerned about the trade issue, which is one of the reasons that I gave a speech on December 9 at the Competitiveness Institute, which was scheduled long before the election results were known because both the Democrats and the Republicans were running on anti-trade platform.

So if you go to policy.

FedEx.com, you can read that speech.

It is not a polemic and it's not a political speech.

It is just a factual speech which points out that one in five Americans' jobs are related to trade, and we have a trade surplus in services in trade.

We have a surplus when you take the 20 countries that we have free trade agreements with.

So the prospect of significantly reducing trade is, in our opinion, significantly dangerous.

And the proper approach is to lean into trade and try to remove barriers, which by the way, the Trans-Pacific Partnership did to our exports, not to stop people from selling products and services to us.

So I hope that that will make a difference in the debate out there.

I would point out there's an excellent article in Barron's by, I forget the gentleman's first name, Epstein, which sounds very similar themes.

And again, it's fact-based.

It's not politically based.

So we hope these things will be considered.

And I think what Alan said to you about the border adjustable tax is spot on.

This is just very destructive of trade.

It's not the proper solution to the problem.

I think if they lowered the tax rate and went to territorial it would accomplish 95% of all of the benefits they're looking for and ignite a significant investment boom in the United States.

It would solve the inversion problem.

So they've got some very, very good people in this Cabinet.

And finally, I think the second largest economy in the world is China.

In the speech I just mentioned we were very direct on our own experiences with China and Japan in terms of their tendencies to engage in mercantileist practices.

And we feel very strongly it's in China's best interest to open up their markets.

And many of the things the Chinese administration are trying to accomplish would be facilitated by opening up rather than keeping their markets closed.

So we're worried about it, but we hope that all of these facts will be carefully considered before the Congress or the administration does anything which might be injurious based on the facts of the matter.

You can also get a copy of that speech on the Investor Relations website.

Let's now take some questions from the live call.

Our next phone question comes from Ben Hartford, Robert W. Baird.

Thanks for that perspective there, Fred.

Just to quantify your outlook here for 2017, there's a lot of uncertainties as it relates to the 100-day plan and what will actually will come to bear in 2017.

But the markets and investors have become certainly optimistic about 2017's growth post the election.

But you guys took down your US IP growth forecast by 10 basis points for 2017.

And I'm just wondering the thought process behind that reduction in the face of what appears to be some optimism from the broader equity markets as it relates to reaccelerating growth in 2017.

Whatever was there was probably related to the increase in the dollar.

Mike, put more detail on it.

The drags come from energy and inventory, and those are the main issues.

And although the dollar remains strong, it's also a headwind to manufactured exports.

And those were the primary issues.

I would consider that a minor adjustment, especially if you look at the year-over-year change, it's a pretty significant turnaround.

And the good news is, we carry things both ways.

So what you pick up on the sandpile, you ought to find also on the swing, or whatever that old saying is.

Next up from Merrill Lynch is Ken Hoexter.

Great.

Good afternoon.

If we can just return to the volume discussion a bit.

You talked a little about walking away from some Ground, Express being down 0.5%, US freight pounds were down almost 0.5%.

Are you -- would you step back and slow some of the investments here, or are you growing too fast relative to what you're seeing?

Is there something on an e-commerce, is it slowing or is it just losing share?

I just want to understand on a big, maybe volume picture.

And then just Alan, just a throw-in.

I want just reiterate your target.

Does it include the $0.15 of gains from the quarter, the $0.08 and the $0.07, are they in the new, the reiterated target?

Well, let me take those if I could.

In the Freight segment, I think we noted that the average weight per shipment was down.

Our shipment, actual shipment growth is up.

We continue -- .

I was talking about US freight pounds in the Express side.

I don't know if that was Post Office lost or anything like that.

Well, the $1 that I just mentioned is having an effect on that, and so that's the main issue there.

I think Fred already mentioned and Dave mentioned, the timing of a large account has affected the Express volumes during the quarter.

We're not concerned about that whatsoever.

The issue with Ground, the Ground segment which involves SmartPost, was a decision we made on some specific accounts.

And as I've told you many, many times, we're going to be disciplined about that.

We're growing at a rapid rate.

We continue to grow rapidly.

If you look at our performance over the last several years, we've had industry-leading growth rates.

But at the same time it's important that we balance growth with improvements in yield and make sure we get a proper return, given the investments we're making.

We're confident with the level of growth that we see going forward as it relates to the investments we've made.

Let me just add more detail on it, just what I was saying a moment ago.

We have a fantastic sales force all over the world.

So traffic levels are affected on the margin by exchange rates.

So when you have the dollar running up to the extent that it has here recently, which has been significant, US exports are not as affordable and attractive to people in other areas.

So it puts a lot of pressure on US exports.

On the other side of the coin, with the diminution in the value of the euro or any other currency, it obviously makes their goods less expensive to the United States.

So you will see with some adjustment, disproportionate traffic growth there, given the fact we've got great salespeople on both sides of all of the oceans.

I don't think you should read into that on these small [perturbations] anything more than exchange rates adjustments.

Now over the longer haul, assuming there's good macroeconomic policy, which quite frankly is not the case in most places around and hopefully will be the case with tax reform here, you'll see economic growth, and even with exchange rates you'll see volumes growing.

And of course, as always the fact that we think and have said before, that we have strategies that allow us to take market share, particularly in the Express segment, which we will benefit from in the next several years.

Not very strategic question, but if there's any confusion let me straighten you out.

The accounting standards update for share-based payments, which was a $0.07 benefit in the quarter, is in the tax rate.

All right, so it's in the tax rate range I gave you as well for the [variance] in adjusted guidance I gave you for the year.

As to the gain on the sale of an investment, because this rose to the level that it did of materiality of $0.08, we thought we'd alert you to that.

We have hundreds of little bitty items that go plus and minus in every quarter that we don't talk to you about because they don't reach the level of materiality.

But this one did.

So it's also in the range, but it's only $0.08 and the range is $0.50 wide.

I would point out in the second quarter, year over year our tax rate was higher.

And our tax rate is complicated as we absorb TNT and work through our new tax planning structure, and we'll wait to see what comes out of Washington.

So stand by.

That's the one that I got the least confidence about.

But we'll keep at it.

Our next question today comes from Brian Ossenbeck, JPMorgan.

Thanks for taking my question.

Just a quick one.

If you could give us an update on, as you work through some of these volumes that you've been talking about, how are the non-conveyable package annexes working?

I think you said you had six built out for peak.

Is that something that you're also pulling back on, or is this something you might look to add permanent capacity to handle some of those larger packages if you're able to, of course, price them accordingly?

Great question, Brian.

Just a couple things.

One is, we've had non-conveyable capacity in our network going all the way back to, I think, the first year we started in business.

I think the change is the rapid growth rate we're seeing in these things as people get more comfortable ordering just about anything over the Internet.

We had eight annexes for non-conveyables this year at peak.

I think only two of those we intended to be permanent post-peak.

But I will tell you that we still have some peak left here, but the early reports are this has been a home run in terms of keeping large, very difficult to handle packages out of our hubs by virtue of the fact that we've had such terrific service performance this year, and our hub productivity has been excellent as well.

So I would say that this is something that we will stick with.

I think we still have some work to do in terms of where we site them.

And I think I mentioned this on other calls in here.

There's also some pretty promising advancements in material handling technology to handle these kind of packages.

And as we learn more about that and as we experience whether the benefits that are promised are actually there, I think the next step will be trying to figure out how we retrofit existing facilities with that new material handling technology.

I would just add that as you know, we've made several pricing adjustments to make sure that we are being paid appropriately for the service that we're providing.

We'll continue to review the growth in this segment.

And if additional pricing actions are warranted, we'll certainly take them.

Our next question will come from Amit Mehrotra with Deutsche Bank.

Yes.

Thanks so much for taking the question.

My question relates to getting a sense at a high level just how revenue growth for the Company should or could translate to earnings growth over time.

I certainly appreciate that there are a lot of moving parts and some timing items.

But if you could just help us understand just from a structural standpoint where you think incremental margins should be or could be, because they were pretty weak in the fiscal second quarter for understandable reasons, maybe.

But if you could just give us some sense of where you think it should be, what strikes the right balance between returns and investment.

And when do you think you could get to that sort of optimal level?

Thanks so much.

Let me answer this at the strategic level.

We've been saying for a couple of years now that we believe FedEx Corporation's earnings, margins, cash flows and returns will go up.

So let me reiterate that again, that we believe that to be the case.

The reason we think that they're going to go up is because the structure of our networks are such that there is leverage in those networks.

And in the Express system, for instance, we're re-fleeting much more efficient.

We're moving our international economy in non-asset systems.

We have much more capacity in Europe.

The pickup and delivery density in Europe and the Ground situation, I just mentioned the fact that these investments in these facilities, as more and more volume goes through there, they are accretive of and by themselves.

In the Freight area we are very confident that the technologies that we have, which by the way allowed us for the first time in the history of the LTL business to offer both a Priority and Economy service.

Nobody had the technology to do that.

It would have been literally a scheduling impossibility, absent the sophistication of the technology.

Now we're applying that same technology to get more leverage out of our facilities in terms of throughput, cross-dock, if you will, in freight, better loading.

We have robots under test that -- I could go on here all afternoon.

There are just numerous places where we think we have increased earnings leverage with increased volume.

An equal part of that, however, is to be, as Mike Glenn has said several times, you have to be disciplined.

The reality in the transportation business, and for that matter broaden it to the transportation and logistics business, these markets are so huge you can get a lot of volume that is completely non-compensatory and just not make any money.

And there is a large number of transportation and logistics companies that prove that every quarter, making no money.

Some of them pretty damn big.

We just have a lot of leverage points, and that's why we say what we have said.

If that changes, we'll say that too.

But we're not prepared to give you, despite my best efforts to do so over the General Counsel's objections, to do what that is.

Alan is very good at giving you the ranges at the start of the year.

And we're very confident that we can increase our margins, cash flows, earnings per share and our returns with what we're doing.

I'm going to say one thing again that I said in my opening remarks.

This is an enormous enterprise.

And I can't tell you on any one given quarter that we're going to have everything lined up in every segment.

If I did that, it would be incorrect and misleading.

What I can say is that we think we can manage to those metrics I just gave you.

Our final question today will come from David Vernon, Bernstein.

Hello, thanks for taking the call.

I was just wondering if maybe Henry or Alan you could help us think about the Ground margin outlook and the Ground revenue growth outlook over the next couple of quarters?

Obviously you're taking some more steps to be more selective on which customers you're taking in.

Should we be expecting this mid-single-digit volume growth rate, or is this a one-time anomaly?

And then do you think this will be our trough year on Ground margins with recovery next year?

Do you think we may still be working through this thing as we get to that 2020 goal?

Just trying to get a sense for how to adjust our medium-term expectations on the margin trajectory and the volume trajectory at Ground.

David, this is Fred.

I think we need to leave it with the broader themes that we laid out there.

Again, I know from y'all's standpoint, if we could be more precise on a quarterly basis we will.

We expect Ground volumes, Ground revenues and Ground margins to go up in calendar 2017, and certainly in FY18 based on the traffic trends that -- and yield trends that we see and the leverage in the investments that we've made.

So I don't think you can take one quarter and extrapolate something, and -- but I think I'll just leave it at that to give you the best guidance I can.

And if we could get it better than that, I have to tell you, I'd be happy about it to see it inside.

There's just too many moving parts to do it otherwise.

Fred, do you have concluding remarks?

Yes.

Let me conclude first by thanking you all for being on this call.

I'd like to express the appreciation not just of myself, which I'll come back to, but the SMC who is all sitting around here, and the Board of Directors who met in our normal quarterly meeting just a week or so and passed one of the most effusive resolutions of praise I've ever seen in business, and I've seen a lot of these.

So all of us, your partners here at FedEx, Mike, thank you for your 35 years.

Mike and I have worked together for 25 years directly, told other people his office was right next door.

There's nobody that has made more contributions to this Company's success than you have, Mike, and that includes this speaker.

And I have to tell you, the professionalism and industry knowledge, the sales and marketing prowess in particular, your sense of humor, wry though it may be on anything other than Ole Miss football results.

(Laughter).

I think it's the measure of the man, I've said this publicly, that I think knowing him, all things considered, Mike would have loved to stay here and stayed in the band and had some fun over the next two to three years because we believe, just as I was saying to David there, we think they're going to be very, very good years.

But he and Donna have a special needs child, and they're making the right priorities.

And I think that says everything you need to know about Mike Glenn's character and his commitment to his family and putting priorities in the right place.

So thanks, Mike, for a job well done.

I have Mike for 30 hours, how often, a month.

30 hours a month.

So we've been calculating, does that start when he comes in the door or when he comes on the fourth floor, as a consultant.

And we'll be utilizing that treasure trove of knowledge that he has.

So thanks again, Mike, and well done.

(Applause).

Thank you for your participation in FedEx Corporation's second-quarter earnings release conference call.

Feel free to call anyone on the Investor Relations team if you have additional questions about FedEx.

Thank you.

Again, ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude today's program.

Thank you all for your participation.