Why J.B. Hunt Transport Shares Are Trading Higher Premarket Friday

J.B. Hunt Transport Services Inc JBHT shares are trading higher after the company disclosed fourth quarter FY23 results and a dividend hike on Thursday after market close.

Revenue fell 9% Y/Y to $3.30 billion, beating the consensus of $3.28 billion. Operating revenue, excluding fuel surcharge revenue, decreased 6% Y/Y owing to a decline of 12% in Integrated Capacity Solutions (ICS) volume and 7% in Truckload (JBT) volume.

This was also impacted by a decrease of 10% and 13% in revenue per load excluding fuel surcharge revenue in Intermodal (JBI) and JBT segment, respectively, and a 12% decline in stops in Final Mile Services (FMS) segment.

Segment Change: On January 1, 2023, J.B. Hunt transferred most of JBT’s company-owned trucking operations to Dedicated Contract Services (DCS) and moved its less-than-truckload brokerage operations to FMS from ICS business.

Operating income fell 28% Y/Y to $203.3 million, and EPS of $1.47 missed the consensus of $1.75.

As of December 31, the company had debt of $1.58 billion and cash and cash equivalents of $53.3 million.

In the fourth quarter, J.B. Hunt purchased around 137,000 common shares for about $25 million and has about $392 million remaining under its share repurchase authorization as of December 31, 2023.

Dividend: The Board of Directors declared a regular quarterly dividend per share of $0.43, a 2% increase over the previous quarterly dividend. The dividend is payable on February 23, 2024, to stockholders of record as of February 9, 2024.

Also Read: Rail Service Revival Boosts J.B. Hunt’s Growth Prospects: Analyst Sees Significant Volume Expansion

Price Action: JBHT shares are up 3.60% at $204.03 premarket on the last check Friday.

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