Earnings Call Transcript - KNX Q1 2022

Operator, Operator

Good afternoon. My name is Christian and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Knight-Swift Transportation First Quarter 2022 earnings call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. Speakers for today's call will be David Jackson, President and CEO; and Adam Miller, CFO. Mr. Miller, the meeting is now yours.

David Jackson, President and CEO

Hey Christian, I appreciate it. Good afternoon everyone. Thank you for joining our call. I know, what can I say? We enjoyed, I guess, the last near full year break from live conference calls, but I guess we're back now. We've decided to reintroduce the quarterly conference call and plan to hold call on an ongoing basis, so you'd start to see this every quarter now. We plan to touch on quite a few topics today and have slides to accompany this call. The slides are posted on our investor website, which is investor.knight-swift.com/events. Yes, Dave Jackson is here. I'm glad to have you back. I have been, and we're excited to spend the next hour with you. It is amazing to think it has been four years since the last call, boy how things have changed. In addition to the global pandemic that none of us saw coming, our business has transformed rather significantly over that period of time and then we have Swift Transportation who is since call it second quarter 2018, which was the last earnings call. Arguably, Swift is now the most profitable truckload carrier in the industry. We are in the LTL business with more than $900 million of revenue. Free cash flow on the last earnings call we did was $52 million, this quarter it is $352 million or maybe what another little fun fact is, we were $99.6 million of adjusted net income on the last call, this one it's $225 million for this quarter. So all of this has been done while derisking and diversifying our model which we plan to talk about. We've got quite a bit pent up, so hopefully you'll bear with us as we walk through these slides and talk about our business.

Adam Miller, CFO

Thanks Dave. So scheduled to go until 5:30 PM Eastern Time, during the call we plan to discuss topics related to the results of the first quarter, provide an update on current market conditions, and update our full year 2022 guidance. Following our commentary, we will answer as many questions as possible. In order to get to as many participants as possible, we're going to limit the questions to one per participant. And I know this is our first call back in a while, so please don’t try to sneak a second question in as a follow-up question. Just remember those tricks. So if you have a second question, please feel free to get back in the question queue and we'll answer as many as time allows. If we don’t get to your question, you can call 602-606-6349 and we'll try to connect back with you later today. So with that, I'll refer you to the disclosure slide and note the following. This conference call and presentation may contain forward-looking statements made by the company that involve risks, assumptions, and uncertainties that are difficult to predict. Investors are directed to the information contained in item 1A Risk Factors or Part 1 of the company's annual report on form 10-K filed with the United States SEC for a discussion of the risks that may affect the company's future operating results. Actual results may differ. Now, we will move on to Slide 3. This compares our consolidated first quarter revenue and earnings results on a year-over-year basis. We continue to generate meaningful revenue and income growth, both organically and via acquisitions and demonstrated the operating leverage of our business. Each reportable segment improved both revenue and margin, which ultimately led to a 49.4% increase in revenue and an 82.7% increase in adjusted operating income on a consolidated basis. GAAP earnings per diluted share for the first quarter of 2022 were $1.25, which represents a 62.3% improvement from the prior year, and our adjusted earnings per share came in at $1.35. Both GAAP and the adjusted earnings per share include a $13.1 million after tax loss in other income or expense from an unrealized mark to market adjustment in our investment related to Embark Trucks. This loss reduced our adjusted earnings per share by $0.08. And now we'll move to the next slide.

David Jackson, President and CEO

Thanks, Adam. I'm going to start here with Slide 11. Our objective has been to build a successful industrial growth company with consistent double-digit returns on tangible net assets. This requires multiple growth avenues that necessitate diversification of revenue streams to mitigate seasons and cycles. It requires massive network building to accumulate economies of scale, which we have done with over 200 facilities representing approximately 3,000 acres in the right places with employees, equipment, and execution for our customers that enables us to operate with industry-leading cost efficiency and create value for our customers that yields abundant revenue opportunities. We've seen huge demand for our trailers that electronic logs have changed supply chains to using trailer pools, as opposed to paying for detention when a driver can't immediately be loaded or unloaded upon arrival, which historically, prior to the regulation in 2018, went largely uncharged to the supply chains from small carriers. Consequently, we've been able to provide our customers additional capacity while still using trailer pools when we hire the power-only from small carriers. The power is the truck and the driver moving our trailer. This has been hugely successful with more customers and small carrier demand that we can keep up with. It has the potential to be a massive growth platform, one we've been designing and implementing technology along the way over the last couple of years to further remove friction and maximize the use of this platform, which in essence is our freight network of profitable loads combined with our trailers. We will continue to share more about this in coming quarters as additional technology is rolled out. The significance of the trailer in our industry's largest trailer fleet of 71,000 truckload trailers makes us a more resilient company. In 2019, when index spot rates between brokers and small carriers were nearly cut in half, contract rates endured better than in any other negative cycle since deregulation. Most contract business uses trailer pools on at least one end. Non-asset brokers offering one truck and one trailer to need to be immediately loaded or unloaded is no longer a viable alternative as it was in previous cycles, and it was exploited heavily in those cycles. Hence, traditional non-asset brokers have struggled to have more than single-digit load volume growth in what has been the strongest freight demand in history. It's about value creation and electronic logs changed economics, and large trailer fleets are finally being rewarded and can mitigate volatility for the additional value that we create to the supply chain. Further evidence of this trend, and that the increased resilience in our truckload model is that over 90% of the truckloads that we move involve a trailer pool on at least one side if not both. It was never that high before this regulation took effect in early 2018.

Adam Miller, CFO

And in addition to steps that we've mentioned to mitigate the seasonality and cyclicality of our truckload business, our revenues come from more diverse sources than ever. Over 40% of revenue comes from non-truckload services, and 14% of revenue is multiyear dedicated resulting in only 43% of our total revenues coming from the irregular route truckload service. Next on Slide number 12, you can see how our changing revenue diversity is leading to a diversity of earnings as well. This chart on the left shows the percentage of adjusted operating income from each of our segments and our other non-reportable services since the Knight-Swift merger in 2017 through the first quarter of this year. We are pleased to report meaningful contributions in earnings from each of these areas. I'd also like to point out that in 2017, virtually 100% of our earnings were generated by our Truckload segment. For the first quarter of 2022, this percentage of adjusted operating income has moved to 64%. Keep in mind that this reduction in our truckload earnings percentage has changed while at the same time we more than doubled our truckload earnings from a 2017 year combined pro forma Knight and Swift earnings of $319 million to $786 million for the full year of 2021. The chart on the right shows our rolling four-quarter adjusted earnings per share since the Knight and Swift merger. During this time, the EPS has moved from $2.16 per share to $5.24 per share.

David Jackson, President and CEO

Next on Slide 13, shows the scale of our network across our various brands and services throughout North America. The graphic highlights our locations by brand including major truckload locations at Knight-Swift, Abilene, Barr-Nunn, and our LTL locations of AAA Cooper and Midwest Motor Express or MME, also our warehouse locations. In total, as mentioned, we have over 200 sites across the U.S. and Mexico. The size and scale of our network allows us to provide end-to-end services to our customers, the opportunity to link various solutions to optimize each brand, and collectively afford a significant volume power. I don't want to say that our network can't be replicated. There's just nothing that rivals what we have and we're just beginning to leverage all that can be done with this network. Next to Slide 14, just a glimpse into some of our ESG-related activities, sustainability and being good stewards to all stakeholders, including the community and the environment are important and a priority to us. We're making progress towards our multiple goals, including the near-term goal of a 5% reduction in CO2 grams per mile by 2025. We've made major investments in safety-related technology and experienced a 37% decline in our combined DoT recordable crash rates since 2018. Supporting worthy community causes and supporting individuals seeking education and training to better themselves have long been part of our culture, now more so than ever. On Slide 15, we will provide a bit of an outlook. We see the contract rates continued to be strong, which is pooling capacity from the spot market to be locked up and committed contractually. There's extraordinary demand for trailers right now. Different than 2021, we do expect to see and have seen some seasonality to 2020. Produce and beverage are typically the first seasonal upticks in the year. We typically don't see those until the middle part of the second quarter which we would expect to see. Used equipment is scarce and at all-time high prices with very limited access to new trucks or new trailers, all of which is creating a very high barrier for any growth. Fuel, of course, further discourages capacity additions at the moment speaking industry-wide.

Adam Miller, CFO

We expect strong LTL demand to continue throughout the year. Driver hiring continues to be difficult. The drug and alcohol clearinghouse continues to make the industry safer, but does disqualify a meaningful amount of drivers each month. The cost of everything is on the rise, especially for those that don't have economies of scale, speaking particularly to small carriers that we might compete with. Cost per mile has been irreversibly increased in many ways, in many areas. For perspective, the peak in rates in 2018 seems insufficient to cover small carrier costs today. Okay, so this will be our last slide, and then we'll jump in to take calls. So Slide 16 outlines our guidance for the full year 2022. We now expect full year 2022 adjusted EPS to fall within the range of $5.20 to $5.40. This is an increase from our previous quarter guidance of $5.10 to $5.30. During the first quarter, bid season was robust and we expect full year double-digit contract rate increases with larger increases occurring earlier in the bid season and now moderating as the bid season progresses, and spot rates, we expect those to continue to moderate. We expect tractor count to remain stable through the year with a modest sequential improvement in miles per tractor as we improve our seated truck count. Strong Intermodal margins in the first half of the year and then normalizing into the high 80s or low 90s by year-end. And we expect load volumes will grow sequentially and expect to surpass year-over-year numbers in the second half. Logistics, we expect that to grow by about 30% with margins in the high 80s to low 90s. And with LTL, we're expecting to grow through the year and improve our margins towards the mid-80 goal that we referred to. We expect other revenue and income to grow when compared to the prior year as well. There's still going to be inflationary pressures from driver expenses, maintenance equipment, and non-driver labor will continue to be inflationary; we're feeling pressure really everywhere in our business. Gain on sale was elevated in the first quarter, but we expect to see that still at a much higher level than in a normal year, but begin to moderate in the back half of the year. And then we expect our net cash CapEx for the full year to be in the range of $550 million to $600 million with our tax rate to stay around 25% for the year. So these estimates represent management's best estimates based on current information available. Actual results may differ materially from these estimates.

Operator, Operator

This now concludes our prepared remarks. We'd like to remind you that this call will end at 5:30 Eastern. We'll answer as many questions as time will allow. Please again, keep it to one question and if you can't get to your questions, you can dial 602-606-6349 and we'll do our best to follow up promptly. We will now entertain questions.

Jack Atkins, Analyst

Okay, great. Good afternoon, guys. Thanks very much for taking my question. So I guess let me start with the one that's probably on the top of mind for most investors, and most analysts on the call. You guys did a great job, I think, laying out the steps you've taken over the last several years to diversify the business and make it more resilient to cyclical upside or downside of the freight markets. I guess as we look forward, nobody has a crystal ball, but what do you think that translates into in terms of the potential risks to earnings if we were to go into a more challenging freight market? And we think back to 2019, your earnings were down sort of mid-teens versus 2018. Do you think the changes that you've made in the business use that somewhat as we kind of think about what could come next for the freight markets? I'll just hand it over to you and let you kind of talk about that.

David Jackson, President and CEO

The business profile has changed significantly. In our prepared remarks, we've discussed much of this. Looking at our business, it's important to recap the amount of volatility we are experiencing, which supports my main point about having difficulties finding a trough EPS that is below 4. This situation is quite different from 2019, as the structure of our business has evolved. Approximately 43% of our business is involved with regular routes, excluding dedicated services and others. Notably, 90% of this segment is linked to trailer pools, meaning we face a limited number of competitors who can bring in large quantities of trailers for nationwide bids. Additionally, 24% of our revenue is variable, and the new agreements with our rail partners provide us with some flexibility in the market. Currently, we also have 13% coming from LTL services, which is historically very resilient, and we're keen to grow this segment organically and through acquisitions. The remaining 6% comes from rapidly growing other revenue streams that aren't directly tied to freight rates. Therefore, even when we account for the possibility of losing 9 to 10 operational ratio points compared to our truckload performance in the first quarter, we still foresee an annual EPS figure starting with a 4, which is markedly different from past cycles as we try to predict future developments. The supply of equipment is extremely limited, and its useful life is short. The industry has failed to provide enough new trucks to replace aging equipment. OEMs are not accepting new orders this year and haven’t opened the order books for 2023. They’re struggling with timely deliveries, pushing last year's orders into this year, and we expect similar delays going forward. Their dealers are currently facing allocations. In previous cycles, when discipline was lacking and there was oversupply, we saw dealers engage in speculation and financing companies becoming aggressive. However, this scenario is not occurring now.

Adam Miller, CFO

Again, I think talking about the used equipment market, those that have ventured into grow their truck count from a small carrier perspective, their cost structure is very different to where it has ever been. And so they can only afford to drop rates to a certain level before they exit our space because they're buying equipment that probably three to four times what they would have purchased it in the previous cycle. So that's one thing to watch really closely. And as Dave mentioned, there's less urgency, but there's still a firm market up there. There's still quite a bit of demand to secure trailer pool capacity. Even looking at some of the indices, although they're off their record highs, they're still very elevated when you compare them to other prior years or even averages over a period of time.

David Jackson, President and CEO

So Jack that was two answers for one question.

Jack Atkins, Analyst

Well, Dave and Adam thanks very much for that. I really appreciate the time. I'll hand it over.

Bert Subin, Analyst

Hey guys, good afternoon and thanks for the time.

David Jackson, President and CEO

You bet, Bert.

Bert Subin, Analyst

So Adam, you said you expect spot rates to continue to moderate, but ex-fuel rates are already down roughly 20% from the peak. What makes you think that trend will continue to persist? And how does that make you assess when you guys get to that four handle?

Adam Miller, CFO

Well, when we were thinking about spot rates, we're thinking about what we do in our business. I think what you see in some of the indices is really more of a broker to small carrier transaction. Anything that we do spot right now is going to be at a premium to where our contract rates are. And as we improve our contract rates, we make more commitments, we'll probably see less exposure to spot and probably see those rates come a little bit tighter in to where our contract rates are and there's maybe less urgency to move goods. But I think what we do on the contract side, which now represents closer to 85% of our low count on our regular route trucking that I think puts us in we can offset any impact from the fewer spot loads that we're able to haul.

Bert Subin, Analyst

So not a follow-up, just a clarification, you weren't making any sort of prognostication about spot rates from here. You're just talking about sort of how you guys are switching to contract?

Adam Miller, CFO

Yes. I think we're just thinking about the progression of the market and how we would navigate through it and how it would impact our business in the back half of the year.

David Jackson, President and CEO

Yes, Bert, that comment isn't related to what we anticipate regarding DAT rates or anything sourced from Internet Truckstop or the relationship between small carriers and brokers. We don't engage in those spot rates through brokers. In this context, we believe you'll notice some seasonality, which aligns with what we've already observed. The moderation comment refers to us having a larger percentage of our revenue coming from spot rates than usual. However, we are experiencing very strong contractual renewals, arguably stronger than we expected, which is naturally transitioning some of that high spot revenue into long-term, more stable contracts. It's important to distinguish between these two aspects, so please don't interpret this as a forecast for the entire industry.

Bert Subin, Analyst

Thanks, Dave. Thanks, Adam.

Ravi Shanker, Analyst

Thanks. First of all, gentlemen, thank you so much for bringing the conference call back, and I genuinely mean that. You won't regret it.

David Jackson, President and CEO

Yes, Ravi. Thanks for the question. Yes, we've seen a shift. I mean, this is the first time where you've had such strong freight demand. And truthfully, the non-asset broker has been somewhat on the sideline, if not marginalized in this. And we kind of have this new term we referred to, which is traditional brokerage. So within our own Logistics business, we kind of have the traditional brokerage, which we, to some degree, are running to stand still like some of the other large ones where it's hard to get above the single-digit load volume growth. Meanwhile, we have our power-only business that represents, give or take, 40% of our Logistics revenue. And we saw load count improvement year-over-year in the first quarter of 166%. And so, now collectively, our Logistics business was up about 77% or 76.9%. So that gives you a sense of what the pace is. And keep in mind, this is at a time where small carriers have opportunities, other opportunities to haul loads and so they're choosing to come in. You saw that our gross margin for our Logistics business was 20.2%. I can tell you that the power-only margin was higher. It pulled that average up. The average for the traditional brokerage was much lower. And so this isn't a case where we are artificially propping up or we're in some way cannibalizing our business to make this work. And so there's no doubt that there is demand from both sides, from small carriers to participate in freight that they used to be part of, but no longer are because of shipper preference and demand to use trailer pools. So they have two days to unload a load as opposed to two hours to unload a load. And so there's no doubt that those forces exist.

Adam Miller, CFO

And we come with a logistics cell that involves trailers, that is not put into the brokerage bucket. They allow for as much growth in many cases as they can get from that service because it allows for them to keep the fluidity of that network, which has become so much more important to supply chain than it really ever has been.

Ravi Shanker, Analyst

And you are confident that this is not just a quirk last cycle, I mean this is a here to stay, right?

David Jackson, President and CEO

We believe this is a lasting change due to a regulatory shift that began on December 18, 2017, when electronic logs were mandated. While enforcement didn't start until April 2018, we observed that day in December when our brokerage saw the smallest carriers demanding rapid unloading and payment within two hours. This led the industry to start charging for detention. The reality is that such regulation should have been enforced back in January 2004 when the hours of service rules changed. At that time, we noticed that productivity decreased by about 8% to 10% in terms of miles per truck for those fleets that had the ability to audit their logs. Before the implementation of Electronic Logging Devices, we were striving to comply with the 2004 rules, which prohibited stopping the clock. The larger players felt the impact, as did we; our detention rates increased, making competition much tougher from 2004 to 2018. During that period, we primarily faced competition from larger brokers or third-party logistics providers working with small carriers who might have enjoyed more operational flexibility in comparison to those of us adhering to the 2004 regulations. Now that these rules are being enforced, they have significantly altered the trucking economics. Given the tight margins in this business, an additional $60 charge for a 350-mile backhaul, if it extends unloading time from two to three hours, translates to a 50% price increase. Historically, the inefficiencies for those smaller carriers were like a rubber band, with customers often unaware of the added costs. Thus, in 2018, we experienced immediate tightening as carriers were forced to cover the last miles, bearing the same productivity losses we noted in 2004. This shift is not just a temporary effect from the pandemic. An overview of 2019 illustrates the stark difference in spot and contract rates, with spot rates declining by approximately 50% while contract rates dropped only 5%, indicating an unprecedented gap largely due to the prevalence of trailer pool connections at that time.

Adam Miller, CFO

Ravi, if you look at what we discussed regarding Iron Truck Services, we are experiencing growth in other reportable segments. We are now a couple of years into building our maintenance network, operating out of around 29 shops, and underwriting insurance for thousands of carriers. We are genuinely addressing the challenges faced by small carriers. Our relationship with third-party carriers is evolving and no longer just transactional, as it typically was in a non-asset broker environment where brokers profit from small carriers' urgent needs to move loads. While this isn't the entire picture of how brokerage works, it's still a significant portion. We are discovering ways to foster a collaborative environment and move towards consolidation. We are positioned to assist these carriers by leveraging our size and scale, providing them benefits that we believe will lead to more competitive pricing. This pricing can be more sustainable through various market cycles and give us the variability we desire. What you see now should suggest that these factors are interconnected. Ultimately, efficiency prevails, which is why trailer pools are in such high demand within the supply chain; they maximize efficiency. We are introducing additional efficiencies for small carriers because we believe that this will enhance our own efficiency, enabling us to offer competitive long-term pricing and facilitate growth.

Ravi Shanker, Analyst

Great, thanks Dave and Adam.

Zach, Analyst

Hey good afternoon. This is Zach on for Todd. Sorry, it's Zach, but a question on LTL. So solid growth in terminals during the quarter. I guess, how do you guys think about your ability to continue to grow that business organically through the year? And is that through leveraging existing locations or maybe just additional terminal adds? And if that's the case, is there a cadence we should be thinking about in terms of those adds quarterly? And then conversely, just kind of your general thoughts on the M&A environment in LTL? Thanks.

David Jackson, President and CEO

Thank you for the question. We acquired six new facilities that are existing LTL terminals. There will be some preparation required to get these operational, and we hope to have a few of them up and running before the end of the second quarter. Between the third and fourth quarters, we plan to add more terminals, although a couple may not be fully operational until early next year. We identified a good opportunity in these terminals, which we successfully secured. Adam mentioned how linking the AAA Cooper and MME networks is creating revenue opportunities, and we are indeed experiencing this. So far, our performance in the LTL business over the past nine months has been excellent. January and February faced notable weather challenges in the Southeast, which affected our operations for about five weeks during those months. However, March turned out to be exceptional, and we maintained that positive momentum into the second quarter, contributing significantly to our mid-80s operating ratio. We're beginning to see the benefits of our collaboration, with new customer introductions and organic volume increases, which are also improving our rates. We're transitioning from two regional businesses to what could be described as a super-regional LTL presence, moving towards a national footprint. Being super-regional presents pricing advantages, and going national offers even greater pricing potential. We're in the early stages of exploring these opportunities. Adam, do you have anything further to add regarding our growth cadence throughout the year?

Adam Miller, CFO

Yes, as I mentioned earlier, we are discovering customer synergies by looking at the customer base of our Truckload business, which consists of very large shippers, many of whom were not part of the AAA or MME portfolio. As we introduce these customers and start onboarding freight, we see significant opportunities for growth and diversification in the freight mix for those businesses. We have already seen several of these successes beginning to scale, and we anticipate more of them as the quarters progress, which is exciting for us. Additionally, we are integrating the MME team into the AAA system, enhancing our connectivity with customers and improving the flow through the network. There is a lot of potential that was previously untapped due to the lack of integration between the two separate systems. We are also encouraged by the collaboration between the MME team and the AAA team as they work together to create the most fluid and cost-effective LTL network. As we aim to bring on more LTL providers, we now have a roadmap to understand how this can be accomplished.

Amit Mehrotra, Analyst

Thank you, operator. Hi Dave, hey Adam. I wanted to ask a couple of quick questions. First, the operating ratio last year was in the high 70s, reaching mid-70s at times. You demonstrated the effectiveness of the model, along with the successful Swift integration and a strong market. What would the situation look like in a significantly downturn market? I'm not suggesting that this is going to happen, nor are you, but I believe it’s an important consideration given our current discussions. Secondly, Adam, you mentioned that rejections have declined due to elevated contract rates, which makes perfect sense from a carrier’s viewpoint. However, I’m curious if shippers have reduced their tendered volume in response to developments in the spot market. Is that indicated by the decrease in hook or trailer pools? Could you elaborate on whether you've noticed any signs of shippers retreating from tendering volumes they initially committed to due to the changes in the spot market?

Adam Miller, CFO

I believe Dave briefly mentioned the potential challenges, especially regarding the Truckload segment. Our expectation is that the overall Truckload segment, which comprises the Swift and Knight businesses, will maintain an operating ratio in the mid-80s during a tough market, and possibly between 80 to the low 80s in a more stable environment. In favorable conditions, we might see operating ratios in the 70s. This pattern has remained consistent with the performance of the Knight business throughout different market cycles. Regarding tenders, as Dave noted, there seems to be less urgency in the market, resulting in some loads being tendered to multiple carriers without immediate acceptance. Customers are starting to make concessions on contract rates, which has led to an increase in commitments for these carriers, allowing them to accept more loads. The process has changed, reducing the need for loads to be tendered to many carriers to find available capacity. Ultimately, the rise in commitments has had a positive impact.

David Jackson, President and CEO

Yes, I would say we closely monitor customer responses, behaviors, and demand. We've noticed that some bids that started late last year and were awarded in the first quarter didn't receive as many commitments as anticipated. This led to a mini-bid soon after the regular bid, which aimed to gather commitments on those recently processed bids. Typically, this second round of bidding comes with higher rates, and we are observing that trend continuing. This situation was evident throughout 2021 and the latter half of 2020. The bidding season of 2021 set this expectation, and we still see it today. It indicates that there is a scarcity of the capacity needed in supply chains. When considering regular route capacity on a larger scale, which requires access to trucks and trailers in almost every market, even the larger players are facing challenges. Large truckload carriers have been shifting away from regular full truckloads towards dedicated options or alternatives, resulting in reduced availability. However, we are well-equipped and positioned in this area, which is highly valuable to our customers. It's important to be cautious when interpreting data from load boards, as the high-quality capacity that most shippers are looking for is not typically found on those boards.

Amit Mehrotra, Analyst

Okay, very good. Thank you very much.

Tom Wadewitz, Analyst

Yes, hey Dave, hey Adam. Thanks for the question.

David Jackson, President and CEO

It's Tom from UBS.

Tom Wadewitz, Analyst

You got it. Thank you and thanks for doing the call. It's great to hear you guys live, and so I appreciate it. I wanted to just get your thoughts on use of cash. You generated a lot of cash in the quarter. I think, clearly, there's an intention to expand these non-irregular route truckload businesses more aggressively. How do we think about the most likely uses of cash? I know when you do M&A, it's hard to forecast when that happens. But are you optimistic on doing LTL deals this year? Are you thinking there are other types of deals or just what's your kind of lay of the land and most likely uses of the pretty significant free cash you have on balance sheet capacity?

David Jackson, President and CEO

Thank you, Tom. The cash flow generation is impressive and may be somewhat underappreciated. Last year, we generated over $900 million in free cash flow, and in the first quarter alone, we generated $352 million, which is substantial. Our debt is at the lower end, if not slightly below, our target capital structure, positioning us well to continue making investments. We aim to grow in LTL, but we will only expand as reasonable opportunities arise. We've completed two deals in the past six months and are currently integrating those. A key aspect for future LTL deals is the success we've had with our current partners, demonstrating that our model works. For instance, Reid Dove, CEO at AAA Cooper, talks about how loads picked up in Birmingham, Alabama are delivered as expected to Bismarck, North Dakota by the anticipated carriers. We are behind the scenes, linking networks and facilitating this seamless operation in a way few others have done, especially on a nationwide scale. MME drivers enjoy driving for MME, just as AAA Cooper's drivers do. Our recent success, highlighted by an 859 operating ratio and ongoing revenue growth, serves as strong evidence for other individuals and families running regional LTL businesses. They devote themselves to their work, and we believe our approach resonates with them. We plan to continue investing in LTL and seek out additional deals that enable us to diversify and strengthen our growth as an industrial company. Additionally, if our stock price becomes favorable, we may consider buying back shares, having already repurchased nearly $150 million in stock this quarter. At some point, if our cash generation remains robust, we may also evaluate dividends, but our primary focus will be on investing in our current operations and pursuing acquisitions. Thank you for the question, Tom, and thank you to everyone for joining our call this afternoon. Please stay safe.

Operator, Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's conference call. Thank you for participating, and have a great evening.