Forward Air reports Q4 adjusted EPS $1.65, consensus $1.94

Reports Q4 revenue $481.2M, consensus $507.25M. Tom Schmitt, Chairman, President and CEO, commenting on fourth quarter and full year 2022 results from continuing operations said, "We had a record fourth quarter and a record year by a mile. For that, I extend my thanks to our amazing employees, independent contractors and business partners. However, we missed our own guidance for the fourth quarter of 2022 with revenue growth of 5% coming in below our guidance range of 7% to 11%, and reported net income per diluted share of $1.60 and adjusted net income per diluted share of $1.65 coming in below our guidance range of $1.98 to $2.02. We anticipated our continuing drive towards high value freight to yield a sequentially better fourth quarter than third quarter. We believe, however, the temporarily inflated inventory levels caused shipment sizes to fall faster and steeper than both we and our customers expected. As we mentioned in our mid-quarter update, we saw an unexpected decrease in the size of shipments from our customers with weight per shipment down more than 12%. As shipments become more full we believe so will our volumes. These headwinds led to a challenging fourth quarter and likely will impact the first half of 2023 until inventory levels normalize."