ArcBest Corporation Q2 2026 Earnings Call

Good morning. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the ArcBest second quarter 2026 earnings conference call. During the presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. Afterwards, we will conduct a question and answer session. As a reminder, this call is being recorded. I will now turn it over to Amy Mendenhall, Vice President, Treasury and Investor Relations. Please go ahead. Good morning.

I'm here today with Seth Runser, our President and CEO, and Matt Beasley, our Chief Financial Officer. Other members of our executive leadership team will also be available during the Q&A session. Before we begin, please note that some of the comments we make today will include forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, which are detailed in the forward-looking statements section of our earnings release and SEC filings. To provide meaningful comparisons, we will also discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures that are outlined and described in the tables of our earnings release. Reconciliations of GAAP to non-GAAP measures are provided in the Additional Information section of the presentation slides. You can access the conference call slide deck on our website at arcb.com, in our 8-K filed earlier this morning, or follow along on the webcast.

Now, I will turn the call over to Seth.

Thank you, Amy, and good morning, everyone. I'm pleased to report a strong second quarter with meaningful improvement in both earnings and operating margins. These results demonstrate the progress we are making across ArcBest as we execute our strategy, improve the customer experience, and operate with greater efficiency and discipline. Our performance reflects disciplined pricing, growth in tonnage from a heavier freight profile, and efficiency gains. Just as important, we continue to advance the strategic priorities that will strengthen ArcBest for the long term, from simplifying how we go to market and operate, to expanding our digital capabilities, and investing in the service and expertise our customers value. Matt will walk you through the financial results in a moment. Before he does, I want to provide you some perspective on the market environment and highlight the actions we are taking to build on this momentum.

Industry capacity has continued to tighten as truckload supply exits the market. Truckload spillover into LTL contributed to modest volume gains, and higher fuel prices increased revenue across the industry. We have not yet seen a broad-based inflection in industrial demand. However, recent manufacturing indicators have been encouraging, with PMI readings remaining in expansion territory. Taken together, these dynamics point to an environment that is gradually improving, and while conditions can shift quickly, we are optimistic about the direction of the market while remaining disciplined in how we manage our business and allocate capital. Against this backdrop, we continue to prioritize growing profitably, maintaining yield discipline, improving productivity, enhancing the customer experience, and advancing our technology roadmap. These efforts are contributing to our results today and reinforcing our confidence in the long-term targets we outlined at Investor Day.

None of this progress would be possible without the dedication of our employees. Throughout the quarter, our teams delivered the reliable service, responsiveness, and expertise our customers depend on. Their focus and consistent execution helped customers navigate an evolving environment and reinforced the trust ArcBest has earned over more than a century. I want to thank each of them for their continued commitment to our customers and to one another. That commitment to customer experience and execution is central to our strategy, and it shaped how we designed and built ArcBest View. Launched during the quarter, ArcBest View is our new digital logistics platform, bringing quoting, booking, shipment visibility, and reporting together in one intuitive experience. The platform gives customers a streamlined, modern way to manage their logistics needs with access to our supply chain experts when those needs become more complex.

Customer engagement continues to grow, reinforcing our belief that ArcBest View can improve the customer experience, increase digital adoption, and enhance productivity for both customers and our teams. The same focus on customer experience and execution is also shaping how we operate internally. Earlier this month, we announced organizational changes designed to simplify how we go to market, strengthen coordination across the company, and align our teams more closely around customer needs and operational effectiveness. As part of these changes, we are consolidating our brand structure, streamlining our organizational structure, and closing select service centers in smaller markets. The affected facilities represent approximately 1% of total doors in the ABF Freight network, and their operations will be consolidated into nearby locations. Collectively, the organizational changes are expected to generate approximately $40 million in annualized cost savings while improving our ability to serve customers and scale for future growth.

These were difficult decisions, particularly where employees and communities are affected, but they are necessary to create a simpler, more efficient, and more competitive ArcBest for the long term. Taken together, these changes strengthen how we go to market, how we operate, and how we serve our customers. Along with the launch of ArcBest View and the continued execution of our strategy, they position ArcBest to grow profitably, deliver premium experiences, and build on more than a century of trusted service. I want to emphasize that these actions do not represent a change in our strategy or our long-term financial targets. Rather, they reflect the next step in delivering on them. Now, let me highlight the progress we made during the quarter against our key strategic priorities. In our asset-based business, we continue to execute with discipline, balancing service, freight selection, pricing, and network efficiency to support profitable growth.

Improving market conditions contributed to tonnage growth, while our teams remain focused on moving freight through the network more efficiently and delivering the reliable service our customers expect. Technology and data are strengthening that execution. The continued expansion of our dynamic quote pool gives us greater visibility into demand and enables faster, more informed pricing and shipment decisions. This capability helps us be more selective about the freight entering our network, improve freight mix, and align available capacity with the opportunities that create the most value. We also maintained strong pricing discipline during the quarter. Our general rate increase and negotiated customer renewals reflect the value of our service and our continued focus on revenue quality. Importantly, pricing remained resilient despite higher weight per shipment, which typically places pressure on revenue per hundredweight. Managed Solutions delivered another exceptional quarter, with daily shipments reaching a record high.

Its performance reflects a strong pipeline, expanding customer relationships, and growing demand for tailored, integrated logistics support. Managed Solutions continues to differentiate ArcBest in the marketplace and represents an important source of growth across our portfolio. We are also making meaningful progress against our technology roadmap, with AI playing an increasingly important role in how we operate and serve customers. Our approach is deliberate and closely aligned with our strategic priorities. We are focused on practical applications that create differentiation, improve the customer experience, and enable our people to accomplish more. Initiatives such as city route optimization and AI-enabled capacity sourcing are already delivering productivity benefits. As we expand these capabilities, we will continue to apply AI where it can strengthen our people and processes, improve decision-making, and support profitable growth. As we move forward, we remain committed to making ArcBest simpler, faster, and easier to do business with.

That means continuously reducing complexity, improving how our teams work together, and aligning resources around the priorities that will matter most to our customers. These actions are sharpening our execution today and enabling us to build a more agile, more scalable organization, one that is well-positioned to deliver long-term shareholder value. With that, I'll turn the call over to Matt to walk through the financial results.

Thanks, Seth. Good morning, everyone. Our second quarter results reflect an improving operating environment and disciplined execution of our strategy. Stronger pricing, higher weight per shipment, continued growth in Managed Solutions, and efficiency gains drove meaningful sequential improvement in operating performance and reinforced our confidence in the long-term financial targets outlined at Investor Day. Higher fuel prices also benefited the quarter, although we view that as a near-term factor rather than a contributor to our long-term targets. Before reviewing our operating results, I want to provide additional financial context on the actions Seth outlined to simplify our organization, improve our cost structure, and strengthen our operating model. These actions include organizational and facility changes, consolidation of our brands, and the discontinuation of the Vaux freight movement system. Collectively, we expect the action to generate approximately $40 million in annualized run rate cost savings.

In connection with these actions, our second quarter GAAP results include $76.5 million of non-cash impairment charges related to the Panther trade name and Vaux equipment and other assets. Separately, GAAP results included an $8.8 million non-cash impairment related to office space in our asset-light segment. We also expect to incur approximately $6 million-$7 million of cash costs, primarily for severance and employee benefits and the disposal of Vaux equipment, with most of that expected to be recognized in the third quarter. These impairment charges and other related costs are excluded from the non-GAAP results I will discuss today. Turning to our consolidated results, second quarter revenue was $1.2 billion, up 16% year-over-year. Non-GAAP operating income was $74 million compared to $45 million in the prior year period, and adjusted earnings per share were $2.38 compared to $1.36 in the second quarter of 2025.

At the segment level, asset-based non-GAAP operating income improved by $21 million year-over-year, while asset-light generated non-GAAP operating income of $6 million, a $5 million improvement from last year. In the asset-based segment, second quarter revenue was $784 million, up 10% on a per-day basis. ABF adjusted operating ratio improved to 90.8%, 200 basis points better than the prior year period and 650 basis points better sequentially. Daily tonnage increased 5% year-over-year, reflecting an 8% increase in weight per shipment, offset in part by a 3% decrease in shipments per day. As Seth mentioned, the continued expansion of our digital quote pool is enabling greater selectivity in the freight we bring into our network, supporting higher weight, operationally efficient shipments that contribute meaningfully to profitability. We are also seeing a modest increase in truckload-rated shipments, which is further contributing to the higher weight per shipment during the quarter.

Billed revenue per shipment increased 13% year-over-year, supported by the heavier freight profile and a 4% increase in revenue per hundredweight, which primarily reflects higher fuel surcharge revenue. On the cost side, operating expenses increased for several reasons, including annual contract increases in union wage rates, higher fuel prices and purchased transportation expense, and increased depreciation expense associated with our equipment investments. In July, Asset-Based daily tonnage increased 8% year-over-year, driven by an 11% increase in weight per shipment and partially offset by a 3% decrease in shipments per day. The higher weight per shipment continues to reflect changes in freight profile. Billed revenue per shipment increased 10% year-over-year, primarily reflecting the heavier freight profile, partially offset by a 1% decrease in billed revenue per hundredweight. Excluding fuel surcharge, revenue per hundredweight declined in the low single digits, primarily due to changes in freight profile.

Historically, ABF's adjusted operating ratio has, on average, remained relatively consistent from the second quarter to the third quarter, excluding periods affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and the bankruptcy of a large LTL competitor. Based on current trends, we expect ABF's third quarter 2026 adjusted operating ratio to be generally in line with the second quarter. Our outlook assumes lower fuel surcharge revenue, partially offset by expected savings from the restructuring actions. Turning to Asset-Light, second quarter revenue was $439 million, up 28% on a daily basis year-over-year. Shipments per day increased 15% as strong growth in Managed solutions continued. Revenue per shipment improved 12%, reflecting higher rates associated with tightening capacity and increased fuel costs. We also made meaningful progress on productivity and costs.

Selling, general, and administrative expense per shipment declined 12%, driven by productivity initiatives and the higher mix of Managed business, which carries a lower cost to serve. Employee productivity reached another record, with shipments per person per day increasing 35%. Together, the improvements in revenue, yield, and productivity resulted in Asset-Light non-GAAP operating income of $6 million for the quarter, a $5 million improvement from the prior year period. In July, Asset-Light daily revenue increased approximately 28% year-over-year, driven by a 19% increase in revenue per shipment and a 7% increase in shipments per day. Higher revenue per shipment reflects a stronger pricing environment, including the effects of higher fuel surcharge revenue and tightening truckload market capacity. Shipping growth was led by the Managed Solutions business. Looking ahead, we expect third quarter non-GAAP operating income of approximately $6 million-$8 million.

This outlook reflects continued pricing discipline, productivity improvements, and anticipated cost savings from our restructuring actions. Turning to capital allocation, our priorities remain unchanged. We will continue to invest selectively in opportunities that support profitable growth and attractive long-term returns while maintaining a strong balance sheet and financial flexibility. Returning capital to shareholders also remains an important part of our balanced approach. Overall, our second quarter performance demonstrates the progress we can make as market conditions improve, and we execute with greater efficiency and discipline. We are encouraged by the improvement in industry fundamentals, the progress across both operating segments, and the actions underway to improve our cost structure. Combined with our strong balance sheet, these factors reinforce our confidence in our ability to drive profitable growth and make continued progress towards the financial targets outlined at Investor Day.

With that, operator, we are ready to open the call for questions.

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. If you have dialed in and would like to ask a question, please press star on your telephone keypad to raise your hand and join the queue. If you would like to withdraw your question, simply press the star one again. If you are called upon to ask your question and listening by a loudspeaker on your device, please pick up your handset and ensure that your phone is not on mute when asking your question. Your first question comes from the line of Brian Ossenbeck of J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead. Hey, good morning, everybody.

Thanks for taking the question.

Morning. Just a quick clarification first for Matt.

I know the fuel impact is transitory, but what was the impact in the quarter for ABF LTL and sort of, what do you expect that to be in 3Q? Has that sort of washed itself out? Just, Seth, stepping back, looking at the trends into July, seems like they're accelerating across the board for ABF. Doesn't sound like you're seeing or expecting a big inflection or getting a lot of truckload spillover Just yet. What do you think is causing that, and how do you feel about your ability, capacity to continue to grow here while maintaining service or even improving it? Thanks very much. Thanks, Brian.

I'll get started on your second question, turn it over to Matt on fuel to answer some of that. The way I think about July and just our third quarter outlook is really we look at our historical trends and tonnage generally sequentially from June to July decreases about 4.6%. We're down only about 1%. Shipments generally decrease less than half a %, right around a half %. We're in line with that. Weight per shipment generally goes down about 4.1% in our history, and we're down about 1%. That's all good signs that we're seeing improvement in the sequential trends versus history. When we look at our dynamic shipments, they are trending a little heavier, which is contributing to that stronger tonnage.

A lot of that has to do with the mix that we've seen as we've expanded that quote pool, like we talked about at Investor Day. We really expect ABF's third quarter adjusted OR to be generally in line with the second quarter, which aligns with history. Like we said in our prepared remarks, that outlook really reflects lower fuel surcharge revenue. We have unionized wage increases in H&W&P in July. We have some non-union increases going in as well. It also reflects the savings from those restructuring changes that we talked about. Really, the reason that we did the restructuring changes is to simplify how we operate, make it easier for customers to do business with, and ultimately accelerate that profitable growth and the cross-sell opportunities that we have. When I look at our pipeline, it continues to be strong.

When we see PMI and the different indexes, it's showing some underlying positive things, we just haven't seen that demand show up yet. Really, the way I look at it is we focus on things in our control, and we're positioned to take advantage in any environment. I'll turn it over to Matt to talk about fuel.

Yeah. Hey, Brian. Just thinking about the first quarter to the second quarter sequential change, just looking back at the team history, we always see meaningful improvement from the first quarter to the second quarter, about a 350 basis point improvement, on average. Certainly, with the dramatic rise in diesel prices during the second quarter, that did have an impact on our revenue. Certainly also had an impact on our cost structure as well. It does impact items even above and beyond just the cost of fuel certainly carries over to purchase transportation, other maintenance costs that we're seeing. There were also other nice drivers for the quarter, including the improvement in weight per shipment that we talked about on the call. Certainly pleased to see that trend. The nice pricing performance that we saw for the quarter was also an impact.

Just saw continued improvements on the productivity side if you look on a sequential basis from the first quarter to the second quarter, which is generally what you see just as we move out of weather impacts in the first quarter, and see just more shipment density in the second quarter. A number of different contributions for the quarter that I would highlight, but fuel was definitely one of them.

Sorry, how should we think about that in three Q? Just a similar factor, just going the opposite direction where fuel maybe becomes a bit of a headwind, you still have all these other tailwinds. Just thinking of it more holistically.

We're always looking at the outlook for fuel prices. We look at the short-term energy outlook from the U.S. Department of Energy. We also look at futures prices just to get an idea of where the market is headed. Certainly, that has moved back and forth here over the last couple of months. Just based on our latest read as we were setting guidance, it looked like we were going to be down a little bit in the third quarter on prices versus what we realized in the second quarter. We did bake that into our outlook, but even when you take that into account, we still feel comfortable with the flat guide that we gave for flat sequential OR performance for the asset-based business.

Your next question comes from the line of Ravi Shanker. Please go ahead. Great, thanks.

Morning. This may be a two-parter as well. Seth, first for you, can you just unpack the trigger for the restructuring actions right now on the cusp of the cycle and especially focus on the Vaux retirement because I know that was a big initiative for you guys. Matt, as a follow-up, just with PLS talking about the potential for getting the biggest rate increases ever, what do you think is the opportunity for you guys to push on yield? Do you think you can get maybe pushing double-digit rate increases going into the next mid-cycle? Thanks. Hey, Ravi. Thanks for the question.

This is Seth. The organizational changes that we announced a few weeks ago, really, they were designed to simplify ArcBest, improve efficiency, enhance the customer experience, and really allow us to deliver on long-term profitable growth. I said it in my prepared remarks, it's not a change in strategy. It's really an acceleration of what we outlined in Investor Day and really reflects that next phase in building a more integrated, scalable, and efficient company. Over our history and throughout this entire freight recession, we've continued to invest in technology, process improvement, commercial transformation, and our people alike. These recent actions really allow us to capture the full value of those investments by simplifying how we go to market, and we believe it's also going to improve the customer experience. We're bringing the brands together like we talked about.

We're also streamlining portions of our organizational structure, really to reduce duplication, improve decision making, standardize some of those best practices, and really better align our resources around the highest value opportunities. When you look at the actions that we took, we think it's going to improve customer experience and efficiency, like I said. The action on the ABF side, where we reduced about 1% of total doors, we still have 8% more doors than we had in 2021. We really believe these actions are about just creating a simpler ArcBest, improving customer experience, increasing efficiency, and really positioning the company to deliver long-term sustainable growth and long-term shareholder value creation. It really enhances what we outlined at our 2028 Investor Day targets.

Matt, I'll turn it over to you.

Yeah. Robbie, looking on the truckload rate side, I would say your comment about double digit increases, I'd say that's generally in line with our near term expectations, low double digit increases. Certainly we're very pleased with the asset light performance that we saw for the quarter with over $6 million of operating income, the $5 million year-over-year improvement. We are seeing some of those benefits from higher truckload rates accruing to the benefit of expedite. Certainly that tightening capacity is really helping demand for expedite services, the margins that we're seeing in that business. We are seeing those prices coming up in our truckload business, and seeing some of the impacts there, particularly as it relates to our contractual business. Just the continued growth in managed solutions has been a big help in that business as well.

Your next question comes from the line of Chris Wetherbee of Wells Fargo. Please go ahead. Yeah. Great.

Good morning, guys. Morning. Maybe if you could touch on the pricing environment a little bit.

I know, I guess yields ex fuel are down a bit, but clearly different freight profile, weight per shipment up significantly. We're seeing some of the volume dynamics maybe come in a bit better than seasonality, as you noted for the month of July. Can you talk about sort of pricing and how you think about the direction here? Are we seeing a degree of improvement? I know contractual rate increases is one measure to look at. How do you think about broadly pricing?

Yeah. Hey, Chris. This is Eddie. Yeah, we're really happy with where we are from a pricing standpoint. If you think about where we were last year and how we really started to focus on improving our LTL margins, we started seeing that show up in the first quarter. As we went into the second quarter, real excited to see that 5.8% annual negotiation increase number. We also implemented a general rate increase on June 22nd of 5.9%, That's holding very well. You did point out that when you look at revenue per hundredweight, it shows slightly down, That's really just a story of business mix and a heavier profile that's showing up in our system. We do feel like we can continue the momentum that we have right now, That's really our expectation as we go into the third quarter.

Your next question comes from the line of Jason Seidl of TD Cowen. Please go ahead. Thanks, operator.

Good morning, guys. I want to go back to the spillover business from the truckload side. If we look back, how much in terms of tonnage growth do you think you lost over the last couple of years, just so we can sort of try to conceptualize what there is to gain going forward? The other question I have is related to sort of the historical MoLo business. What changes have you guys made sort of post the SCOTUS Montgomery decision? How should we think about insurance costs going forward? Thank you. Hey, Jason. This is Seth.

I'll take both of those questions. When we think about the truckload migration to LTL, we're seeing modest improvements there where that freight's coming over. It's hard to give you an exact gauge of what the total or historically what that's going to be. Generally, we look in the shipments that weigh heavier than 10,000 pounds, and that's where we're seeing some improvement in that space. As truckload capacity continues to exit the market, as carriers continue to be pressured by margins, the Montgomery case, elevated fuel prices, all the things that you just mentioned, we believe a lot of those certain heavier, more complex shipments that historically have moved in an LTL network will start to shift back, and we're seeing the early signs of that. When you think about truckload multi-stops, that's just not in their wheelhouse, especially when freight rates improve.

I'm really pleased that we've continued to invest in our network, our fleet, our service capabilities throughout this entire cycle, which I think really positions us great for when the freight patterns start to normalize and those opportunities really do start to shift back to us. While it's still early, we believe the combination of that tightening truckload capacity and just improving freight fundamentals overall is going to make it so it's going to shift that freight back over to us. In terms of Montgomery and everything that's going on there, it's obviously an evolving situation.

Really to me, the Supreme Court decision provides just that additional clarity around the legal framework for broker carrier selection and claims, and reinforces the importance of strong safety, great compliance, carrier oversight practices across the industry. We think that's going to take some time to develop as insurance providers and shippers and carriers and brokers, everybody just evaluates the ruling and determines whether any changes to requirements, contracts, things like that, are necessary. Safety and discipline carrier selection's always been a part of ArcBest and how we operate. We maintain really a structured risk-based approach to third-party carrier onboarding and qualifications. We have ongoing monitoring to make sure that everything's on the up and up, and we believe those are important capabilities when we partner with our customers in managing our risk and their risk.

When you think about over time, it's really going to favor organizations that have well-established processes like ArcBest, have scale, have technology, and dedicated risk management teams, which we have all of those things. There's going to be continuing discussions around insurance costs and litigation trends, and I think we're still a little early there. We've been doing it the right way for a long time with strict processes around carrier vetting. At this time, we don't expect any change in our outlook and what we're doing. We're going to continue to monitor as the landscape evolves.

Your next question comes from the line of Jordan Alliger of Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. Yeah. Hi, morning.

Not sure if- Morning you discussed this fully, on the restructuring plan, can you talk about the expected pacing of the realization timing?

Is there a spread of that $40 million between asset light and the less than truckload that you could talk about? Is this augmentative to your longer term targets from the investor day? Thanks. Hey, Jordan. Good morning.

It's Matt. Yes, I'll walk you through that at a high level. In terms of the realization, we realized about $2 million of that cost savings in the second quarter. We expect to recognize about $6 million of that in the third quarter, and we expect to be at that full run rate of $10 million a quarter or $40 million a year by the first quarter of 2027. Just thinking about how that breaks down across the business of the $40 million, about 75% of that is associated with our asset-based business. On that remaining 25%, about 80% of that is associated with the asset light business, and a small amount, around $2 million, is associated with our box operation.

As you probably recall, those are expenses that we have historically removed from earnings on a non-GAAP basis. Just thinking about non-GAAP impact, the non-GAAP in tax, full impact is going to be around $38 million with the majority of that, again, concentrated in the asset-based business. When you think about our long-term targets, I would say these actions that we're taking really just further our view on the achievability of those targets. They're really more in support of them than something that we're viewing as incremental to them.

Thank you. Thanks. Your next question comes from the line of Scott Group of Wolfe Research.

Please go ahead. Hey, thanks.

Good morning. I wanted to get your perspective on the revenue trend, right? April was up 11 and then +9, +8, July up +7. Decelerating a little bit. Is this fuel dynamic at play? Maybe can you talk to this revenue per day trend, ex fuel? I don't know, just any color or thoughts on the trend.

Hey, Jordan. Hey, Scott. Sorry about that. When I look at revenue per day, I really try to go back to my customer conversations that I've had and what we're hearing from them. Really, we're not hearing as much about tariff action or all that different stuff. It's really around oil and diesel prices, manufacturing, inflationary impacts. Housing construction continues to be weak. We're seeing customers who are increasing very strong revenue, and then some that are declining. It's kind of a mixed bag as we go out. Overall freight demand continues to be kind of muted, like we said, but we do have a very healthy pipeline, which makes me feel great.

As that truckload capacity comes out of the market, we've had more and more customers come to us and talk about our supply chain solutions, which is why we saw incredible growth within our managed solutions segment. That really feeds all of our service lines, whether it be asset-based, truckload, expedite, all those different areas. There is no change in the dynamic philosophy and what we've gone to market. The percentages are about similar to what we saw in the first and second quarter. As we've expanded that quote pool, we've ended up having better freight selection. As that quote pool gets bigger, we need the same amount of shipments. That ultimately allows us to select the best shipment for the network, that's not only the best shipment to fill empty miles, for example, but also the most profitable.

That's where that mix and the heavier weight's coming from. As we talk to our customers and as I see the pipeline results continues to strengthen, that's why I was really happy about the ArcBest View launch because that's going to improve the customer experience, digital engagements, all those different things. Really, the way I look at this is we've built the company for any environment. We've invested through the cycle, we continue to invest in that position so as to say yes when the market does inflect.

Scott, maybe I would just add, really not a significant change when you look at the year-over-year from June to July. We were up revenue per day around 7.9% in June, and we were there right at 7% in July. There are some dynamics that are moving in different directions. Certainly, fuel is one where we saw that move lower a little bit, particularly earlier in the month. We were pleased to see that weight per shipment has continued to strengthen. We were at 8% year-over-year in June. Now we're at 11% year-over-year in July. It's nice to see that both on the core business and through the transactional business, some of those heavier weight shipments coming back in, which certainly has been helping our revenue per shipment metrics.

Okay, your next question comes from the line of Bruce Chan of Stifel. Please go ahead. Yeah. Thanks, operator, good morning, everybody.

Morning. Just wanted to get at some of the mixed impact questions from a different angle here.

I don't know if you can just remind us of what the dynamic mix looks like versus the core LTL volume, and whether there's any target that you want to manage to. I don't know if you can share it, any differences maybe in the volume or pricing trends that you're seeing between those two segments of the market?

Thanks, Bruce. This is Seth. When I look at our % mix, we don't disclose the exact % of what we do, dynamic or transactional and then versus core. The vast majority of our business is core LTL business. When we look at retention around those customers, it still remains very strong. They just continue to ship a little bit less because of the weaker demand environment. As the demand environment starts to improve, we believe that's going to create some outsized operating leverage for us because we still have all those customers at great prices. When you think about the transactional business, our dynamic business, all those different markets, it's really about helping maintain consistency in the network. We've spent a lot of time making sure that our service levels are at a great place, and we've executed on that the second quarter.

Our service is in an amazing place, and we hear feedback from our customers. Our internal NPS continues to improve. It's really about maintaining that consistency in the network with dynamic. What's really important to understand, and we've said this before, is we optimize our mix on a daily basis, and it's based on profit maximization based on what the current market is giving us and also available capacity there. As we expand that quote pool, we can be more selective in real time, which in turn improves profitability like we've talked about. You've seen the improvements that we've made over the long term, and these investments in our tools really give us greater flexibility, especially as the market turns.

We have some of the best visibility into our network that we've ever had in our history with all the tech investments we've made, and I expect further improvements as we continue to expand those capabilities.

All right. Thank you. Thanks.

Your next question comes from the line of Ken Hoexter of Bank of America. Please go ahead. Hey, great.

Good morning. Morning. I understand you're closing some facilities, 10 LTL facilities as part of the restructuring.

I get it's 1% doors. I think you said you're still up 8%. Maybe thoughts on where you think excess capacity is today. How should we see your ability to flex up into the up cycle, both across not just doors, but labor, physical doors, and equipment. It seems that, I'm going to ask two at the same time, but tons per day are outpacing seasonal norms into July. Maybe thoughts on why that shouldn't support an above-seasonal asset base margin. Is it simply fuel, or is there anything else in there? Thanks. Hey, Ken. This is Seth.

I'll start with the capacity questions that you had, and then if Matt Godfrey has anything to chime in, he can. We've said in the past that we really bucket capacity into three different areas, people, equipment, and facilities. The people side, we feel like we're in a great spot there. We can add people as needed. We have the most attractive wage and benefit package in the entire industry. We haven't seen really any recruiting challenges. On the equipment, we've invested over the long term throughout this cycle, have one of the youngest fleets on the road, and that allows us to flex the fleet up or down based off of demand and what the customer demand is.

On the real estate side, we worked on a long-term plan that we've discussed over the last four or five years, starting around 2020, 2021, and we've added over 800 doors to the network. We continuously optimize that network day in and day out, and we did a full review of the network and determined that these 10 facilities were not needed because we could service them at nearby facilities and not actually change the service that we were delivering to our customers. We've still added about 8% doors in strategic markets, where we see growth, service, or efficiency opportunities. I would estimate our capacity is around 15%-20% excess capacity, and that allows us to flex up or down based off of what the demand has given to us. Matt, I don't know if you have anything to add there.

Thanks, Seth. Yeah, as you said, there's three legs to capacity. We look at it from an equipment, a door, and a people perspective. We've invested in modeling around each of those areas. We continue to leverage our total cost of ownership model, and we understand all of our needs from an equipment basis by equipment type.

By location. We have great relationships with our OEM partners and feel really good about where our equipment's at, our ability to secure our equipment that we desire and keep that within our projected CapEx guidance. In a similar way, we've invested in manpower planning models, enable us to forecast our labor needs at the system and location level. Seth already talked about what we've done with real estate, but it's a continuous daily evaluation of our network. Really when you roll all those things up, the reason we invest in those so heavily, is that it enables us to service our customers with excellence, provide that premium experience, give us opportunities for profitable growth as we work toward achieving our long-term targets.

Hey, Ken, this is Matt Beasley. Maybe just to follow up on your question about the sequential OR in the asset-based business. Like we highlighted, we're expecting performance generally in line with what we've seen in history. If you exclude the 2023 quarter where we had just the significant impact from the LTL competitor bankruptcy, and you exclude the COVID impacted third quarter in 2020. We're generally in line. There certainly are going to be some puts and takes there. As we looked at fuel, like I said, just kind of looking at the short-term energy outlook, looking at futures prices, looked like that was going to step down a little bit. We baked that into our guide. We're going to have some offsets, expecting some continued strong performance on the productivity side as we move to the third quarter.

We did see the continued strength in weight per shipment in July. We see that moderating a little bit as we move through the balance of the quarter. I would say some potential for upside if for some reason fuel came in above kind of where we've been seeing it over the last few days, or we did see just continued strengthening in those weight per shipment trends.

Your next question comes from the line of Stephanie Moore of Jefferies. Please go ahead. Hi. Good morning.

Appreciate the time. I did want to circle back to a prior question and commentary on the asset light side of the business. I do think we kind of lump both MoLo and expedited together. As we think about what's just evolving over time in the brokerage industry and certainly from a liability standpoint that might be coming post the SCOTUS ruling, is there anything we should be thinking about as we think about maybe the different components within your asset light business? Especially as you kind of address vettings or what processes you already have in place. Wanted to follow up there and then I do have a follow-up to that. Thank you. Hey, Stephanie. This is Seth.

I'll start on that, if anyone on the team has anything to add, they can chime in after I get done talking. I'm really proud of the team for delivering $6.3 million in non-GAAP operating income in the second quarter, especially when you consider we only made $1.5 million in all of 2025. That's a meaningful change, and it reflects a lot of that strategic action that we've been taking. As you mentioned, we're really encouraged by the continued truckload capacity tightening. We did hear from a lot of our customers. Enterprise shippers have been responding to us positively because we have great service within the truckload side. We continue to see a shift towards kind of shorter term rate increases, mini bids, things like that. That's been interesting. A lot of customers are really trying to mitigate their spot exposure while protecting that strong service that they're used to.

Demand's still been relatively stable, so that's been a good thing. Tender rejections continue to be up quite a bit. We're encouraged by all those things, but we also saw strong shipment growth really led by managed, like we talked about. A lot of that really comes from all the disruption that we've experienced really over the last five years. That business had another record quarter. When managed ends up doing what they did, it improves productivity at Asset Light. I'd say that improvement in Asset Light was across the board, whether it's our truckloads solution, our expedite solution, managed. Productivity was up 35% year-over-year, which is just such a meaningful change.

I'm also really excited about a lot of the things we have coming up in the future around Asset Light. The organizational changes that we already discussed is really going to simplify how we operate, improve productivity, and improve our growth. We continue to improve productivity amongst our employees across each solution, but also making sure that we're looking at the profitability of our account base. We've been really strategic about what we do there. The tech roadmap that we've been executing on, I feel like we're probably in the second or third inning of that. We got a long way to go. Adding Mac to the team has been just a tremendous addition to us. He has a wealth of knowledge and experience, and I think he's going to continue to help us accelerate our results.

Your next question comes from the line of Ari Rosa of Citigroup. Please go ahead. Hey, good morning, guys.

Thank you for taking our question. This is Adrian dialing in for Ari.

Sure. In your prepared remarks, you mentioned that you're not yet seeing a broad-based inflection in industrial demand.

Can you just help unpack that a little bit? Are you seeing strength in certain regions relative to weakness in others? Maybe some end markets outperforming others? When you look at the back half of the year, how do you see these dynamics playing out? Thank you. Hey, Adrian, this is Seth again.

Yeah, I mentioned some of those comments. When we look across our customers, healthcare manufacturing type customers, they operate on a multi-year bid cycle. We're currently working with them to work through that as truckload capacity tightens. When you look at apparel and consumer brands, for example, we're just not seeing too much demand there. Construction seems to be one of the positive areas, and a lot of that probably relates to the AI build-out, not so much around housing. When you look at recreational vehicles, we have some customers in that space. Their demand remains healthy. It's kind of a mixed bag when you go across the board. Across all these customer conversations, a lot of the conversation has been around how do we navigate this volatility? How can we mitigate costs with the rapid rise in fuel?

What can you do to partner with us because we trust you with 103 years of experience to mitigate all those things? Tariffs really haven't been much of the conversation. When I think about how all of that translates into 2026 and the remainder of the year, I continue to have confidence in our long-term outlook and those targets we outlined at Investor Day. We don't really operate on one month or one quarter. We're really focused on our long-term success, and you do that by partnering with customers, building that trust, and delivering a premium service to them. At the same time, we recognize there's a lot going on around supply side of the market, fuel volatility, inflation, all the different things. At the end of the day, we are focused on things in our control. We're executing our strategy. We're simplifying the organization, accelerating decision making, expanding our technology capabilities to improve productivity, and strengthening our integrated approach, which we think is going to deliver long-term shareholder value as well as long-term customer value.

Your next question comes from the line of Jeff Kauffman of Citizens Bank. Please go ahead. Thank you very much.

I just wanted to go back to Jordan's question. On the asset light, when you gave the original 2028 guidance of $40 million-$70 million in adjusted operating income, were these actions that you're taking now to consolidate the business, consolidate cost anticipated in that number? Is it incremental to the number? Just to follow up, I guess one of the other questions, an 8% change in average weight per shipment is pretty significant. What does that look like? Is that just pallets are getting heavier because of freight mix or because demand is increasing? Are we moving a different kind of freight that just weighs more? Jeff, hey, it's Matt. Hey, Matt 2028 target. Hey, great to have you back covering stock. Thank you. Good to be back.

When we think about 2028 targets, particularly around the asset light business. When we laid those targets out, we did anticipate that we were going to be working on efficiency, our cost structure. We knew we had progress to make there. That was anticipated. Just kind of looking at the $40 million in savings, about $8 million of that is attributable to the asset light business, $30 million attributable to the asset-based business, and then $2 million attributable to the Vaux business. The $8 million there, that is what we would consider to be baked into the 2028 targets at this point, and really feel good about the progress that we've been making in the asset light business. Just kind of thinking about where we are year to date there, we're up over $9 million for the year in operating income.

Again, kind of a similar quarter expected for the third quarter and with our outlook of $68 million. Then, if trends continue, we could see something similar to that in the fourth quarter as well, which certainly makes for a very nice year for the asset light business and certainly just continued improvement and strengthening there. I would add to that, too. When we look at each of the segments that we mentioned, whether it's truckload, managed, expedite, all of those areas are on track with what we anticipated in the 2028 targets. Then you had a question about weight per shipment and what's going on right with everything. A lot of that, when we look at weight per shipment, it really is broken down into a few different categories.

Our core business, which is the bulk of our LTL shipments, those customers continue to just ship a little bit less. We're seeing some good things there, some early signs, but it's still too early to say, "Hey, demand has flipped on us." We are seeing some encouraging things. The bulk of our business is just down because customers are shipping less. Like I've said earlier, retention's in a good spot. Dynamic shipments, as we've expanded that quote pool, those shipments do look a little bit different because we have more optionality to optimize the network and maximize the profit that we can achieve. Those shipments do look a little bit different. Something that's different versus history with our business versus others is our U-Pack business is just down because housing continues to be down.

Those are generally smaller number of shipments, but heavier shipments. That continues. No real change sequentially there. Just when you're looking at historical figures, that is having an impact. I'd say dynamic mix is changing slightly, but we believe it's a better outcome. The core business continues to remain pretty consistent.

Okay, thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn it back to Amy Mendenhall for closing remarks.

Thank you to everyone who joined us today. We certainly appreciate your interest in ArcBest. Hope everyone has a great day.

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's call. Thank you everyone for joining.