Heartland Express logs sixth straight quarter in the red

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A sideview of a Heartland trailer moving a highway — Heartland reiterated a goal to get back to a low- to mid-80s operating ratio. (Photo: Jim Allen/FreightWaves)

Truckload carrier Heartland Express posted a sixth straight quarterly net loss (excluding one-time gains) but noted some improvement in fundamentals so far in the new year.

North Liberty, Iowa-based Heartland (NASDAQ: HTLD

) reported a net loss of $1.9 million, or 2 cents per share, for the 2024 fourth quarter (just a 1-cent loss when excluding deal-related amortization expense). The result was better than the consensus expectation of a 4-cent loss for the period.

The carrier reported headline earnings per share of 6 cents in the prior-year period. However, that quarter included nonrecurring gains of $25.6 million from the sale of three terminals.

In a Tuesday news release, CEO Mike Gerdin cautiously noted favorable trends so far in the first quarter with the expectation of momentum building throughout the year.

“While it is early in the quarter and extreme winter weather conditions so far in 2025 make comparison difficult, we are seeing a positive shift in customer rate and volume negotiations that we expect to strengthen as the year unfolds,” Gerdin said.

The fourth quarter included $6 million in gains on the sale of used equipment, which are viewed by analysts as part of normal operations and a recurring offset to operating expenses. However, Heartland’s gains on equipment sales in 2024 were heavily weighted to the fourth quarter (80% of the full-year total) and benefited the period by roughly 6 cents when using a normalized tax rate.

Fourth-quarter revenue of $242.6 million was 11.9% lower year over year and 8.9% lower when excluding the impact of fuel surcharges. Revenue excluding fuel was 5.5% lower than in the third quarter.

Heartland does not provide operating metrics for utilization and pricing.

Table: Heartland’s key performance indicators

The carrier booked a 98.9% adjusted operating ratio (operating expenses expressed as a percentage of revenue), which was 400 basis points worse than the 2023 fourth quarter (inclusive of the real estate gains) but an improvement from the 105.8% OR that excluded the gains.

Salaries, wages and benefits (as a percentage of revenue) were down 60 bps y/y, and rents and purchased transportation expenses fell 220 bps. Operations and maintenance expenses were 190 bps higher as the average tractor age increased to 2.5 years in the quarter from 2.2 years in the year-ago period.

The company’s average tractor age for the current cycle peaked at 2.7 years in the third quarter.

<em>SONAR: Outbound Tender Reject Index for <em>2025 (blue shaded area), 2024 (green line) and 2023 (pink line)</em>. A proxy for truck capacity, the Outbound Tender Reject Index, shows the number of loads being rejected by carriers.</em> <em>Current tender rejections are outperforming the depressed levels seen in January 2024 and January 2023, and nearing market equilibrium. To learn more about SONAR, <a href="https://gosonar.com/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank" data-ylk="slk:click here;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas" class="link ">click here</a>.</em> — SONAR: Outbound Tender Reject Index for *2025 (blue shaded area), 2024 (green line) and 2023 (pink line)*. A proxy for truck capacity, the Outbound Tender Reject Index, shows the number of loads being rejected by carriers. *Current tender rejections are outperforming the depressed levels seen in January 2024 and January 2023, and nearing market equilibrium. To learn more about SONAR, click here.*

Heartland has seen a prolonged stretch of tough results in part due to the severity of the freight recession but also as it acquired two fleets (Smith Transport and Contract Freighters) in the summer of 2022 – the early days of the downturn.