Analyst lowers forecast for YRC Worldwide - Kansas City Business Journal:

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In a Monday note reacting to the presentation, New York City-based analysty Lee Klaskow of cuthis first-quartefr earnings-per-share estimates, excluding nonrecurring items, from a loss of $1.409 to a loss of $1.70. He cut his full-yeart earnings estimate from a lossof $2.31 to a loss of and cut the 2010 estimate from earnings of 18 cents to earnings of 4 cents. YRC shipping volumew in the first quarter dropped 29 percent compared with the same period of 2008 as the economyu weighedon customers, the Overland Park-basee trucking company (Nasdaq: YRCW) said in the presentation, filef last week with the Securities and Exchange The company attributed 15 percent of that to the 3 percent to business mix changes and 11 percent to volume diversiob due to integration and financial Volumes had fallen 15 percent in the fourt quarter and 9 percent in the third quarter comparedd with the respective prior- year periods.
“The biggest negative surprise for us was the magnitudr in tonnage decline duringthe (first quarter),” Klaskos wrote, attributing drops primarily to increasingly competitive pricing in the Klaskow wrote that several of YRC’zs largest customers were at the presentation and seemed to be standing by the Despite slashing earnings estimates, Klaskow maintained a neutralp rating for YRC. “We believe the restructuring and networmk integration are steps in theright direction, but were a long time he wrote.
“Assuming we see some modest (grose domestic product) growth in 2010, we believde YRC will be able to weather the curren teconomic storm; however, it will emerge a much smalle r entity.” A better business mix is beginning to improved revenue trends, YRC said in the presentation. In addition, YRC has made internalp cost savings and integratedtwo subsidiaries, measurews expected to save about $500 million in operatingv expenses this year. YRC expects to cut capital expenditurez fromabout $249 million last year to abou $130 million this year.
Falling fuel prices have led to the lowesty fuel surchargesince 2005, making it difficult to compars first-quarter revenue per hundreds pounds of goods with the year-ago period, the presentationm said. The fuel surcharge was 12.8 percent in the firsr quarter, compared with 25.8 percent in the same periodr of 2008. The integration of Yellow and Roadwa prompted sometechnical issues, but service has improvef and is close to prior-integratiobn levels, the company said in the presentation, and productivityu has made major gains. The economy continues to be very weak with no majotr signs that improvement willcome soon, according to the presentation.
YRC — a large playedr in an industry that leads economic downturns andrecoveriesd — has seen some indications of hittingb the bottom, though YRC said it’s too earlyt for those signs to be conclusive. YRC ranksd No. 2 on the Kansas City Business Journal ’s list of area public companies.