TransForce Ink: Where’d that $100-mill go?

MONTREAL — One hundred and forty-four point one million loonies. That’s how much third-quarter revenues were off for Canada’s biggest trucking company.

By the end of the quarter ending September, 2009, TransForce Inc., tallied up $451.4 million, chairman and CEO Alain Bedard told shareholders last week.

Revenues for the same period a year ago? $595.5 million. That’s a full 24-percent drop.

Net income declined nearly 36 percent to $17 million down from $26.5 million over the previous year.

The upside: The company’s aggressive in-house cost-cutting program meant chopping 26 percent off costs, and that outpaced the revenue loss.

"Our people have done an excellent job of controlling costs and servicing our customers in an economy that continues to struggle," Bedard told Canadian Press after releasing the third-quarter results.

He says the shortage of southbound freight is hammering his business, 30 percent of which is cross-border.

Bedard said there’s ample northbound freight but Canada-to-U.S. runs are lean and probably going to get leaner.

The double-whammy of Canada’s crippled manufacturing business and the high-loonie mean that the situation isn’t going to improve in the near future, he said.

He does, however, expect the economy to begin a reversal of fortunes next year. "The recovery in my mind is going to be slow," he told analysts during a conference call.

Predictions of a rise in the price of natural gas and recent equity issues totaling some $1.5 billion could present opportunities next year, he added.

Bedard says the company will continue to grow by acquisition, targeting only properties that yield immediate results to shareholders. Among its most prominent recent buys was the retail solutions division of Toronto-based ATS Andlauer.

Bedard also said it was on track to meet its debt repayment target for 2009.