Covenant Logistics Group Q1 2026 Earnings Call - Structural Market Shift and Capacity Tightening

Operator: Welcome to today’s Covenant Logistics Group first quarter earnings release and investor conference call. Our host for today’s call is Tripp Grant. At this time, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question and answer session. I would now like to turn the call over to your host. Mr. Grant, you may begin.

Tripp Grant, Chief Financial Officer, Covenant Logistics Group: Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Covenant Logistics Group First Quarter 2026 conference call. As a reminder, this call will contain forward-looking statements under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act, which are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. Please review our SEC filings and most recent risk factors. We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. Our prepared comments and additional financial information are available on our website at www.covenantlogistics.com/investors. Joining me today are CEO David Parker, President Paul Bunn, and COO Dustin Koehl. Our first quarter was unique in that it included two of the worst and one of the best months we have experienced in the last three years. The trajectory was positive and has continued into April, leaving us with conviction that the change in the market is structural, not seasonal.

Our Expedited segment was most negatively impacted by both weather and fuel costs in the quarter. With improved rates and volumes in March and April, which we believe will continue to improve throughout the year, giving us plenty of operational leverage. Our new business pipeline for committed truckload capacity continued to strengthen in the quarter for both our Expedited and Dedicated fleets. Revenue trends during the first three weeks of April remained strong across all of our business units. In our view, we are finally feeling the impact of declining industry-wide driver and truck capacity and improving demand in certain segments and geographies. With that background, I will move on to the quarter statistical review.

Year-over-year highlights for the quarter include consolidated freight revenue increased by 15.9% or approximately $38.7 million to $281.9 million, primarily as a result of the assets acquired in the fourth quarter of 2025 that are now being operated as Star Logistics Solutions. Consolidated adjusted operating income shrank by 11.5% to $9.6 million, primarily as a result of margin compression in our expedited segment, which was particularly challenged with reduced utility from severe weather and higher net fuel costs. Our net indebtedness as of March 31 decreased by approximately $51 million to $245.3 million compared to December 31, 2025, yielding an adjusted leverage ratio of approximately 1.8 times and debt-to-capital ratio of 37.6%.

The reduction in net indebtedness was a result of selling a significant amount of used equipment in the quarter and buying very little new equipment. With equipment deliveries concentrated in the last three quarters, leverage ratio may increase modestly in the next couple of quarters, depending on the timing of deliveries and the prices for used equipment. Ultimately, we expect improved cash flow and disciplined capital allocation to reduce the leverage ratio over time, excluding acquisitions and other strategic options. The average age of our tractors at March 31 increased to 26 months compared to 20 months a year ago, consistent with year-over-year reductions to our high mileage expedited fleet and growth in our less capital-intensive dedicated fleet. On an adjusted basis, return on average invested capital was 5% for the trailing four quarters versus 7.6% for the same period in the prior year.

Now providing a little more color on the performance of the individual business segments. The Expedited segment reported an adjusted operating ratio of 99.1% for the quarter. Performance that fell well short of our expectations. Severe weather and rising fuel costs adversely impacted this segment more than any other in the quarter due to its line haul nature, requiring high utilization to cover the fixed costs for the operation. Going forward, we have line of sight to sequential improvement in this segment throughout the year. Over time, our goal was to average a double-digit adjusted operating margin across the freight cycle to generate an accepted return on capital. Dedicated’s 95.5 adjusted operating ratio was an improvement compared to the 98.1 achieved in the prior year.

Although this segment also encountered cost headwinds in the current period, those headwinds were not as severe as the impact of avian influenza in 2025. Going forward, our goal is to restore adjusted operating margin to double digits, grow the fleet serving high service niches, and reduce the fleet that is exposed to more commoditized end markets where returns are inadequate. We were pleased with managed freight’s performance for the current period, growing both revenue and adjusted operating income compared to the prior year. While the growth in freight revenue outpaced the growth in adjusted operating income, the cost to secure quality brokerage capacity has remained elevated from the fourth quarter of 2025. Due to the asset-light nature of this business, we note that an adjusted operating margin in the mid-single digits generates an acceptable return on capital.

The warehouse segment successfully grew freight revenue 14.6% compared to the prior year as a result of organic growth with a new key customer in the fourth quarter of 2025. Despite the growth in revenue, adjusted operating income declined slightly, primarily due to increased startup costs and operational inefficiencies associated with the new customer. Looking ahead, we remain committed to driving organic growth within this segment and are focused on enhancing our adjusted operating margin with a target of reaching high single digits. Our minority investment in TEL contributed pre-tax net income of $3.7 million for the quarter, compared to $3.8 million in the prior year period. Regarding our outlook for the future, we believe 2026 will be known as a transition year in the freight market, with sequential incremental financial improvement to occur each quarter.

During the first quarter, we secured rate and lane improvements with existing customers and developed a mature pipeline of new customers with attractive pricing on a level that has not occurred since 2022. We expect this trend to continue as the year unfolds. The nature of these bids is the new rates and lanes take effect a few weeks after being negotiated, so the first quarter activity will begin to show up in the second quarter and so on. It will take time for our 2026 efforts to be fully reflected in our financial results. This explains why the market impact was more than offset by the softness we experienced in January and February. Nevertheless, for the first time in multiple years, we have line of sight to capturing operational leverage from these environmental tailwinds. Our team is refreshed, energized, and ready to execute.

Thank you for your time, and we will now open the call for any questions.

Operator: Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad now. You’ll be placed into the queue in the order received. Please be prepared to ask your question when prompted. Once again, if you have a question, please press star one on your phone now.

Tripp Grant, Chief Financial Officer, Covenant Logistics Group: Better. Here, it’s clicking.

Jason Seidel, Equity Research Analyst: Hello?

Tripp Grant, Chief Financial Officer, Covenant Logistics Group: Yep. Go ahead.

Jason Seidel, Equity Research Analyst: Oh, hey. Hey, guys, it’s Jason Seidel. I didn’t hear the operator introduce me. Sorry about that.

Tripp Grant, Chief Financial Officer, Covenant Logistics Group: We didn’t either. It’s kind of weird.

Jason Seidel, Equity Research Analyst: Yeah. No. I was wondering what happened. Well, listen, a couple quick questions. You guys are sort of in a unique position in that you have some product lines that are not exactly traditional OTR dry van. I was wondering maybe you could dive into some of the dynamics going on in the poultry market as well. Maybe give us an update on the DoD business.

David Parker, Chief Executive Officer, Covenant Logistics Group: Yeah, Jason, a couple things. I would say on the dedicated side in general, Tripp talked about it. We’re really happy with our pipeline, poultry and non-poultry. I would say we continue to lean in on that space to specialized equipment, niche-y. It doesn’t mean that that’s all we’re doing, but it means that’s a heavy percentage of what we’re doing. Just excited for both sides of our dedicated business, poultry and non-poultry, on how the pipeline’s building. Dedicated rate increases are going pretty well, as well. Excited about that. The DoD business, as you know, rolls up in expedited, and that business was pretty good in February, better in March, and better in April than it was in March. It’s rolling pretty good right now.

Jason Seidel, Equity Research Analyst: All right. Well, glad to hear that. One of your competitors out there noted that they’re starting to have peak season capacity discussions now, and it’s sort of unprecedented to happen in early April. Are you guys having the same discussions with customers? I have another follow-up.

Tripp Grant, Chief Financial Officer, Covenant Logistics Group: Yeah. I would say we haven’t gotten as far as talking about peak now, but I will tell you, some of the capacity constraints in some markets remind you of peak a little bit. It’s kind of market dependent, day of week dependent. What I would say, and Dustin just reminded me of this, is that we’re seeing more people want to talk about dedicated capacity on the team side than we’ve seen since 2021 or 2022. We still got a long way to go on that, but having a lot of discussions with folks around

Paul Bunn, President, Covenant Logistics Group: Dedicated team capacity as opposed to OTR team capacity. That could be some of what these folks are feeling. Just so you know, we’re looking at it more on trying to more of a multi-year, longer term type deal than just peak season.

Jason Seidel, Equity Research Analyst: No, that makes a lot of sense. Finally, before I turn it over to the next person, how should we think about driver pay increases? Because we’re hearing about a tightening market in general by getting some of the questionable capacity off of the road. Once we start seeing a little help in the economy, which it appears that industrial is recovering somewhat, there’s obviously going to be an increased demand for those remaining drivers. How should we think about that as we move throughout the year?

David Parker, Chief Executive Officer, Covenant Logistics Group: Here’s what I’d tell you. You’re definitely right. Dustin and I were texting last night about driver pay. I was with two of our larger customers, one this week, one last week, and driver pay came up in both of those conversations, because for the first time in 40 months, drivers are starting to get tight out there. There are definitely targeted driver pay discussions that are going on. As far as how much of it’s retention pay versus sign-on bonuses versus rate pay or weekly minimums, I think that’s going to bounce around based on the business unit and maybe even down to the account level. There’s no doubt you’re talking something in that mid-single digits probably on driver pay, maybe high single digits if this thing gets really hot.

Jason Seidel, Equity Research Analyst: Okay. No, that’s extremely helpful. Gentlemen, I appreciate the time as always.

Operator: Once again, if you would like to ask a question, you can signal by pressing star one at this time. Our next question will come from Jeff Kauffman with Vertical Research Partners.

Jeff Kauffman, Equity Research Analyst, Vertical Research Partners: Thank you very much. I was wondering what was going on with the question queue there for a minute. Question for David. Everybody’s starting to talk about positive things for the first time in about three years in terms of fundamentally tightening up, margins getting better, et cetera. Your company’s executing, I think, in a lot of areas where others aren’t. Managed freight looks good, warehousing looks good, dedicated looks good. What excites you the most about what’s going on and the direction things are heading? I guess as a second part of that, what do you think can go right better than we’re thinking, as optimistic as we might be getting, and what do you think might go wrong that we might not be giving enough weight to?

David Parker, Chief Executive Officer, Covenant Logistics Group: Hey, Jeff. Yeah. I am more excited right now than I have been in 48 months. Last March is when all this downward spiral started. It’s been 4 years since we’ve been in this trough that the industry has been going through, and so it’s been a very difficult time, but I’m here to tell you that it is absolutely turning around. I remember back in October on the third quarter earnings call, someone asked a question, and A, we didn’t know, but B, we just said we believe it’s an April event to get through the first quarter. What we were seeing in October, excuse me, we think that April will really be sensing that. It really started, excluding the fuel that kicked everybody’s bottom in the month of March, it really started turning around nicely in March.

We have seen that continue into April. Now you’re really starting to get a lot of stats that are backing that up as I think about the last four months of PMI and those kind of things that manufacturers really starting to make a nice play. Because before then, it was all related to capacity, I believe. November, December, January, February, again, excluding weather, but just the feel of the business was, in my mind, capacity-related. Now you have got manufacturing that is really starting to kick some bottom. That’s nothing but a cherry on top of how I’m feeling here about the business environment. I think that I would say a couple of things, positive, negative. I was up in Washington a couple of days this week and continuing to work.

Washington, the DOT, Secretary Duffy, Secretary Barrs, they are doing unbelievable jobs, and I’ve told them that, they are taking the bad drivers, the people that should not be on a truck, they are in the process of taking them off trucks. I believe to the tune right now that somewhere around 2%-3% of capacity has been eliminated. Keep in mind, 2%-3% capacity increase or decrease changes the market. You take out 2% or 3% of capacity and we’re not raising rates and you take out that 2%-3% of capacity and the market is tight. 2%-3% is a major number. Beginning stages of it. What could an upside be is that I think drivers are going to continue coming out of the market, therefore capacity is going to continue to come out of the market.

I personally feel we’re just at first base. I think it’s going to be an industry-changing environment in the near future. April’s better than March, and I expect May’s going to be better than April, and those kinds of things. Then especially, in particular, when we get into third quarter. There’s going to be a great opportunity as capacity gets tighter to raise pricing, evident by the fact that we all need it, evident by the fact that we got 20% inflation in everybody’s P&L in the last four years. I could look at any one of our customers in the eye and say, "Let me tell you, we need 10%. We need whatever double-digit numbers." They need to be there. I think that none of us are interested in just buying another white truck or red truck or blue truck. That’s not the desire.

We’ve got to replace earnings that we’ve lost for the last 4 years, and I think everybody is really committed to saying that’s the game plan that we’re on. That’s going to be interesting. What could go wrong? I want the war to get over with, because capacity is increasing. Manufacturing is increasing even during the sense of the war. The longer it lingers and lingers and lingers, does it start affecting the economy? That’s a concern that I’ve got. I believe if it gets over in the next, whatever, 1 month, 2 weeks, 4 weeks, 6 weeks, sometime, it’s going to get better. It’s going to take a while for oil to go down, but you let oil get down from $95 a barrel down to $75 a barrel, and it reduces gasoline about $0.50 a gallon.

The American people will sense that and feel that, and I think they’ll continue to spend. I could not be any more excited than I have been in these four years. I think that we got our company exactly where we need it in the segments that we’re in, and I’m just excited about adding to what already is happening in the industry.

Jeff Kauffman, Equity Research Analyst, Vertical Research Partners: That was awesome. Thank you. One follow-up, kind of following a little bit on Jason Seidel’s question is, how much of the rate increases do you think end up being leaked out because we got to pay more wages to get drivers and taking into account your other cost inflation? What can you net on these rate increases to help margins get back to where they are?

David Parker, Chief Executive Officer, Covenant Logistics Group: Well, I’ll let Paul and Dustin answer some of that. That said, no doubt, I do believe that driver pay is going to go up because we can sense that as we speak, the industry is, and that is DOT is taking out drivers, and it has a domino effect. It’s not that we hired any of those drivers. We got English-speaking things that go on in our company. We would never hire them. They got to be legal immigrants, et cetera. It has a domino effect on the industry, and so I think that we’re just at the beginning stages of feeling that.

I don’t know what that means from a standpoint of increases, because I think the first thing you’re going to do is, "Hey, you stay with me, I’ll pay you this, and I’ll pay you a bonus to get new drivers in." I don’t know that it’s going to be, here’s a 5% driver pay increase. I think we’ll be around the edges until we know that we know how difficult it will be. That part, I think, going say for the second, third quarter, I think that everybody’s just going to be around the fringes, and it will be a number, but it’s not going to be crazy. I say crazy. These drivers deserve everything they get. From a cost standpoint, it’s not going to be a crazy number.

I truly believe if capacity continues to tighten, whatever we got to get, we’re going to get more than that in increased rates.

Tripp Grant, Chief Financial Officer, Covenant Logistics Group: Jeff, historically, driver pays 30% of maybe total cost, give or take, depending on the exact team or dedicated or regional or whatnot. If driver pays in that 30% of your total cost range, I think it probably eats up 30%, 40% of what you get from the customer, not immediately, but over the first six months or so. As there’s more pressure on driver pay, then you’ll go back and get more rate again as a second bite in the apple, because as David said, driver pay is not the only inflation item that we’re trying to cover for where we’ve had significant inflation over the past few years. There’s some inflation items. The areas around trucks and insurance and some of those that have had a lot of inflation, parts the last few years, I don’t see that inflation slowing down.

Paul Bunn, President, Covenant Logistics Group: I think it’ll be multiple rounds of rate increases. You’ll probably end up netting 60%-70% maybe of bottom line.

Jeff Kauffman, Equity Research Analyst, Vertical Research Partners: Okay. One last

David Parker, Chief Executive Officer, Covenant Logistics Group: Without other inflation items.

Jeff Kauffman, Equity Research Analyst, Vertical Research Partners: One last follow-up question. Thank you for those answers. This one’s for Tripp. Tripp, the Section 232 tariffs made it a little challenging for some of your truck OEM partners to be able to quote good prices for vehicles this year. Has that clarified yet, or is it still a situation where the OEMs that are selling you trucks or manufacturing in Mexico still can’t quite get the pricing nailed down?

Tripp Grant, Chief Financial Officer, Covenant Logistics Group: No, I would say, Jeff, we do have pricing for next year, and that is a big question for us. We’ve got so many near-term opportunities in terms of how we’re thinking about managing our portfolio of business and our assets on the road today. We just unloaded a lot of extra capacity or a lot of extra trucks that weren’t being efficiently used, which is one of the reasons why cash flow was so good. The things we’ve talked about is the notion of a pre-buy in Q4, and I don’t think we’re leaning towards that because I think our goal is to try to buy capital or buy equipment as smoothly throughout the year as possible, with the exception of Q1. That was just a really light buying quarter, which it typically is.

We are looking at probably a $7,000-$10,000 probably cost increase, I would say, on the average across all the different types of trucks that we buy for next year. We’ll be factoring that into account as well when we think about rate increases. It’s just one more thing that Paul and David were talking about in addition to driver pay that has not slowed down, and it’s compounded in a loose market where used equipment has never been sold cheaper. When you’re buying stuff at the highest points and you’re selling stuff at the lowest points, it’s not the perfect equation for a great profitable quarter. We’re seeing some strengthening, I would say, or bottoming, I would say, in the used equipment market, and I expect it to strengthen throughout the year as this freight market turns. We’re optimistic.

We’ll get some help on the used equipment side, but I think the new stuff is going to continue to go up, and we’re going to continue to focus on using our stuff efficiently with the right customers, and it’ll be what it’ll be.

David Parker, Chief Executive Officer, Covenant Logistics Group: Hey, Jeff, let me clarify. When Tripp talks about the increases next year, those are not tariff-related increases. They’re more price increases.

Tripp Grant, Chief Financial Officer, Covenant Logistics Group: EPA

from the OEMs because of emissions. Yeah.

Okay.

David Parker, Chief Executive Officer, Covenant Logistics Group: The new engines coming on.

That’s what I was thinking.

Tripp Grant, Chief Financial Officer, Covenant Logistics Group: Yeah.

All right. Gentlemen, thank you.

Thank you.

Operator: As a reminder, if you’d like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star one on your touchtone telephone. We’ll move next to Scott Group with Wolfe Research.

Scott Group, Equity Research Analyst, Wolfe Research: Hey, thanks. Good morning, guys.

David Parker, Chief Executive Officer, Covenant Logistics Group: Hey, Scott.

Scott Group, Equity Research Analyst, Wolfe Research: David, you just mentioned you were in D.C. I’m hoping maybe you can share a little bit of insight of what you learned. Is there a path for Dalilah’s Law to become a law this year? Anything on Montgomery case and how you think that may or may not impact the industry?

David Parker, Chief Executive Officer, Covenant Logistics Group: Yeah.

Scott Group, Equity Research Analyst, Wolfe Research: Anything else that you think is interesting.

David Parker, Chief Executive Officer, Covenant Logistics Group: We’re going down two roads in Washington. One road is CDLs, illegal immigrants, CDL schools, make sure the bad ones are shut down and the good ones are still producing, insurance requirements. Those are one road that we’re going down, and the other road we’re going down is tort reform. I would say on tort reform, we’ve gone from a 0% chance to my number is 25% chance that that is going to happen. The only reason why it’s at 25% is because President Trump has been affected so much by warfare and lawfare or whatever word you want to use there that at least the administration recognizes that. The administration cannot lead it, but the administration can support it. We’re working Congress awfully hard to get behind it.

We got some folks that are definitely behind it, and we’re just at the infant stages of dealing with Congress. We did. We had good meetings this week with Judiciary Committee, and I think that we’re going to be presenting to them in the future. That’s good. If you can’t get through the Judiciary Committee, you’re never going to get it to the floor. We’ll see where that goes. Again, to me, we’re at 25% that we’re able to get tort reform, but it was at 0% a year ago. We’ll see. The other one is, again, is that to me, the DOT is doing exactly what they need to do. Ours is to continue to encourage them and continue to support them in all the things they’re doing. Again, CDL schools, ELDs, unbelievable.

The amount of cheating that happens in this industry is unbelievable. They’re on top of it. To me, the message that DOT is hearing from us is sustainability. We got to continue to sustain this effort that you’re going. If I’m thinking they’re taking out 2% or 3%, guys, it could be easily another 5% or 6%. It’s a big number, whether it’s 3% or 4%, 5% or 6%, but whatever it is, it’s a big number that is out there. They said my phone just died. Can y’all hear me?

Scott Group, Equity Research Analyst, Wolfe Research: We got you.

David Parker, Chief Executive Officer, Covenant Logistics Group: Okay, good. Tripp text me there, said my phone died, so good. As long as y’all can hear me, that’s all that matters. Anyway, it could be a large number on capacity coming out. That’s what my efforts in Washington and others is there. We’re definitely getting in front of the right people that can help and that can assist and will carry the football. The question is, will we get it across the goal line? I think DOT is a given. Again, sustainability, tort reform is 25% chance, and we’ll see what happens there, Scott.

Scott Group, Equity Research Analyst, Wolfe Research: Is your point there that whether or not maybe Dalilah’s Law speeds things up, but even without that?

David Parker, Chief Executive Officer, Covenant Logistics Group: Yeah

Scott Group, Equity Research Analyst, Wolfe Research: ... the Department of Transportation may take a little bit longer, but they’re working on all this stuff on their own even without this law.

David Parker, Chief Executive Officer, Covenant Logistics Group: Yes. I didn’t answer your question. I believe that Dalilah’s Law will pass. I do believe that. I’m here to tell you that they are doing the things in DOT that is really Dalilah’s Law without it being rectified in Congress, which would be great because then it becomes law versus the next DOT secretary just doing whatever they want and not paying attention to it. You wanted to get it codified as a law, but they are doing Dalilah’s Law as we speak, virtually.

Scott Group, Equity Research Analyst, Wolfe Research: Yeah. Okay. Just in terms of your business, you’ve got, in the expedited, as I’ve said, I think still pretty meaningful LTL exposure. Are you seeing the same sorts of improvements on that side of the business? Maybe are we seeing some life in the LTL volume?

David Parker, Chief Executive Officer, Covenant Logistics Group: Yeah.

Scott Group, Equity Research Analyst, Wolfe Research: Just any thoughts on that?

David Parker, Chief Executive Officer, Covenant Logistics Group: Yeah. I would say in the last couple of months, you started seeing the LTL side coming back. I think it relates to PMI being 4 months above 50, et cetera. I think that they’re starting to sense that because we went, if you remember, Scott, I don’t know, last summer, fall, and we started seeing some trends that were not good year-over-year for our LTL freight that we do anyway. We started seeing that upticking now, and we’re starting to sense that the LTL side of the business is starting to get better out there for us, and I think for them, probably as the industry.

Scott Group, Equity Research Analyst, Wolfe Research: Okay. Maybe just last thing real quick. Tripp or Paul, whoever, I know you talked about some longer term margin targets for the different businesses. Any sort of near-term thoughts about how to think about margins for the businesses Q2, Q3?

David Parker, Chief Executive Officer, Covenant Logistics Group: Okay. I think we probably found out, Scott, they died and me and you are talking to each other.

Scott Group, Equity Research Analyst, Wolfe Research: That’s what it sounds like.

David Parker, Chief Executive Officer, Covenant Logistics Group: Yeah. I will tell you, yeah, you’re going to continue to see margin improvements. I think that second quarter is going to be. April is better than March, and March wasn’t bad, but we’re not getting all the rate increases April the 15th either. April, May, and June is going to be layered in on whatever we’re getting as we speak. I think that you’ll see second quarter a definite improvement over first quarter, and then I think you’ll see third quarter improvement over second quarter.

Scott Group, Equity Research Analyst, Wolfe Research: Makes sense. All right. Thank you. Appreciate the time, David.

David Parker, Chief Executive Officer, Covenant Logistics Group: Okay, bud.

Operator: Once again, if you’d like to ask a question, please press star one on your touchtone phone. We’ll pause for just a moment to allow everyone an opportunity to signal. Okay, it appears that there are no further questions at this time. I’ll turn the conference back to our presenters for any additional or closing remarks.

David Parker, Chief Executive Officer, Covenant Logistics Group: Yeah. Thanks, Jen, and I just want to thank everyone on the call for your interest in Covenant and our Q1 earnings, and we look forward to speaking with you again in Q2. Thanks very much and have a great week.

Operator: This concludes today’s conference. Thank you for attending. The host has ended this call. Goodbye.