From good to better: Expeditors on the rebound in Q3

After spending years as the forwarder with most enviable quarterly reports, boasting margins that often topped 30 percent, Expeditors has seen some tougher sledding in recent months. While air and ocean volumes continued to rise, Seattle-based Expeditors endured a 6 percent decline in net income last year, compared to 2015, and margins that were merely good, rather than spectacular. In the first half of 2017, the pattern continued, with profits dipping by 3 percent, year-over-year, in Q1, and 6 percent in Q2. Was the bloom coming off Peter Rose’s old rose?

Well, no. Expeditors has always been a profitable forwarding business, but the latest Q3 results for 2017 suggest that the halcyon days of 2015 may be returning, with net income up by 11.7 percent, y-o-y, to $121 million.

For more about Expeditors’ rise, fall and rise once again, please see David Harris’ breakdown of the company’s recent resurgence in our sister publication, Cargo Facts:

https://cargofacts.com/expeditors-flies-high-in-3q17/