Tag: UPS

Earnings Preview: FedEx Corp

Posted by | Jun 18, 2007 | |

The company is predicting earnings per share for the fourth quarter between $1.93 and $2.08, and full-year earnings of $6.45 to $6.60 per share. Full-year earnings per share include the impact of costs associated with a pilot labor contract. Excluding those charges, the company expects to see earnings of $6.70 to $6.85 per share.

Analysts expect a quarterly profit of $1.98 per share, according to a poll by Thomson Financial, and full-year earnings per share of $6.76.

In a note to investors, Bear Stearns analyst Edward Wolfe on Monday said he expects FedEx to report fourth-quarter results below Wall Street’s consensus, due to the weak freight economy and increasing fuel costs. He reduced his own earnings per share estimate to $1.85 from $1.98, and expects full-year earnings per share at $6.62.

Wolfe said the company’s international small package business has slowed in the first half of the fiscal year after a slowdown in the trucking industry and reduced rail volumes.

Comparatively, United Parcel Service Inc., the company’s chief competitor, in May reported a 13.5 percent decrease in first-quarter profit. Officials with UPS also cited trouble in their small package business during the year, but the world’s largest shipping carrier said in March it does expect earnings per share growth of 6 percent to 10 percent for 2007.

FedEx shares fell nearly 4 percent during the quarter. The stock hit its 52-week high on Feb. 26, and has slowly declined since to close Monday at $109.92.

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UPS Franchisees file a complaint

Posted by | Jun 13, 2007 | |

More than 200 owners of UPS Stores across the country have filed a complaint against UPS and its franchiser, Mail Boxes Etc.

The franchise owners said in a filing in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles that they haven’t been able to make money because UPS undermined them by using the branded stores as drop-off points for prepaid packages and forcing the owners to focus on providing document and printing services.

The complaint, filed in April, claims the business model of the UPS Stores has been disastrous to franchisees’ bottom lines.

UPS bought Mail Boxes Etc. in 2001, and many franchises converted to UPS Stores about two years later.

The UPS Web site permits customers to print out their own shipping labels and pay online for delivery. Then they can drop the packages — for free — at a UPS Store.

Those formerly profitable customers no longer paid the stores directly for shipping, so the stores depended on payments from UPS for those packages, a development the franchisees in the suit said has “drastically reduced” the stores’ profitability.

It can take months, and sometimes years, for a complaint to be certified as a class-action suit, and for the lawsuits to be resolved.

A separate complaint filed May 2 in U.S. District Court in San Francisco accuses UPS of overbilling its franchise owners for shipping rates.

The former franchise owners aren’t so sure that document services can make up their losses.

The UPS Store franchise owners say they are just hoping to get back some of the money from their initial investments, which for some was more than USD 150,000.

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United Parcel Service Ranks No. 43 on the 2007 Fortune 500

Posted by | Jun 13, 2007 | |

United Parcel Service ranks no. 43 on FORTUNE’s list of America’s largest corporations.

UPS was ranked No. 44 on the 2006 list. Its 2006 revenues were up 11.7 percent from the previous year; profits were up 8.6 percent from the previous year.

Other companies in the Mail, Package, Freight Delivery sector on this year’s Fortune 500 include: FedEx ranked No. 68.

Last year, Fortune 500 firms, which cover a large swath of the U.S. economy including 31 non-public companies, earned a record USD 785 billion, up 29 percent from 2005. “Put simply, American companies are enjoying the most sumptuously profitable period in the 500’s 53-year history,” said Shawn Tully, Fortune’s editor at large. “Virtually every conceivable force, from mild labor costs to a falling dollar to soaring productivity, has favored big companies.”

The Fortune 500 ranks companies based on revenues. New York boasts the most Fortune 500 firms this year with 57 companies, while Texas and California took the No. 2 and 3 spots, with 45 and 22 headquarters respectively.

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UPS Store owners are angry – Franchisees file a complaint, saying the business model keeps them in the red

Posted by | Jun 13, 2007 | |

More than 200 owners of UPS Stores across the country have filed a complaint against UPS and its franchiser, Mail Boxes Etc.

The franchise owners said in a filing in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles that they haven’t been able to make money because UPS undermined them by using the branded stores as drop-off points for prepaid packages and forcing the owners to focus on providing document and printing services.

“For a large group of us, it has been very difficult to make this work,” said Larry Bowdoin, the Alabama-based president of the Brown Shield Association, a group of UPS Store franchise owners. “Who would’ve thought that UPS would’ve created this franchise and wanted to see it do anything except succeed?”

The complaint, filed in April, claims the business model of the UPS Stores has been disastrous to franchisees’ bottom lines.

UPS bought Mail Boxes Etc. in 2001, and many franchises converted to UPS Stores about two years later.

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Canada Post defeats NAFTA unfair competition challenge from UPS

Posted by | Jun 12, 2007 | |

Canada Post has defeated a NAFTA challenge from United Parcel Service of America Inc., that alleged the Crown corporation engaged in unfair competition, bringing an end to a seven year-old dispute between the two delivery companies.

UPS, the world’s largest package delivery firm, launched a claim for US$160 million against the Canadian government in April 2000 under the North American Free Trade Agreement.

UPS contended Canada Post has an unfair advantage because its services such as Express Post and Priority Courier draw on an infrastructure of sorting facilities, mailboxes and post offices that private companies must provide for themselves.

But Canada Post CEO Moya Greene told the company’s annual meeting Tuesday that the NAFTA tribunal hearing the challenge had dismissed it.

The company, which has been operating in Canada for more than 30 years, is still reviewing the decision, Kane said.

Officials with NAFTA, the International Trade Department and the two companies said copies of the decision weren’t yet publicly available.

Union officials representing Canada Post workers said the case represented the first time Ottawa was being pressured to withdraw from an established government program or service, and if it had succeeded, may have forced the company to get out of the courier business altogether.

Earlier at the Canada Post meeting, Greene said the company will likely raise postage rates for certain categories of mail such as parcel delivery.

A decision whether stamp rates will change for letter mail is expected by the end of the month.

The Crown corporation generated $7.3 billion in operating revenue last year, up 4.6 per cent from the previous year, and earned $119 million in net income, down 40 per cent from 2005.

With 72,000 staff, Canada Post is the country’s sixth largest employer. It delivers 40 million pieces of mail daily.

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