Tag: UPS

Led by a strong performance in its international operations, UPS today reported net income of USD1.13 billion and a 10% increase in diluted earnings per share to USD1.04 for the fourth quarter ended Dec. 31, 2006.

For the full year of 2006, revenue rose almost 12%; operating profit increased 8%, and earnings per share climbed 11.2% to USD3.86. The international business reached new heights, reporting more than USD1.7 billion in operating profit. The company set a new record for package volume in 2006, delivering almost 4 billion packages or an average of 15.6 million per day.

Consolidated Results 4Q 2006 4Q 2005
Revenue USD12.6 B USD12.0 B
Operating profit USD1.8 B USD1.7 B
Operating margin 14.3% 14.3%
Average volume per day 17.3 M 16.8 M
Diluted earnings per share USD1.04 USD0.95

During the quarter, UPS announced the expansion of its international shipping portfolio by providing three time-definite delivery options each day to the world’s 30 largest markets, up from one or two daily options. These new delivery services make UPS’s international delivery portfolio the most expansive in the industry and cover more than 80% of the world’s GDP.

The Supply Chain and Freight segment improved from the third quarter, reflecting the positive impact of cost control measures taken in the fourth quarter. UPS Freight’s performance was impacted by the general softening in the Less-Than-Truckload (LTL) environment.

Mike Eskew (Chairman and CEO of UPS) offered public as well as private thanks to employees for embodying the spirit of the company’s founder in quickly restoring service after Hurricane Katrina.
Eskew met with several hundred employees as well as customers and dignitaries here today at the site of UPS’s newly rebuilt New Orleans package hub. The company reinvested USD7.6 million in the facility after it was completely flooded when the levees broke. All told, some 20 package hubs and centers throughout the region suffered damage during Katrina and had to be repaired at a total cost of USD8.3 million.
UPS is celebrating its 100th birthday throughout 2007, primarily through employee events around the world. The celebration in more than 55 U.S. cities will revolve around the arrival of a mobile Centennial exhibit, built inside large tractor-trailers. In New Orleans, Eskew opened the exhibit for the first time and guided employees and customers through the displays.
UPS was founded in Seattle as a messenger service in 1907 by a 19-year-old teenager who borrowed USD100. Over the subsequent 100 years, much of it guided by founder Jim Casey, UPS transformed itself into a department store delivery service; a common carrier offering package delivery service throughout the United States; an international package delivery service with its own airline and now, a trusted business partner that literally enables commerce for its customers by synchronizing the flow of goods, information and money.
Today, UPS employs more than 427,000 people; operates the world’s largest package delivery network; operates the planet’s eighth-largest airline; utilizes almost 92,000 vehicles, and offers an ever-expanding array of supply chain services.

UPS has wielded both carrot and stick in its labor relations to build on 17 straight quarters of profit growth.
The Atlanta company says an automation drive rolled out last year enables management to track each package from pickup to delivery, squeezing out unnecessary steps.
Dock workers now load three to four brown vans per shift, up from two previously, company spokesman Norman Black said.
Drivers trimmed 2.95 million miles from their routes in November alone — partly by avoiding left-hand turns — while handling more packages.
At the same time, the company in December offered buyouts to 650 managers older than 50, a month after eliminating 1,200 jobs in its logistics division to reduce labor costs.
“What we’re doing is targeting our most senior managers who are closest to retirement, who are also the highest-paid,” Black said.
Profit gains enabled UPS to fund a 74 percent increase in dividends and a 6 percent reduction in outstanding shares over the past three years. That includes USD4.4 billion spent in 2005 and 2006 to repurchase about 60 million shares.
The efficiency drive has cost the company in other ways. UPS will pay more than USD87 million to settle a class-action lawsuit in California accusing it of improperly deducting meal breaks from the paychecks of 19,762 drivers, who frequently didn’t take them.

UPS will announce its fourth quarter results on Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2007, at approximately 8 a.m. Eastern Standard Time.
At 8:30 a.m. EST, UPS Chairman and CEO Mike Eskew and Vice Chairman and Chief Financial Officer Scott Davis will conduct an investor conference call. This call will be open to reporters and the public, on a listen-only basis, via a live Webcast.

U.S. parcel delivery company UPS, the last remaining customer for the cargo version of Airbus A380, may cancel its order in what would be the latest defection from the long-delayed superjumbo, a French newspaper reported Friday.

Business daily Les Echos cited unidentified sources as saying that United Parcel Service Inc. would cancel its order for 10 A380s next week. Such a move has long been rumored.

Airbus spokeswoman Barbara Kracht said Friday that she had no information about a possible cancellation. UPS officials in France would not comment on the report.

The cancellation would leave Airbus with no more customers for the cargo version of the A380, after FedEx Corp. and International Lease Finance Corp. canceled their orders last year amid repeated delays to the plane’s construction schedule.

UPS, which is scheduled to receive its first plane in the second half of 2009, said last fall it was still considering whether to change the order.

Kracht insisted Friday that the cargo version was “a very good airplane and the market is good.’

A spokesman for Airbus parent company EADS said it is sticking to its A380 cargo aircraft program regardless of how many customers it has.

“The decisive thing is not the number of current orders, but the market perspective in the long run. With 25 planes per year, it is very good,’ EADS spokesman Michael Hauger said.

Les Echos suggested a cancellation wouldn’t be all bad for the European planemaker, since it would allow Airbus to concentrate on the passenger version of the A380 — for which it has 142 firm orders — and potentially save up to one billion euros (USD1.3 billion).