EXPEDITORS REPORTS EARNINGS, LOSS OF FORD MOTOR CONTRACT

EXPEDITORS REPORTS EARNINGS, LOSS OF FORD MOTOR CONTRACT    Net earnings for Expeditors International of Washington Inc., a Seattle-based customs broker and forwarder, increased 58 percent for the first quarter of 2001, compared to the same period last year.
   Net earnings stood at $21.2 million, as opposed to $13.4 million for the first quarter of the year 2000. Net revenue was up 26 percent to $145.7 million, compared to $115.5 million for the first quarter of last year.
   The results “were clearly above our expectation,” said the company’s chairman Peter J. Rose.
   However, Expeditors reported it will no longer serve as U.S. customs broker for the Ford Motor Corp. “Our hearts go out to the 110 people in our Detroit office whose jobs were destroyed by this development,” Rose said. “This loss is difficult for us, not particularly from the financial perspective, but because we did not lose this business for performance reasons.”
   Rose said his firm and Ford “had philosophical differences.”
   “We were offered an ongoing role, but from our perspective the new role was to be diminished and the contribution of our people was in danger of being undervalued,” Rose said. “We collectively decided that we could not remain true to ourselves and accept the new order.”
'    Ford last year signed a multimillion dollar agreement with Vastera, an international trade management company, which included the sale to Vastera of Ford's customs operations.