Handoush leaves Landstar as co-COO

Handoush leaves Landstar as co-COO    Jim Handoush resigned as co-chief operating officer of Landstar System Inc. on Feb. 1, the highway carrier said in a filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
   The Jacksonville, Fla., company said it has agreed to pay Handoush one year's salary in four quarterly installments and a payment of $224,259 for the remainder of the bonus he is owed for 2010. Patrick O'Malley now serves alone as chief operating officer.
   The announcement coincided with Landstar's release of 2010 fourth quarter earnings last Tuesday, which showed a 30 percent gain in operating income to $35.8 million on revenue of $587.5 million, up from $547.7 million in the same period of 2009.

Handoush

   For the year, Landstar's operating income improved 23 percent to $140 million and overall profit increased to $86.6 million from $70.4 million.
   Landstar is a non-asset-based carrier that relies on independent drivers, or business capacity owners in its parlance, and agents to sell and provide its services. The trucking operation, including truck brokerage, brought in $537.6 million of revenue in the fourth quarter and $2.2 billion for the year. Intermodal revenue fell to $18.5 million from $19.3 million. For the full year intermodal revenue declined almost $6 million to $70.3 million.
   Logistics revenue for ocean and air transportation, and warehousing increased $23 million to $120.8 million for the year.
   Landstar offers a wide range of trucking services from truckload, less-than-truckload, flatbed, refrigerated, and specialized heavy transport to dedicated contract carriage.
   Landstar said revenue in the fourth quarter compared to 2009 was negatively impacted by a significant decrease in the number of loads hauled under its less-than-truckload substitute line haul service offering, which decreased to 4 percent of revenue compared to 13 percent a year earlier. Excluding the impact of the revenue decline in this service offering, the total number of truck transportation loads hauled in the 2010 fourth quarter increased 8 percent over the 2009 fourth quarter and revenue per load for truck transportation for the fourth quarter of 2010 increased 12 percent over the 2009 fourth quarter. In addition, the number of loads hauled by air and ocean carriers in the 2010 fourth quarter increased 50 percent and 31 percent, respectively, over the 2009 fourth quarter.
   The publicly traded company is ranked by Transport Topics as the 11th-largest U.S. for-hire carrier based on revenue. ' Eric Kulisch