Analyst: Echo Global well positioned for success

   During its investor day, Echo Global Logistics set a revenue goal of $2 billion for 2017, but analysts say the company, which acquired One Stop Logistics last month, may be underestimating itself.
   Calling the guidance “somewhat conservative,” Jason Seidl of Cowen and Company said the company is currently focused on boosting its clientele among the larger shippers.
   “Management has recently made progress toward this goal; over the past two years, the company has doubled the share of its truckload revenue attributable to national-level accounts,” he wrote in an earnings note. “Echo is also well positioned to expand enterprise services, leveraging its established client base, existing sales infrastructure, and superior technology.
   Seidl ranked Echo’s stock as outperform. The freight industry’s recovery should enable Echo to grow significantly, he added.
   “The ongoing freight recovery should enable Echo to reprice more of its contractual business as it comes due while managing an increase in transactional business,” he wrote. “Additionally, the acquisition environment remains fertile, in our opinion, … and ECHO’s recent and future acquisitions should be key growth drivers.”
   Echo Global posted revenue growth of 21.4 percent during the first quarter, when compared to the first quarter of 2013.