Following a tough second quarter, Knight-Swift Transportation announced Friday after the market closed that its two top executives would take a 20% voluntary cut to their base pay for the remainder of the year.
The nation’s largest truckload carrier missed second-quarter expectations and cut its full-year earnings-per-share guidance by 36% at the midpoint of the range. Knight-Swift’s (NYSE: KNX) new outlook included near-term earnings dilution from the acquisition of carrier U.S. Xpress, which hadn’t been baked into prior guidance.
Other headwinds to the revised outlook included further weakness in TL and intermodal rates as well as lower gains on equipment sales due to declining used truck values. The company has also drastically curtailed its third-party insurance offering to small operators due to losses from unfavorable claims development.
“In support of the initiatives of Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings Inc. (the “Company”) to reduce costs in the third and fourth quarters of 2023, the Company’s Chief Executive Officer, David Jackson and Chief Financial Officer, Adam Miller have elected to voluntarily reduce their base salaries by approximately 20% each, commencing September 3, 2023 and expected to continue through December 30, 2023,” a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission read.
An April filing listed Jackson’s base salary at $925,000 and Miller’s at $825,000. Including stock awards and other comp, the two combined for more than $11 million in total compensation last year.
The temporary reductions are to base salaries only.
A representative from Knight-Swift was not immediately available for comment.
On the July 20 second-quarter call, Jackson noted diligent cost controls in place and said the company is “positioning our business for the eventual recovery.”
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TCS53
Maybe if they turned the trucks down to only run 55 mph they would make up the difference in fuel savings
Jason E Martin
They’re only going broke because they only want to haul the freight that pays top dollar and I’m betting the other companies are undercutting LoL!!
Bill
This is absolutely a Joke!! They are doing nothing while the actual employees are being under paid. Great Job idiots!!
thomas
omg. a three months pay decrease. oh no!! i hope they can survive on their pitiful 5 million dollars bank roll.
Knight was supposed to be the saviour for Swift. guess not so much.
Richard Denn
Totally laughable and ridiculous do the math they giving up about $14000 for a month for doing nothing except living off hard working people’s efforts
Greg Hudson
Going broke so you buy other companies that’s going broke should have bought yellow
Louie
This is very sad times we live in,every day there is either a company going under,or a huge company like Swift struggling, we need to pray for the continued existence of the human race,greed is out of control.
s
lol…this is laughable to say the least. they went from 11 mil to 8 mil. they should make zero dollars for the job they did…36% loss…any other employee would be fired if they lost 36% of anything…