Forward Air was the victim of a massive cyberattack at the end of 2020 that hurt its fourth-quarter results. Now Ancora Advisors is moving to get its four candidates on the Forward board. On this episode of Great Quarter, Guys, Andrew Cox and Seth Holm discuss what this means for the asset-light trucking and logistics company going forward.
First in “you care or nah?” they break down today’s hot topics. Consumer sentiment has slipped in recent weeks and Holm was surprised by this. Cox says he cares but wasn’t necessarily worried about the metric and expects sentiment to rebound as vaccines continue to be distributed and another stimulus will hopefully be passed soon.
Apple has fizzled in negotiations with Nissan for production of its future car and Holm cares about it, especially since Apple tends to keep its failures out of the media. Cox says according to one Tesla analyst, the Apple car will never happen thanks to continued reluctance of automakers to work with the tech giant.
For the main discussion, Cox and Holm talk about what happened with Forward Air and where the company could be heading. Holm believes the goal of Ancora Advisors, an activist investor group, is to return Forward Air to the success seen when it was simply an airport-to-airport, asset-light LTL carrier.
Holm cites Forward Air’s recent acquisition failures and capital spends as reasons for Ancora’s desire to fix the company. He also says operating ratios have taken a dive in the last decade and Ancora wants to chop the company up to refocus the company.
Ancora has published the reasoning behind the changes and the plan for Forward’s company recomposition in this letter.
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