Titanium Transportation Group (TSX-V:TTR) reported record fourth-quarter revenue and a lower razor-thin profit on Tuesday as the Canadian company’s fledgling U.S. brokerage arm helped offset weakness in its core cross-border trucking business.
Titanium had net income of C$300,000, or 1 cent per share, on C$43.3 million of revenue in the fourth quarter. Revenue increased by 1.4% while profits fell by nearly 77% compared to the fourth quarter of 2018.
The results came in slightly above analysts’ expectations of a break-even quarter.
Revenue for Titanium’s trucking segment fell by nearly 10% to C$26.2 million, while earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization, EBITDA, fell by 12.9% to C$4.1 million.
The company blamed the weakness on “lower freight demand due to soft market conditions.”
Titanium’s less-than-a-year-old U.S. brokerage business stole the show. The single office in Charlotte, North Carolina, brought in the lion’s share of the 22.4% increase in logistics revenue to C$18.1 million.
“My Charlotte office has about eight people, and it’s already exceeding expectations,” Titanium Chief Operating Officer Marilyn Daniel told FreightWaves.
It also helps explain why the Toronto-area company is moving ahead with a second U.S. brokerage office, in Nashville, Tennessee.
“Each state has more freight moving through it than Canada,” Daniel said.
Titanium also made significant strides in reducing its debt. The company reported a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.64 in the fourth quarter compared to 2.03 a year earlier.
Titanium CEO Ted Daniel will discuss the results with analysts on Wednesday.