FedEx On Track for New All-Time High on Earnings, Rate Increases

FedEx reaffirmed its 2015 outlook calling for EPS of $8.50 to $9.00 and capital spending of $4.2 billion, which the company said at the end of the last quarter was primarily to acquire new airplanes and to expand the FedEx Ground network. The outlook assumes no net year-over-year fuel impact and continued moderate global economic growth. The consensus estimates for the 2015 call for EPS of $8.84 on revenues of $47.7 billion.

The company’s CEO said:

FedEx Corp. is off to an outstanding start in fiscal 2015, thanks to very strong performance at FedEx Ground, solid volume and revenue increases at FedEx Freight and healthy growth in U.S. domestic volume at FedEx Express

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FedEx repurchased 5.3 million shares of stock in the quarter, exhausting its share repurchase authorizations. The company said that share repurchases added $0.15 to diluted EPS in the first quarter. FedEx did not announce a new share repurchase program in its earnings press release.

Competitor United Parcel Service Inc. (NYSE: UPS) is not scheduled to release second-quarter earnings until the end of October. Both UPS and FedEx have announced that they will begin calculating shipping charges on a “dimensional weight” basis beginning around January 1, 2015. Under this pricing scheme, shippers pay more for larger packages regardless of how much the package weighs.

FedEx also said in a separate announcement Wednesday that it would increase shipping rates by 4.9% for FedEx Express, FedEx Ground and FedEx Freight beginning on January 5. The increase on FedEx Express shipments applies to U.S. domestic, import and export services. FedEx Freight rate increases will apply to shipments within the 50 states, plus Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands; between the U.S. states contiguous with Canada; within Canada; between the lower 48 states and Mexico; and within Mexico.

Shares of FedEx were up about 2.6% in premarket trading to $159.00, above the 52-week range of $111.25 to $155.31. The consensus price target from Thomson Reuters was around $164.00 before the latest results were announced.

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