Latest news with #FrederickSmith
Business Insider
24-06-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
FedEx (FDX) Is About to Report Q4 Earnings Tomorrow. Here's What to Expect
Delivery and logistics giant FedEx Corp. (FDX) is scheduled to announce its results for the fourth quarter of Fiscal 2025 after the market closes on Tuesday, June 24. FDX stock has declined about 20% year-to-date due to weak performance in recent quarters amid macro challenges and tariff uncertainty. Wall Street expects FedEx to report Q4 FY25 EPS (earnings per share) of $5.88, reflecting a 9% year-over-year growth. Confident Investing Starts Here: Easily unpack a company's performance with TipRanks' new KPI Data for smart investment decisions Receive undervalued, market resilient stocks right to your inbox with TipRanks' Smart Value Newsletter Meanwhile, FedEx's Q4 FY25 revenue is expected to decline by 1.4% to $21.79 billion compared to the prior-year quarter. The estimated rise in earnings despite lower revenue reflects the benefits from the company's cost reduction initiatives under the Drive program. As part of its restructuring efforts, FedEx is spinning off its LTL (less-than-truckload) freight shipment business into a separate publicly traded company to focus on its core delivery business. The spinoff is expected to be completed by June 2026. Unfortunately, ahead of the upcoming earnings report, FedEx's founder, Frederick Smith, died on Saturday. Analysts' Views Ahead of FedEx's Q4 Earnings Heading into results, Wolfe Research analyst Scott Group lowered the price target for FedEx stock to $253 from $258, while reiterating a Buy rating. The 4-star analyst noted that the company has underperformed the S&P 500 (SPX) so far in 2025. Group slightly reduced his Q4 FY25 EPS estimate to $5.88, bringing the FY25 EPS to the low end of management's guidance range at $18.00. Meanwhile, the analyst raised his EPS estimate for FY26 by 3% to $18.50, which he highlighted is still 7% below the consensus estimate. Group expects moderating headwinds from the lost USPS contract and airfreight pricing pressure. He anticipates that the benefits from the new Amazon (AMZN) contract will largely be offset by the loss of volumes associated with the de minimis exemption. Additionally, Stephens analyst Jack Atkins slashed the price target for FedEx stock to $280 from $300 and reiterated a Buy rating. The 4-star analyst stated that he again lowered his estimates to reflect the ongoing macro headwinds for FedEx's parcel and LTL businesses. He noted that commentary at recent industry conferences indicates lower-than-expected international business. Also, while core U.S. pricing is stable, it could continue to be impacted by trade-down, said Atkins. Further, peers' LTL mid-quarter updates suggest sub-seasonal trends through May. The analyst said that he will focus on updates on the recent Amazon business win and leadership updates following the LTL spinoff. While the macro backdrop remains a challenge over the near term, Atkins expects continued savings from FedEx's DRIVE program in FY26 and an opportunity for value creation through the spinoff. Options Traders Anticipate a Major Move on FedEx's Q4 Earnings Report Using TipRanks' Options tool, we can see what options traders are expecting from the stock immediately after its earnings report. The expected earnings move is determined by calculating the at-the-money straddle of the options closest to expiration after the earnings announcement. If this sounds complicated, don't worry, the Options tool does this for you. Indeed, it currently says that options traders are expecting about an 8.1% move in either direction in FDX stock in reaction to Q4 FY25 results. Is FedEx Stock a Buy? Overall, Wall Street has a Moderate Buy consensus rating on FedEx stock based on 11 Buys, three Holds, and one Sell recommendation. The average FDX stock price forecast of $268.71 indicates a modest upside potential of about 19% from current levels. FedEx recently announced a 5% increase in its annual dividend to $5.80 per share for Fiscal 2026. The company's quarterly dividend of $1.45 per share is payable on July 8, 2025. FDX stock's current dividend yield stands at 2.5%.
Yahoo
23-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
FedEx names new chairman to replace founder Fred Smith
The FedEx Corp. board of directors has elected R. Brad Martin as chairman to replace founder and executive chairman Frederick Smith, who died Saturday, and voted to reduce the size of the board to 12 members, the company said in a regulatory filing. Martin previously served as vice chairman. He leads the board's audit and finance committees. 'The board, executive leadership team, and employees of FedEx extend their deepest condolences to Mr. Smith's family expresses profound gratitude for his vision, leadership, and extraordinary contributions to FedEx, the country, and the world,' the report said. Smith founded FedEx Express Corp. (NYSE: FDX) fifty-four years ago and revolutionized the parcel delivery business. He is considered a giant of the modern freight transportation industry, along with Malcolm McLean, who invented the ocean shipping container. Born in Mississippi and raised in Memphis, Tennessee, Smith entered Yale College in 1962 to pursue a degree in economics. While at Yale, he worked as a charter pilot and conceived the idea for an integrated air-to-ground system that would ensure overnight delivery, a concept that would eventually become Federal Express. After graduating from Yale in 1966, he served four years in the United States Marine Corps, including two tours of duty in Vietnam where he served as a rifle platoon leader, a company commander, and aerial observer/tactical air controller. He was decorated with the Silver Star, Bronze Star, and two Purple Hearts for his military service. He left the Marine Corps in 1970 as a captain. Smith launched Federal Express in 1973 with a fleet of 14 Dassault Falcon jets and a vision to disrupt the transportation and logistics sector. He built the company into a multinational giant with $88 billion in annual revenue today. In 2022, he stepped down as CEO to focus on being executive chairman and global policy issues such as sustainability and trade facilitation. 'Frederick W. Smith pioneered express delivery and connected the world, shaping global commerce as we know it. His legacy of innovation, leadership, and philanthropy will continue to inspire future generations. I will miss not only his visionary leadership, but his trusted friendship and counsel,' CEO Raj Subramaniam said in a company blog post. Memorials can be made to the FedEx Founder's Fund supporting volunteerism, community endeavors, and Veterans and their families, or the Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation providing scholarships for the children of military families attending post-high school, undergraduate, and career and technical education programs in all 50 states. In addition, memorials may be made to Le Bonheur Children's Hospital and St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, according to FedEx. For more details about Smith's life and career read FreightWaves's obituary from Sunday morning. Click here for more FreightWaves/American Shipper stories by Eric Kulisch. Amazon taps FedEx for big-and-bulky residential deliveries Lawmaker blames FedEx pressure, Trump bungling for de minimis U-turn The post FedEx names new chairman to replace founder Fred Smith appeared first on FreightWaves. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Forbes
23-06-2025
- Business
- Forbes
How Fred Smith Built FedEx Into A Giant
Corbis via Getty Images Frederick Wallace Smith, the billionaire founder of FedEx, passed away at age 80 on Saturday. Smith was a visionary who was early to spot the need for an all-freight airline to ship packages around the world—smartly betting that passenger jets could never handle all of the world's shipments. But his success was far from certain. When Forbes profiled Smith in March 1977, he was a 32-year-old entrepreneur still using small jets to ferry packages around the nation. He was hoping to win government approval to upgrade to large planes, and his private equity backers were seeming to grow impatient. 'Will [FedEx] go on to become a $1-billion company?' we asked. Smith ended up taking FedEx public a year after our story, and grew it into a true giant over five decades at the helm. By the time Smith stepped down as CEO in 2022, at age 77, FedEx's market capitalization had surpassed $50 billion. operates in more than 220 countries and generated $87.7 billion in revenue in 2024. Smith remained executive chairman until his death. He's survived by his wife, Diane Smith, and ten children. He was worth an estimated $5.3 billion . F REDERICK WALLACE SMITH has a favorite story. It goes like this: Three men are shipwrecked on a desert island. Suddenly an authoritative voice echoes from the sky: "In ten minutes a tidal wave will obliterate this island." Pandemonium ensues. One man falls on his knees and prays. The second falls on a native girl and a bottle of booze. The third fellow runs like crazy. "What do you think you're doing?" the terrible voice demands. Still running, the runner gasps: "I'm going to jump in the ocean and figure out how to breathe under water." Surviving against impossible odds, breathing under water as it were, is a habit with 32-year-old Fred Smith, the son of a wealthy Tennessee entrepreneur who died when Fred was four years old. As a young boy in Memphis, Fred was crippled by a bone disease, learned to defend himself against bullies by swinging his crutch. Cured at age ten, he became an excellent football player, learned to fly at 15. In Vietnam, where he served two terms totaling 27 months, Smith won five medals. As a Marine infantry company commander, he almost miraculously survived a Vietcong ambush that cut down the men on either side of him. With his helmet, grenade and pistol gone, Smith retrieved the pistol to bring down his Vietcong attacker. "I was so frightened that I aimed at his head and hit his knee," he said. "To this day I don't understand how he missed me because they always aim for the company commander." On his second Vietnam tour, Smith served as a pilot of forward control planes, surviving over 200 ground-support missions. All this was just a warmup for the brazenly bold adventure that Smith was about to pull off in the business world. Back from Vietnam, he was soon embarked on what has turned out to be the biggest venture-capital startup deal ever tried in the U.S. — Federal Express Corp. "I got so sick of destruction and blowing things up — on people I had nothing against — that I came back determined to do something constructive," Smith recalls. At this point, he went back to an idea that had fascinated him while a student at Yale in the mid-Sixties. Bettmann Archive In an economics class, the professor agreed with the prevailing theory that air freight was the wave of the future and would be the primary source of revenue for the airlines. Smith wrote a paper disagreeing. No way, he said, because the passenger route patterns were wrong for freight and because costs would not come down with volume. The only way air freight would work, Smith wrote, was through a whole new system that would reach out to smaller cities as well as big ones and be designed for packages, not people. His point was simple: Air freight would only work in a system designed specifically for it, not as a simple add-on to passenger service. The professor gave Smith's paper a low grade. Looking back, Smith quips: "I was a crummy student — like Winston Churchill." Smith's idea, now reborn, was to start an all-freight airline that would fly primarily at night when the airports weren't congested. It would carry small, high-priority packages when speed of delivery was more important than cost. It would bring all the freight to a central point (Memphis), then disperse it to the ultimate destinations. That way his organization could free a full planeload for a smaller city, say Cedar Rapids, Iowa, because it would consolidate all Cedar Rapids shipments at the central depot. This was not your ordinary $1-million or $2-million venture-capital startup. What Smith was proposing was the creation in one swoop of an entire nationwide system. "I was naïve," Smith says. "I believed a good concept would attract all the money. By the time I found it wasn't true, I had gone so far that I couldn't stop." In the end, Smith raised an astounding $91 million to finance his untested idea. (To anyone who understands the venture-capital game, this is roughly equivalent to learning how to breathe under water.) First, he put in some $8 million of his own family's money. Then he got the enthusiastic backing of Manhattan-based, Rothschild-backed New Court Securities; New Court investments came to $5 million. With New Court behind him, Smith was able to put together a virtual Who's Who of venture capital, including General Dynamics, Heizer, Allstate Insurance, Prudential Insurance and Citicorp Venture Capital Ltd. However, Smith's problems were only beginning. The passenger airlines with a sideline in freight and the freight-only lines did not relish the prospect of additional competition. Long and haggling hearings before the Civil Aeronautics Board were in prospect. Luckily there was a loophole: Planes with a payload under 7,500 pounds did not need CAB permission to operate. Smith went ahead and assembled a fleet of small, 550-mile-per-hour French-built Falcons, constructed a main base at Memphis and began servicing 75 airports. Nightly Federal's Falcons would pick up packages at each of the airports, fly them to Memphis, then sort them out for immediate reshipment to other cities. At the other end, Federal trucks sped them to their destinations. With luck a shipment made by afternoon got delivered by the next noon. Operations started in April 1973. Forbes named Fred Smith one of America's 100 greatest living business minds in 2017. Martin Schoeller for Forbes In the beginning the losses were horrendous; in Federal's first 26 months they mounted to $29 million. The investors were getting antsy. Federal was falling far short of Smith's projections. There was talk of kicking him out. Smith's own sisters were suing him for misinvesting the family fortune. But Arthur Bass, Federal's operating man, stood by Smith. Bass, 44, a pilot and airline consultant, gradually improved the delivery schedules, and Federal began to come out of its tailspin. By last fiscal year, Federal's revenues hit $75 million, and the company was $3.6 million in the black. Seldom in history had a company gone from nothing to that size so swiftly. In this fiscal year, ending May 31, Federal should make $8 million on $110 million revenues. Federal now counts 31,000 regular customers. The biggest is the U.S. Air Force, which uses Federal to ship the spare parts needed to keep its planes flying. Another major customer: International Business Machines Corp. Others include shippers of film, blood, organ transplants and drugs. On heavily traveled passenger routes, such as New York to Chicago, Federal has plenty of competition from the major airlines. But it has virtually none in moving packages from smaller cities — from El Paso, Tex. to Rochester, N.Y., for example; or Jacksonville, Fla. to Cedar Rapids. Emery Air Freight, which ships via regular airlines, has been meeting some of Federal's competition by chartering its own planes in areas where airlines like Delta and Eastern have cut back less-traveled routes or night service, both crucial to air freight. But Emery cannot match Federal's nationwide air-delivery service. As a freight forwarder Emery is not permitted to operate its own planes and cannot reach the Cedar Rapids of America as quickly as Federal. To meet the competition, Federal has evolved a two-tier pricing system. On routes where there is serious competition, Federal tries to undercut Emery by as much as 10%. It recoups on exclusive routes by charging higher rates — arguing that higher-priced service is better than poor service for these towns. Are Smith's troubles over? Alas, no. At the moment, Federal is up against a serious ceiling on its capacity. The small Falcons can't always handle the available business on some routes, and, as a result, some packages must be held over. As a consequence, Federal's on-time delivery record has slipped from 96% to about 90%; now some couriers not only deliver packages but wait to see they get on the plane. The solution: bigger aircraft. One day soon Federal will file with the CAB a request for permission to fly bigger planes, such as Boeing 727s, and extend service from the present 75 airports and 130 cities to 170 airports and 300 cities — virtually the entire country. On the busier routes, 727s would take over; a single one could replace five Falcons flying nightly wingtip to wingtip on the Los Angeles-Memphis route, for example. On the lighter routes, Federal would still use its Falcons. The savings from using bigger planes alone would increase profits by $9 million a year. This will be Federal's second effort to obtain the right to use bigger craft. Last year the Senate passed a Smith-inspired bill that would permit Federal Express to rapidly institute larger all-cargo flights. The bill died in the House; it was bottled up in a subcommittee headed by Representative Glenn Anderson from Southern California, where opponent Flying Tiger Line is headquartered. This was a severe setback for Smith. In addition to the problem with the CAB, Federal's balance sheet is in terrible shape. The big losses have cut equity capital to just $7.8 million, vs. $52.5 million debt. However, if CAB authorization is forthcoming, Federal's backers have expressed a willingness to help recapitalize the company. There are, moreover, plenty of second-hand Boeings around, and Federal could quickly assemble a fleet of big jets. If it gets to that stage, the next step would be to take Federal public, not only to raise additional capital but to provide Federal's long-suffering backers with an opportunity to get some of their money out. Venture capitalists are not infinitely patient. Maybe Federal will get the right to fly 727s. Maybe it won't. But it has come a long way already. As President Art Bass puts it: "The absolute worst that can happen to us now is that we will be a limited success. It is no longer possible, as it was a year ago, that we'll go down the tube." Will Federal go on to become a $1-billion company? Will Fred Smith once again win a victory of mind over matter, of will over "reality"? Tune in next time for the answer.
Yahoo
23-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Former Washington minority owner, FedEx founder, dies at 80
Frederick Wallace Smith, founder of FedEx, passed away this weekend at 80 years old. Smith is a former minority owner of the Washington Commanders, then the Redskins, from 2003 until 2021, when he and two other minority partners sold their combined 40% back to then-majority owner Daniel Snyder. Smith is best known for founding Federal Express in 1971 using his $4 million inheritance. He remained with FedEx as CEO until 2022 and remained an executive chairman after stepping down. Smith unsuccessfully tried to land an NFL expansion team in Memphis, Tenn., during the early 1990s. However, the NFL awarded the league's newest franchises to Charlotte, N.C. (Carolina Panthers) and Jacksonville, Fla. (Jaguars). Before he purchased a minority stake in the then-Redskins, Smith signed a 27-year deal with the team to rename it FedEx Field. The stadium, now known as Northwest Stadium, had operated as Jack Kent Cooke Stadium from its 1997 opening until 1999, when it became FedEx Field. FedEx exercised its option to end the agreement two years early in 2024 when Josh Harris bought the team from Snyder. Smith's split from Washington was nasty. He, Dwight Schar, and Robert Rothman hired a firm to explore selling their 40% stake in the team. This came at the same time as Snyder was facing public pressure again to change the team's name. During this period, FedEx released a statement informing the team it wanted the name changed. Snyder finally relented to the public pressure, and in the summer of 2020, the Redskins became the Washington Football Team. Later in 2020, Smith, Schar and Rothman sued Snyder in federal court, accusing Snyder of interfering with investors willing to pay around $900 million for their shares. The Commanders released the following statement on Smith's passing: Smith's son, Arthur, is the current offensive coordinator for the Pittsburgh Steelers and a former head coach of the Atlanta Falcons. This article originally appeared on Commanders Wire: Former Washington owner, FedEx founder Frederick Smith, dies at 80
Yahoo
22-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
FedEx Founder Fred Smith Dies at 80
FedEx (FDX) founder Fred Smith, who turned a small delivery company into a global shipping giant, died on Saturday, the company said. He was 80. "It is with profound sadness and a heavy heart that I share that Frederick W. Smith, our founder and executive chairman, died earlier today," Raj Subramaniam, who succeeded Smith as FedEx CEO in 2022, wrote Saturday night. "Fred was more than just the pioneer of an industry and the founder of our great company. He was the heart and soul of FedEx." In 1973, Smith's Memphis, Tenn.-based company, then known as Federal Express, began with 186 deliveries on its first day of operations. Now it delivers about 16 million packages per day and, in its 2024 fiscal year, generated revenue of more than $22 billion. FedEx is slated to report fiscal 2025 fourth-quarter results on Tuesday. Read the original article on Investopedia Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
