Get Ahead of the Game: Invest in UPS Before Volume Bounces Back!

Investment Thesis

After remaining on the sidelines on United Parcel Service, Inc. (NYSE:UPS) for most of the last year due to concerns about Teamsters negotiations and the broader macroeconomic environment, I moved to a buy rating in early October after the Teamsters contract was ratified and the sell-side analysts appropriately started pricing in the margin headwind from the new contract. The valuation had also corrected and the stock was attractively priced with a healthy dividend yield.

The stock is up slightly since my upgrade, and I still view UPS as an attractive buy candidate given the reasonable valuation and upcoming volume recovery prospects. UPS is well-positioned for a volume recovery as it wins back customers lost to competitors, primarily FedEx (FDX), in the last couple of quarters due to uncertainties associated with Teamster contract negotiations. Further, transportation companies are early cycle in nature and the company’s volume should also benefit as the interest rate cycle reverses in FY24 and end markets recover. Moreover, the holiday sales season which is a seasonally strong volume period seems to be going well if we look at the commentary from retailers.

On the margin front, while elevated labor costs from the new Teamster contract terms should be a headwind on the company’s margin growth in the coming quarters, I expect margins to start recovering by mid-24 as volume recovers and the company laps significant Year 1 cost increases in Teamster contracts. In addition, the company’s margin should also benefit from price increases and cost-cutting initiatives. The current valuation is also reasonable given we are at the bottom of the cycle and the company should see a recovery in revenues and earnings in the coming quarters as volume recovers. Hence, I continue to have a buy rating on the stock and recommend buying before the volume declines become less worse in the coming quarters and then return to YoY growth as 2024 progresses.

Revenue Analysis and Outlook

After seeing good growth in the initial years post-COVID, the company’s revenue growth turned negative starting late 2022. In the third quarter of 2023, UPS continued to face volume pressure due to lower demand as a result of the tough macroeconomic environment. In addition, customers also diverted their shipments and waited until the company’s Teamster contract was fully ratified in September. This resulted in a 12.8% YoY decline in revenue to $21 billion.

Looking forward, the company’s revenue outlook is positive.

Last quarter was really a tough one for the company as, in addition to macroeconomic headwinds, its volumes also suffered from customers diverting their shipments and waiting for the Teamster contract ratification. August represented a low point in terms of volumes for the company with average daily volumes down 15.2% Y/Y. However, with UPS and the Teamsters agreeing on the terms of the new contract, the company started winning back some of the lost volumes, and the average daily volume (‘ADV’) decline improved to approximately -11%Y/Y in September. Further, October ADV was trending down a high single-digit percentage Y/Y at the time of the company’s Q3 earning call. According to management estimates, due to uncertainties related to Teamster negotiations, the company has seen a diversion of 1.5 million pieces per day, primarily to FedEx, and out of them 600,000 pieces per day, or ~40% have already returned to the system by the time of the last earnings call. As the company continues to win back this lost volume, the volume trend should continue to see sequential improvement.

In addition to winning back market share, the company stands to benefit from the broader macroeconomic recovery. While the last few quarters have seen heightened investor focus on the weakness in the overall macroeconomic environment, the increasing likelihood of multiple interest rate cuts next year suggests a shift in attention toward the upcoming recovery moving forward.

Transportation companies are typically early cyclical and often witness an improvement in their volumes before many other industries. This trend can be attributed to the destocking/restocking phenomenon. During economic slowdowns, distributors and retailers tend to reduce inventory levels by ordering below actual Point of Sale/consumption demand. Once demand stabilizes and inventory levels align with the lower demand, the destocking trend ends. Distributors and retailers then resume ordering in line with Point of Sale/consumption levels, leading to an improvement in orders compared to the destocking phase. This improvement in orders start getting reflected in the volumes of transportation companies that transport these goods and, even before actual improvement in PoS/consumption level, transportation volume starts improving due to destocking going away. This is usually followed by distributors/retailers restocking in anticipation of eventual economic recovery.

In my coverage of various industrial and consumer companies—excluding a few healthcare end market related firms like Danaher (DHR) and Thermo Fisher Scientific (TMO)—there is a notable consensus that channel destocking is reaching its end. Some companies have even begun discussing restocking, particularly in specific product lines.

Therefore, with the destocking phase concluding and the upcoming restocking in anticipation of a recovery in the latter half of FY24, driven by Federal Reserve rate cuts, I anticipate a positive impact on the company’s revenues in the upcoming quarters.

Further, this holiday season was quite strong with positive commentary coming from Amazon (AMZN) and other retailers. The fourth quarter is usually a big quarter for UPS in terms of seasonality and good holiday sales are surely positive news.

The company’s medium to long-term prospects are also good. In addition to potential economic recovery, the company should also benefit from its focus on growing SMB clients, increasing its healthcare logistics business, and expanding its international presence which I have discussed in my previous articles.

Overall, I am optimistic about the company’s growth prospects and expect growth to turn positive in the coming quarters (most likely by Q2 FY24 due to easier comparisons).

Margin Analysis and Outlook

In the third quarter of 2023, the company continued to face headwinds from sales deleverage as shipment volume continued to stay pressurized. In addition, higher labor costs associated with teamsters’ contract renewal also impacted margins. This was partially offset by lower logistics and fuel costs. This resulted in a 530 bps YoY decline in adjusted operating margin to 7.7%.

In the last quarter, the company’s margins were hit by a double whammy of higher costs as a result of the Teamster contract and a lower volume as customers diverted their packages to rivals due to uncertainty regarding Teamster negotiations.

With volume decline expected to become less worse as the company wins back the lost volume, margins should see sequential improvements. The Y/Y margin should still be down until the second half of FY24 when the company laps the extraordinary high Year 1 cost increases (see chart below) of the new Teamster contract. However, the YoY decline in margins should become less worse sequentially compared to what we have seen in Q3 2023.

In addition to volume recovery, the margins should also benefit from pricing with UPS announcing a general rate increase (‘GRI’) of 5.9% Y/Y from Dec. 26th.

Further, the company is planning to implement cost-cutting and productivity improvement measures to offset some of the impact of cost inflation from the Teamster contract. Management intends to give more details on its Investor Day in March next year. I expect the company’s margins to return to Y/Y growth from the back half of 2024 driven by volume recovery, pricing increase, cost-cutting and productivity improvement, and easing comparisons as the company anniversaries the implementation of the new Teamster contract.

Valuation and Conclusion

The United Parcel Service, Inc. is currently trading at a 16.86x FY24 consensus EPS estimate of $9.63 which is a slight premium versus its 5-year historical average forward P/E of 16.18. However, cyclical companies typically trade at a higher valuation multiple compared to their long-term averages near the bottom-of-the-cycle and during the early phases of their recovery when their earnings are at depressed levels. This is called Molodovsky effect. I find the current valuation reasonable given the earnings are near bottom-of-the-cycle. Further, the stock also offers a good dividend yield of 4.12%, and investors are getting paid to wait for the upcoming volume recovery.

The company should benefit from volume recovery in the coming quarters as it gains back customers lost during the Teamster contract negotiations. In addition, a potential interest rates cut in the upcoming year should improve the macroeconomic environment and demand, and UPS is well placed to benefit from it given the early cycle nature of its business. Margins should also get back on the recovery track by mid-24 as volume recovers and the company anniversaries the step up in costs related to the teamster contract in the first year.

So, I believe the company is well-poised to start its recovery trajectory in the coming quarters and position itself for good medium to long-term growth prospects. Hence, I recommend buying UPS at an attractive valuation before the volume recovery starts taking hold.