Marten Improves Income With Strategic Initiatives

Marten Transport managed to improve its net income in the second quarter of 2010 by 15.2 percent from the year-ago quarter.

The Mondovi, Wis.-based company attributes the gain to strategic initiatives, including its expansion of regional operations, the growth of its logistics business, and fuel efficiency and cost control measures.

"These strategic initiatives have driven our positive results this year," said Randolph L. Marten, chairman and CEO. "As evidence of the success of our regional operations, our average truckload revenue, net of fuel surcharges, per tractor per week increased by 4.7 percent in the second quarter over last year's second quarter and by 5.5 percent over this year's first quarter. We have increased our regional operations to 40.4 percent of our truckload fleet as of June 30, 2010 from 20.4 percent as of a year earlier."

The temperature-sensitive truckload carrier said logistics revenue, net of intermodal fuel surcharges, was up $1.1 million over the 2009 quarter.

Second quarter net income was $5.2 million, or 23 cents a share, compared to $4.5 million, or 20 cents a share, last year. Marten's operating revenue, consisting of revenue from truckload and logistics operations, increased to $125.9 million in the second quarter of 2010 from $125.8 million in the 2009 quarter, a reflection of increased fuel surcharge revenue and increases in logistics revenue.

"We are confident that our ongoing transformation into a multi-faceted business model will continue to work to our advantage regardless of the economic environment," Marten said.