(Bloomberg) -- CSX Corp. Chief Executive Officer Joe Hinrichs said a multitude of factors was behind the railroad’s earnings miss, including the disruption to trucking caused by recent hurricanes.
The company reported third-quarter earnings of 46 cents a share, below analyst estimates of 48 cents, while revenue came in at $3.62 billion versus estimates of $3.68 billion.
“The effect of the hurricane at the end of the quarter was about $10 million to $15 million,” Hinrichs said in an interview. “The revenue miss was about $60 million, so it’s about a quarter of it. The trucking company missed on revenue in a very tough trucking environment.”
The US was battered by back-to-back storms late last month and earlier this month that could cost insurers as much as $55 billion, according to early estimates. That’s far below the total economic cost, in part because insurance doesn’t cover much of the damage.
What Bloomberg Intelligence says:
“The last quarter of the year may be marred with challenges for CSX as it faces added expenses and lost revenue related to the recovery, rerouting and rebuilding following Hurricane Helene’s devastation.” — Lee A. Klaskow
Jacksonville, Florida-based CSX said in its outlook that it plans to keep capital expenditure at around $2.5 billion for the year, but that excluded hurricane rebuild spending. “We’re in the process of getting estimates in from all our partners to see what it’s going to take to rebuild the Blue Ridge subdivision in Tennessee. Our early read is about $200 million over the 2024-2025 time frame but it’s too early to kind of give it too much concrete because we don’t really have firm estimates yet,” Hinrichs said.
The CSX network encompasses about 20,000 route miles of track in 26 states, the District of Columbia and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec.
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