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U.S. Xpress: Private equity keeps on truckin'

Posted Jun 25th 2007 2:41PM by Tom Taulli (RSS feed)
Filed under: Major Movement, Private Equity

U.S. Xpress Enterprises (NASDAQ: XPRSA) is the fourth largest publicly owned truckload carrier in the US in terms of revenues. But that won't be the case for long. That is, the company wants to go private.

The buyer is Mountain Lake Acquisition Company, which is backed by Patrick E. Quinn and Max L. Fuller. Quinn is US Xpress's president and Fuller is the CEO. Both are co-founders of the company and own 42% of the outstanding Class A and Class B common shares. So, with majority control, they have lots of leverage to get the deal done.

In its fiscal Q1 report, the company reported a 20% increase in revenues to $360.9 million. But there was a net loss of $2.6 million. There have been some problems with freight demand, severe weather, and rising fuel prices.

On news of the buyout, US Xpress's shares spiked 33.80% to $19 per share. The buyout offer is for $20.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including the Complete M&A Handbook and the EDGAR-Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements.

Analyst upgrades 1-4-07: ERTS, trucking sector upgraded

Posted Jan 4th 2007 11:20AM by Kevin Shult (RSS feed)
Filed under: Before the Bell, Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades, PepsiCo (PEP), Amgen Inc (AMGN), Electronic Arts (ERTS),

MOST NOTEWORTHY: The trucking sector, PepsiCo (PEP) and Electronic Arts (ERTS) were the most notable upgrades today.

Wachovia upgraded the trucking sector to Market Weight from Underweight, as they believe the negative sentiment towards the group is starting to bottom, also noting that trucking stocks tend to rally before fundamentals fully bottom. Wachovia upgraded Con-Way Inc (NYSE: CNW) and Covenant Transport 'A' NASDAQ: CVTI) to Outperform from Market Perform, and Arkansas Best (NASDAQ: ABFS), Heartland Express Inc (NASDAQ: HTLD), Werner Enterprises (NASDAQ: WERN), US Xpress Enterprises 'A' (NASDAQ: XPRSA) to Market Perform from Underperform.

JP Morgan added PepsiCo (NYSE: PEP) to their Focus List, as the firm believes the recent pullback due to concerns over commodities costs and margins is overdone.

Janco upgraded Electronic Arts (NASDAQ: ERTS) to Buy from Hold with a $69 target, citing valuation.

OTHER UPGRADES:

Amgen Inc (NASDAQ: AMGN) was upgraded to Outperform from Peer Perform with a $77 target at Bear Stearns; the firm views Amgen's risk/reward as favorable as the most reasonable of CERA's launch scenarios, owned by Roche Holdings AG (OTC: RHHBY), are priced into valuation, and sees significant upside if CERA does not launch.

Caris upgraded LSI Logic (NYSE: LSI) to Buy from Above Average with a $12 target; they believe investors are underestimating the synergies involved with the Agere Systems (NYSE: AGR) deal. The broker sees upside to earnings estimates and raised their target of LSI Logic to $12 from $11.

Merrill Lynch upgraded shares of ImClone Systems (NASDAQ: IMCL) to Neutral from Sell, and sees a short-term trading opportunity due to the overly negative sentiment into the upcoming sales figures. The broker thinks Imclone could meet its Erbitux sales estimates despite weak prescription data.

Analyst summaries provided by TheFlyOnTheWall.com (subscription required).