UTi Worldwide Inc. has reported financial results for its fiscal 2009 second quarter ended July 31 vs. its 2Q 2008 results:
“Revenues continued to expand primarily due to solid organic growth in both of our business segments,” said Roger MacFarlane, chief executive officer of Long Beach, Calif.-based UTi Worldwide. “Volume growth in our freight forwarding operations weakened toward the end of the second quarter in conjunction with slowing growth in international trade. This was offset by a meaningful increase in yields, excluding the impact of fuel surcharges.”
MacFarlane said the company continued to add new logistics business, resulting in growth in that segment despite the loss of revenue from actions taken through a cost reduction plan. “Operating expenses grew at a faster rate than net revenues in the second quarter compared to a year ago, but this trend reversed at the end of the quarter as we started to see a greater impact from our cost reduction plan and profit improvement efforts,” he said. “We were particularly pleased to see that our efforts in contract logistics led to sequential margin improvement in the quarter. All actions under our cost reduction plan have now been completed, and we continue to expect to see the anticipated improvements in the second half of fiscal 2009.”
