{"id":644477,"date":"2026-10-29T04:30:15","date_gmt":"2026-10-29T04:30:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/644477\/"},"modified":"2026-10-29T04:30:15","modified_gmt":"2026-10-29T04:30:15","slug":"freightways-recoups-fuel-costs-to-grow-revenue-earnings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/644477\/","title":{"rendered":"Freightways recoups fuel costs to grow revenue, earnings"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ThomasThomas Manch<\/a><\/p>\n

Senior journalist<\/p>\n

28 Oct, 2026 11:21pm3 mins to read<\/p>\n

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Big Chill Distribution is one of Freightways’ companies. The group’s shareholders met on Thursday. <\/p>\n

Freightways has opened the 2027 year with revenue and earnings growth, as it recoups higher fuel costs and wins market share. <\/p>\n

\u201cGood news is, despite all those headwinds, your business is still performing really creditably,\u201d chief executive Mark Troughear has told shareholders.<\/p>\n

\n The freight, parcels and logistics company held
\n its annual general meeting in Auckland on Thursday morning, after a 2026 year in which it reported 13.5% revenue growth but little earnings margin growth thanks to the effects of the Iran war.\n <\/p>\n

Creditable performance<\/p>\n

Speaking to the company\u2019s first quarter performance for 2027, Troughear said the backdrop \u201creally is one where fuel prices fluctuated a bit, but remained at elevated levels\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cIn trucking language, and our courier language, it was bloody expensive.\u201d <\/p>\n

Recouping the increased fuel cost through a surcharge to customers meant revenue in the first quarter was elevated, up 17.6% to $408.3m, compared to the same quarter in 2026.<\/p>\n

But this meant costs were also up, Troughear said. <\/p>\n

Nonetheless, the company\u2019s earnings before interest, tax and amortisation (ebita) were up 12.9% on the prior first quarter, at $50m.<\/p>\n

Net profit after tax (npat) was up 12%, at $26.2m.<\/p>\n

New Zealand growth, Australia flat<\/p>\n

Revenue growth was also aided by Victorian-based business VT Freight Express (VTFE), which Freightways acquired in a transaction that completed on January 30.<\/p>\n

This business contributed 9% of the 20% revenue growth recorded in the company\u2019s express package and business mail category.<\/p>\n

For the 2027 first quarter, express package volumes were up 2.9% in New Zealand, compared to the prior period. <\/p>\n

Much of this, 2.6%, came from market share gains.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a bit less than we would have expected before the war in the Middle East commenced,\u201d Troughear said. <\/p>\n

Item volume was flat in Australia, where economic conditions were \u201cgloomier\u201d than in the recent past.<\/p>\n

Shredding tobacco<\/p>\n

A \u201cbit of a boom area\u201d for the information management division \u2013 which had experienced a slowdown \u2013 was the destruction of hard drives, computers and servers, and the recycling of their byproducts, Troughear said.<\/p>\n

The company\u2019s Shred-X business, which had been \u201cright-sized\u201d in the 2026 year, was shredding contraband tobacco seized by the Australian Border Force \u201clike nobody\u2019s business\u201d. <\/p>\n

The information management division had revenue of $63.9m for the first quarter of 2027, up 5.6% on the prior first quarter.<\/p>\n

Ebita was up 17.5% at $9.4m. <\/p>\n

At the meeting, shareholders were asked to re-elect Peter Kean as director and to authorise the fixing of auditor remuneration. <\/p>\n

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Copy LinkEmailFacebookTwitter\/XLinkedInReddit<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thomas Manch Senior journalist 28 Oct, 2026 11:21pm3 mins to read \u200c Subscribe to listenAccess to BusinessDesk articles…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":644478,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[18516,138,802,4568,117853,2678,17240,3499,13484,225,111,139,69,1864,315848,7493,2122,61,6202,102,379],"class_list":["post-644477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-18516","tag-business","tag-costs","tag-earnings","tag-freightways","tag-fuel","tag-grow","tag-growth","tag-higher","tag-market","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-opened","tag-recoups","tag-revenue","tag-share","tag-to","tag-wins","tag-with","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=644477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644477\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/644478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=644477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=644477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=644477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}