Company News
August 8, 2023
Highlights from Tempur Sealy Investors Call
Tempur Sealy International, Inc. (TPX) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript
Aug. 03, 2023 2:47 PM ETTempur Sealy International, Inc. (TPX)
139.53K Followers
Q2: 2023-08-03 Earnings Summary
EPS of $0.58 beats by $0.02 | Revenue of $1.27B (4.85% Y/Y) beats by $29.20M
Tempur Sealy International, Inc. (NYSE:TPX) Q2 2023 Earnings Conference Call August 3, 2023 8:00 AM ET
Company Participants
Aubrey Moore – VP, IR
Scott Thompson – Chairman, CEO & President
Bhaskar Rao – EVP & CFO
Scott Thompson
Thank you, Aubrey. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us on our 2023 Second Quarter Earnings Call.
I’ll start by sharing some highlights from our second quarter performance and then Bhaskar will review our worldwide financial performance in more detail. After that, I’ll share some closing comments before we open the call up for Q&A.
Today, we are pleased to report one of the strongest second quarters in the company’s history, second only to the same period in 2021. Importantly, these results were delivered against headwinds from a less-favorable market than we expected, the impact of which was partially mitigated by company-specific performance.
Sales growth for the quarter was 5%. Adjusted EPS for the quarter was consistent with prior years after absorbing higher interest costs, major launch costs and elevated taxes. GAAP EPS grew 2%. We believe these results are a reflection of our innovative products, strong sales culture, solid expense controls and our passion for execution.
In our largest market, the U.S., we believe industry units declined at least low double digits in the quarter, resulting in historically low aggregate industry volumes for the quarter and first half of the year. Overall, we believe the U.S. market has stabilized at trough unit levels, with the upper end of the market demonstrating a bit more resilience compared to the entry-level market.
Today’s results demonstrate the robust earnings power and cash flow attributes of the business, as we realized solid earnings and cash flow against this challenging backdrop. As we look to the back half of the year, we anticipate U.S.-produced mattress units trends will slowly improve but remain negative year-over-year. Bhaskar will have more information on the 2023 guidance in a minute.
Turning to a few highlights for the quarter. First, we continued to extend our lead as the largest global bedding company in the world. All 3 of our leading U.S. brands, Tempur, Sealy and Stearns & Foster performed well in the quarter, significantly ahead of where we believe the industry trended. We were pleased with the second quarter performance of our International business. The successful Tempur International launch combined with Dreams’ crisp retail execution are driving continued outperformance worldwide and positioning us well for the future.
Second, we opened our third domestic foaming pouring plant in Crawfordsville, Indiana, expanding our manufacturing capacity to meet expected demand for years to come. We designed the state-of-the-art facility to optimize our manufacturing capabilities across bedding products and components. In addition to pouring Tempur-Pedic material, we have the flexibility to leverage the plant’s foaming pouring capacity to manufacture bedding products and components for our Sealy and Stearns & Foster brands as well as our non-branded OEM operations.
The facility enhances our ability to service our customers in the Northeast market, creating opportunities to shorten lead times and reduce per-unit logistics costs. This plant also provides additional storage for chemicals, mitigating the risks of future supply or pricing disruption.
With the opening of this facility, we’ve completed our 3-year strategic CapEx program and expect to see CapEx investments moderate significantly going forward. In the second half of this year, we expect CapEx to be down by 50% versus the same period last year, certainly beneficial to free cash flow.
Third highlight. We completed the rollout of our new TEMPUR-Breeze products and our new smart base in the U.S. Next-generation TEMPUR-Breeze mattress builds on the success of our proven legacy Breeze products to deliver next-level sleep solutions with enhanced Tempur-Pedic feel characteristics. Featuring new technologies designed by our Tempur-Pedic scientists, the new lineup presents the next generation of consumer-centric solutions focused on helping to alleviate aches and pains.
We also continue to raise the bar in cooling performance with our new LuxeBreeze model, dealing 10 degrees cooler all night long, presenting the best-in-class solution for the more than 60% of the households that have at least one person who sleeps hot. Retailers’ and consumers’ response to these incremental technologies have been overwhelmingly positive, and we and retailers are seeing positive mix and higher average ASP.
In tandem with the Breeze mattress refresh, we also introduced an updated adjustable base lineup, which is driving all-time-high retailer advocacy and attachment rates, reaching new records in May and June. Our new smart base features, our new Sleeptracker 2.0 technology, the accuracy of which was validated by a Stanford medical study; and offers industry-leading automatic snore detection and response, addressing a leading sleep concern among consumers. This new lineup also features incremental multisensory relaxation features to help consumers wind down and prepare their bodies and minds for deep, rejuvenating sleep.
Over the Memorial holiday, we supported these Tempur lineups with all-new breeze and smart-based multimedia advertising campaigns. These efforts drove incremental search interest in Tempur year-over-year and drove solid e-commerce traffic trends over the Memorial Day selling period. All of our new Tempur products and supporting advertising initiatives are strengthening Tempur’s appeal to the premium wellness-minded consumer and driving improvements in attach rates and ASP for our third-party retailers.
Fourth highlight. Our investments in Stearns & Foster products, distribution and marketing continue to drive meaningful sales growth and expand brand recognition. In the second quarter, Stearns delivered its third sequential quarter of year-over-year sales growth, significantly outperforming broader market trends. This was possible, thanks to the recent investments in brand and the rollout of our all-new Stearns & Foster collection with superior innovation and elevated design and enhanced step-up opportunities.
The new product lineup is delivering strong results. We have grown Stearns’ third-party retail distribution by more than 20% compared to the previous collection with gains in both legacy and incremental Stearns’ retailers. We’re seeing this product resonate with historically underserved premium innerspring consumer, resulting in strong mix and again driving ASP expansion.
Our channel diversification strategy is also driving strong brand momentum. The Stearns & Foster e-commerce site we launched last year continues to drive brand recognition and highly profitable incremental sales.
Finally, our launch of our all-new international Tempur products continue to track with our expectations. We are launching the new international lineup in over 90 markets worldwide. In the first half of the year, we kicked off our Tempur European and Asian markets. We expect to be fully floored in our last market in the U.K. in the first half of 2024.
The U.K. has some country-specific fire retardant regulations, which adds some complexity to the product launch. The consumer-centric innovation and new collection will appeal to our legacy ultra-premium consumers at prices of 3,000 and above but also broadening our price points to expand our addressable market to meet the needs of consumers shopping for mattresses between 2,000 and 3,000.
We are streamlining the manufacturing process with this lineup to unlock this incremental price point without materially altering the margin profile of our Tempur International business. As we continue to stagger the rollout by individual markets, we are currently manufacturing both with new line and the old line of products in our international Tempur plant. We plan to optimize production of the new line after the transition period, providing a tailwind to gross margins in 2024.
Scott Thompson
Thanks, Bhaskar. Great job. Before opening the call up for questions, I want to provide a couple of updates. First, I want to address the cybersecurity event affecting certain parts of our IT system, which was disclosed Monday in our 8-K. Following the discovery of the event, our team activated its CEO-approved incident response and business continuity plan.
The plan was approved years ago and is designed to contain incidences. The plan included proactively shutting down certain IT systems, resulting in the planned temporary interruption of our operations. We began bringing our systems back online last Friday and expect it to take time to return to normal operations.
Our investigation remains ongoing and we continue to work to determine the impact of the disruption. If we determine that any personal information was involved, we would, of course, comply with any reporting obligations we have under the applicable law. Currently we’re working hard to catch up with the lost production from the shutdown. In total, our systems were down for a week, and we are currently working to get back to full production. We expect cyber-related expenses net will be adjusted from our third quarter financial results.
Lastly, I’d like to provide a brief update on our pending acquisition of Mattress Firm. We’re currently responding to the Federal Trade Commission’s second request and continue to expect to close the transaction in mid- to late 2024. Over this interim period, Mattress Firm’s leadership team provides us with a high-level update of their financial performance. Mattress Firm’s recently — quarterly results, which they reported yesterday, were consistent with our expectations. And we look forward to bringing the Mattress Firm team onboard.
Robert Griffin
Our first one is to just maybe follow up on the guidance reduction and just maybe get a little more clarity on some of the moving parts assumed in there. So is the reduction in earnings and sales all just a function of the industry maybe being a little bit softer than we originally anticipated and we laid out? Or are you baking in some conservatism that this IT event or the cyber event will have some type of impact on earnings and revenue in the second half?
Scott Thompson
Yes, let me — it’s kind of a — let me answer it because it’s a little bit of a long answer, but let me be clear about it. First of all, from the cyber event, great job by the IT, internal IT department. They did a great job. In fact, it was an enterprise-wide effort. And congratulations to all the people internally. We also had a lot of help from external IT teams that we had on retainer for these kind of events and a great job by Microsoft’s elite team.
Let me go — kind of go through the estimates of what we know today. Obviously, this is not an easy estimate, but let me tell you what we know based on all the information that we have right now. First of all, the event itself is certainly not material to the intrinsic value of the enterprise. The event is not material to our 2023 expected sales or EBITDA.
Before insurance — and we have an insurance limit of $5 million, but before any insurance, our best estimate is about $10 million to $20 million negative impact in EBITDA in the third quarter. We expect the vast majority will qualify as an add-back adjustment in the third quarter. In the estimate that I gave you on the impact of EBITDA, it really breaks out into kind of 2 pieces, 1 which is clearly incremental costs related to the activity and should be cleared by — covered by insurance at some point, but of course, we’ll account for that as we receive it. And then 50% of it is from potential lost sales.
When you look at the potential lost sales for the third quarter, you’re talking about $20 million to $30 million. That’s about maybe 2%-ish, give or take, of the quarter sales; and again that’s potential. And the vast majority of that would be Sealy U.S., okay, because we have plenty of inventory in the Tempur organization. We’ve not experienced any material changes in our balance of share. And retailers, quite frankly, have been very understanding in the situation.
Now lastly, more kind of directly to your guidance question. For the 2023 guidance, the event has been considered, but as we mentioned before, we would expect an add-back in the third quarter for the costs. And certainly we’ll account for the — like I said, the insurance. Whenever we ever file a claim, we’ll call that out.
Any other impact on changing the guidance, totally macro. When you look at the second quarter and — okay, well, let’s say we kind of scraped out the second quarter. The market wasn’t as strong as we expected it to be, but we also performed better and outperformed the industry by a greater extent than we expected. And when you net the two, we had it relatively solid, in fact very solid, relative to others in the industry in the second quarter. And looking forward, we brought back — we brought down our expectations for the industry; and that required us to fine-tune 3%-ish from a guidance standpoint.
Susan Maklari
Yes. I think staying on the theme of demand, Scott. As you think about the macro setup with rates possibly at or very close to the peak, housing getting a little better, it feels like maybe the consumer will start reengaging and spending in some of these other categories as travel starts to moderate a bit in there. How are you thinking about the industry’s ability to start to see some level of improved demand as we move through the next couple of quarters; and your ability to continue to outperform relative to that as some of your peers perhaps move up off of these industry declines of the 25%, 30% range?
Scott Thompson
Thank you for the 33 questions you asked me, Susan. Let me speak to it and see if I can answer like 30 and leave 3 unattended. First of all, yes, we’re very happy with the performance in the quarter. We think it gives us an opportunity to show the strength of the business even in a little bit of a down cycle in its cash flow generation. I would highlight in our numbers, because this goes to the consumer question you asked. If you look at our ASP, it was up 13% in the quarter. And all but about — let’s call it 2% of that is price.
The vast majority of that is people mixing up. And so what that would tell you is the top end of the consumers are doing very well and where you’re seeing sales pressure is at the lower end. If I do it by brand standpoint, our high-end brands did better than our low-end brands. i.e., Stearns & Foster did better than Sealy. And Stearns & Foster grew double digits in a market that — I don’t know, pick your number, but it was clearly down double digits. It grew double digits.
So I’m going to say the strength of the high-end customer everywhere we looked, looked very good. We look at individual mattresses within the Tempur lineup. The high-end Tempur products did much better than the low-end Tempur products. So we’re — we continue to be fairly bullish on a high-end customer. Where you feel the pressure is in the low end, and the low end is — has gotten hit very hard.
So you had a question in there about outlook, as far as consumers going forward. We’ve been bouncing around the bottom in the bedding industry for probably 3 quarters, and so I don’t know. Next quarter or 2, we certainly think that the industry should start doing better. Some people can point to green shoots. Yes, we see some, but you have some good weeks and you have some slower weeks. But the main thing from our perspective is we see our products incrementally performing very well in the marketplace against the competition. And part of her question, I missed, Bhaskar, that you can remember?
Keith Hughes
Yes. You had talked earlier about raw material costs, I guess, coming down [indiscernible]. Can you give me a kind of quantification how much they’re down either in the quarter or your estimates for the second half of the year?
Bhaskar Rao
Sure. So let me think about it this way. Is that we did have an expectation from a commodity standpoint as we entered the year. Largely speaking is that those commodities are coming in very much in line with those — with our expectations. We would expect to continue to see incremental commodity benefit as we get into the back half; however, all contemplated in our initial thoughts as it relates to what we thought commodities were going to do. As it relates to the commodity benefit that we saw in our GP rate, is we’ll have a little bit more information in our queue. It’s going to drop here in a little bit, but I’ll go ahead and give you a peek on it. It’s from a commodity standpoint is what we’d want to expect to see is about 150 basis points of improvement.
August 8, 2023
Epoxy Highlights from Westlake Earnings Call
Westlake Corporation (NYSE:WLK) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript
Westlake Corporation (NYSE:WLK) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript August 3, 2023 Westlake Corporation misses on earnings expectations. Reported EPS is $2.31 EPS, expectations were $2.83.
Jeff Holy: Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Westlake Corporation conference call to discuss our second quarter 2023 results. I’m joined today by Albert Chao, our President and CEO; Steve Bender, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; and other members of our management team. During the call, we will refer to our two reporting segments: Performance and Essential Materials, which we refer to as PEM or Materials; and Housing and Infrastructure Products, which we refer to as HIP or Products. Today’s conference call will begin with Albert, who will open with a few comments regarding Westlake’s performance. Steve will then discuss our financial and operating results, after which, Albert will add a few concluding comments, and we will open the call up to questions.
Albert Chao: Thank you, Jeff. Good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us to discuss our second quarter 2023 results.
For the second quarter of 2023, we reported sales of $3.3 billion, net income of $297 million and EBITDA of $690 million. In our PEM segment, the continuation of soft industrial and construction activity and unplanned maintenance activities drove sales volume declines, particularly impacting PVC resin, caustic soda and epoxy in North America and Europe. The elevated level of unplanned outages resulted in lost sales that impacted operating income by approximately $50 million.
While our PEM segment average selling prices were lower than in the first quarter. We benefited from our strategically located globally advantaged feedstock position in North America, where we saw lower feedstock and fuel costs compared to the first quarter. In our HIP segment, we experienced an increase in sales volumes quarter-over-quarter with the start of the construction season in North America with housing starts in the second quarter, averaging 1.4 million units and repair and modeling continuing to grow. HIP segment EBITDA margin increased sequentially due to the 13% volume improvement and raw material cost reductions. And its margin remained in line with the record second quarter of 2022 at approximately 22%, reflecting the strength in our branded products and relationships with our customers.
While we expect the challenging macro backdrop to continue in the third quarter, we will focus our efforts of operating our assets reliably and reducing costs. To that end, we now expect our cost reduction program to achieve between $75 million to $105 million of cost savings in 2023, up from the previous $55 million to $105 million target after we achieved approximately $25 million of cost savings in the second quarter and $50 million in the first half of 2023. Overall, our second quarter results reflected the weakness in global manufacturing and industrial activity, along with the impact to sales volumes and margins from the planned and unplanned outages, and we continue to take a disciplined approach to managing our operations in this volatile economy and advance our long-term strategic priorities. I would now like to turn our call over to Steve to provide more detail on our financial results for the second quarter of 2023.
Steve Bender: Thank you, Albert, and good morning, everyone. Westlake reported net income of $297 million or $2.31 per share in the second quarter of 2023 on sales of $3.3 billion. Net income for the second quarter of 2023 decreased $561 million from the second quarter of 2022 as a result of lower average selling prices and integrated margins and more production and sales volumes. When compared to the first quarter of 2023, net income decreased by $97 million in the second quarter of 2023, primarily to lower average selling prices, particularly for caustic soda, PVC resin due to softer market conditions and unplanned production outages. For the second quarter of 2023, our utilization of the FIFO method of accounting had a negligible impact on pre-tax earnings compared to what earnings would have been reported on the LIFO method. This is only an estimate and has not been audited. Moving to our segment performance.
Our performance in Central Materials segment’s second quarter 2023 sales were $2.1 billion with EBITDA of $435 million compared to EBITDA of $1.2 billion in the second quarter of 2022 due to lower average selling prices, particularly for Performance Materials in addition to lower sales volume, largely in PVC and epoxy. PEM segment EBITDA of $435 million in the second quarter decreased $180 million from the first quarter of 2023, largely due to lower average selling prices for both Performance Materials and essential materials particularly for caustic soda, epoxy resins and polyethylene. Lower demand and resulting in sales volumes, particularly, for PVC, caustic soda and epoxy resin, and elevated level of unplanned outages that impacted both sales volumes and integrated margins.
Albert Chao: Thank you, Steve. Looking ahead, with continued high interest rates and a slowing economy we’re expecting a challenging environment in the second half of this year. However, we remain confident in our long-term growth plans, the strength of our business portfolio and our disciplined approach to creating long-term value. We look to expand our sales through differentiated product offerings and innovations with sustainable products to meet our customers’ needs on managing our costs and adapting to the changing market conditions as they unfold. In our PEM segment, we will leverage our North American feedstock advantage and highly integrated production chain. We remain positive on the outlook for our PEM segment, driven by increased consumer activity and demand for clean, fresh water, electrification and renewable energy benefits from the Infrastructure Investment Act and Inflation Reduction Act and favorable demographic trends, all driving demand for PVC resin, caustic soda, polyethylene and epoxy.
While PEM average selling price ending in June were below the average selling prices of the second quarter, in the last few weeks, we have seen some signs of improvement in both PVC resin and polyethylene markets from tightening export markets with unprofitable high-cost international producers curtailing production and lower industry inventory levels. As a result, we remain constructive on the outlook for our PEM segment from recent levels.
Patrick Cunningham: Got it. That’s helpful. And then what’s driving the weakness in epoxies and how do you see demand trending by region for the balance of the year?
Albert Chao: Yes. Epoxies applies to many areas, mostly into the industrial coatings and also in windmill blades and lightweighting of vehicles. And windmill blades business is still coming back slow demand, especially China. China has one of the largest capacities in the world in Epoxie and China’s economy is really not growing much and there’s overcapacity of new plants coming on. So the business is very weak and impacted global. And we expect US, European policy man pick up in the coming quarters or years, but it takes a while. China is the main issue we have.
Kevin McCarthy: That’s helpful. And then as a second question, Albert, I would appreciate any updated thoughts you might have on China. Generally speaking, we’ve seen demand from China languish across many commodity chemical markets. In the markets where you compete, are you seeing any signs of improvement there following recent efforts to stimulate or for that matter, any improvement on the supply side dynamics in China?
Albert Chao: China is the elephant in the room. It has the largest capacity produce many of the chemicals and plastics as well as one of the largest market for it, and as we all know that China did not recover much since the Chinese New Year, people expected after coming out of the pandemic. And the economy is still quite weak. As a result, polymers and chemical market prices has dropped a lot and impact global prices as well. Not only that, they used to import products and now they’re being exporting products. So all that impacted global prices for those products. And as we’re aware that the economy, especially for unemployment for young people has been quite surprisingly high, and recently, the Chinese Government have made a statement, they are coming up with policies to stimulate, but those statement has not come out with concrete actions, specific action plans yet. But I think with Chinese — I presume leadership in China as they said very well the issues. And the central government is still quite well off. They have a lot of buyer power to do things. So we believe that over time, the Chinese economy will improve and they talk about targeted 5% GDP growth for the near term coming years. So time will tell, but the meantime, as Steve mentioned, the spot price has really bottomed out in China. We see coupled with some planned issues with turnaround all that, that there the prices have started moving up the last several weeks. We hope that will be sustained, especially during the third quarter, which is usually a busy quarter. So time will tell, but we think China should improve over time.
Michael Leithead: Great. Thank you. Good morning, guys. My first question on PEM and maybe sticking on the last topic. Your slides talk about competitively priced exports out of China for epoxy and when you sort of do the back of the envelope math, it seems like producers there are selling export products below cash breakeven levels, so how do you think this dynamic or down cycle plays out? And does it change at all how you approach…
Albert Chao: Certainly, some of the Chinese — depending on the industry, definitely in the integrated ethylene to polyethylene, our information shows that in to the present China based on naphtha cracking are losing cash, whereas the US integrated players are still based on ethane feedstock ethylene up, we still have very good cash margin. So — but in business like epoxy, where they have built additional capacities. Some of the Chinese plants are running below 50%. And some new plants have not started up – idle and starting up. So I think companies are adjusting to the new dynamics. And over time, they should make the right decisions, what to do with their businesses.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/westlake-corporation-nyse-wlk-q2-080908280.html
August 8, 2023
Klaussner to Close
Klaussner Home Furnishings closes
August 7, 2023 | 5:17 pm CDT
Photo By Klaussner Furniture website
ASHEBORO, N.C. – Klaussner Home Furnishings is shuttering its operations effective immediately.
The residential furniture company manufactured more than 70 percent of its products domestically through its five manufacturing campuses in North Carolina, including at its Asheboro headquarters. Klaussner was ranked #36 on the FDMC 300, a listing of the largest North American wood products producers, with estimated sales of more than $300 million in 2022.
A statement posted on Klaussner’s website reads in part:
“As the result of challenging and unexpected business circumstances impacting our operations, Klaussner Furniture Industries, Inc. and its direct and indirect subsidiaries (“Klaussner” or the “Company”) must unexpectedly wind down the operations.
“Klaussner’s lending source has unexpectedly refused to continue to fund the Company’s operations. This outcome was not reasonably foreseeable, but due to these unexpected circumstances, Klaussner can no longer sustain its operations. As a result, Klaussner has made the difficult decision to permanently cease operations and is providing as much notice as possible.
“Klaussner anticipates closing all of its facilities entirely, and that process is underway as of today, August 7, 2023.
Klaussner is working to provide information and resources to assist with next steps for displaced employees as it becomes available. This information will be communicated directly to employees via the contact information we have on file.”
Founded in 1963, Klaussner Home Furnishings has been a leading provider of residential furniture, including upholstery, motion, sleepers, bedroom, dining occasional and accent furniture. Its licensed lifestyle collections included Trisha Yearwood Home Collection and Stacey Garcia Home. It is also affiliated with Prestige Fabricators Inc., a foam manufacturing company based in Asheboro.
https://www.woodworkingnetwork.com/management/fdmc-300/klaussner-home-furnishings-closes
August 7, 2023
The Fine Print
Privacy Storm Brewing As Zoom’s Updated Terms Greenlight AI Model Training With User Data
by Tyler Durden
Monday, Aug 07, 2023 – 12:25 PM
Zoom has added a clause to its Terms-of-Service (TOS) which allows the video conferencing company to use customer-generated content for any purpose they see fit, including to train artificial intelligence (AI) models, with no opt-out.
Zoom’s TOS, last revised on July 26th, conceals a concerning caveat. Nestled within section 10.4, for those brave enough to venture, is language that confers upon Zoom a carte blanche right to exploit what it coins as “Service Generated Data” (SGD). This expansive designation encompasses a cornucopia of user-generated information – from innocuous telemetry data to incisive diagnostic insights – all grist for the AI mill.
Section 10.4 also describes the company’s use of Customer Content (defined as “data, content, files, documents, or other materials”), not just telemetry data and the like, which it can use “for the purpose of product and service development, marketing, analytics, quality assurance, machine learning, artificial intelligence, training, testing, improvement of the Services, Software, or Zoom’s other products, services, and software, or any combination thereof.”
The company makes clear that it will be using data for, among other things, fine-tuning AI models and algorithms. The potential consequences are manifold, raising red flags for privacy pundits and sparking debates over the boundaries of user consent.
Zoom’s data net is cast even wider with a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicensable, and transferable license. This legal carte blanche emboldens Zoom to undertake a multitude of actions that span the entire data lifecycle. From reconstituting, republishing, and accessing user content to the deep recesses of data modification, redistribution, and algorithmic processing, the breadth of Zoom’s dominion over user-generated data now defies conventional comprehension.
Zoom contends that these data maneuvers are vital to service provision, bolstering software quality, and enhancing the broader Zoom ecosystem. The augmentation of AI capabilities, epitomized by Zoom IQ, has been touted as a beacon of collaboration, promising efficient meeting summaries, task automation, and optimized follow-ups, all enabled by the seamless integration of user data.
“With the introduction of these new capabilities in Zoom IQ, an incredible generative AI assistant, teams can further enhance their productivity for everyday tasks, freeing up more time for creative work and expanding collaboration,” said Zoom chief product officer, Smita Hashim. “There is no one-size-fits-all approach to large language models, and with Zoom’s federated approach to AI, we are able to bring powerful capabilities to our customers and users through Zoom’s own models as well as our partners’ models.”
In 2021, Zoom agreed to settle a class-action privacy lawsuit for $86 million, after plaintiffs accused the company of violating the privacy of millions of users by sharing personal data with Facebook, LinkedIn and Google.
The controversial section of the TOS reads (emphasis ours):
Customer License Grant. You agree to grant and hereby grant Zoom a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicensable, and transferable license and all other rights required or necessary to redistribute, publish, import, access, use, store, transmit, review, disclose, preserve, extract, modify, reproduce, share, use, display, copy, distribute, translate, transcribe, create derivative works, and process Customer Content and to perform all acts with respect to the Customer Content: (i) as may be necessary for Zoom to provide the Services to you, including to support the Services; (ii) for the purpose of product and service development, marketing, analytics, quality assurance, machine learning, artificial intelligence, training, testing, improvement of the Services, Software, or Zoom’s other products, services, and software, or any combination thereof; and (iii) for any other purpose relating to any use or other act permitted in accordance with Section 10.3. If you have any Proprietary Rights in or to Service Generated Data or Aggregated Anonymous Data, you hereby grant Zoom a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicensable, and transferable license and all other rights required or necessary to enable Zoom to exercise its rights pertaining to Service Generated Data and Aggregated Anonymous Data, as the case
August 6, 2023
LTL Price Hikes Ahead
Yellow shutdown likely means LTL price increases, analysts say
The low-cost carrier’s rivals see an opportunity to bring in loads at higher rates as bankruptcy looms.
Published Aug. 4, 2023
David TaubeAssociate Editor
Yellow Corp.’s shutdown has left shippers without a major player in the less-than-truckload space — a development that means higher costs are likely in store, according to trucking industry analysts.
“There’s probably going to be an increase in the pricing charged to the shipper,” said Craig Decker, who leads investment banking activities across supply chain, logistics and transportation areas at Brown Gibbons Lang & Co.
The price difference could be a 20% to 25% price per pound increase depending on the circumstances, DAT Chief of Analytics Ken Adamo suggested on a weekly market update show. All together, he said the price increases could be 7% to 10% higher.
“[If] you decided late last week to send ArcBest, Old Dominion, XPO and FedEx Freight your data to get some rates back, probably by late this week you’re going to be fully processing the sticker shock of how much of a price increase you’re going to have to take over what Yellow was charging you,” Adamo said.
XPO executives noted Friday on a Q2 earnings call that Yellow’s shuttering is disrupting the market and accelerating their pricing. ““Our customers understand: When you take 10% of capacity out of the market, it’s going to cost more to move freight,” incoming CFO Kyle Wismans said.
The increase to rates comes as a result of Yellow’s role in the trucking market: Shippers who relied on the low-cost carrier are likely left with higher-priced alternatives, analysts said.
“As one of the US’ most cost-effective LTL transport companies, businesses switching from Yellow to a more expensive rival carrier will experience a twofold cost increase,” Charles Haverfield, CEO of U.S. Packaging & Wrapping, said in emailed comments.
Haverfield said this is particularly true if shippers have not built relationships with other carriers to secure discounted prices or if they switch to smaller trucking companies that cannot leverage Yellow’s economies of scale to lower prices for their services.
“The best approach is for businesses to adopt a comprehensive approach, encompassing both major carriers and smaller freight companies,” Haverfield said.
Shippers had been diverting freight to other carriers, brokers and the spot market even before Yellow confirmed it was shutting down terminal operations and laying off workers.
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