The company forecasts that revenue ton miles — a key industry metric — will fall by mid-single digits and that adjusted diluted earnings per share will remain flat in 2020.
CEO
"Not only can we weather the storm...we will come out a stronger and more resilient company," Creel said. "This is a marathon, not a sprint.
"We certainly recognize that there are going to be challenging times ahead," he added. "We're not panicked, we're not distracted; we're prepared."
Creel said the company has laid off about 800 employees, with the company parking cars and locomotives across the country in alignment with lower demand.
Nonetheless, the railway set a first-quarter record for grain shipments over the past three months, moving more than 6.35 million tonnes due to strong international demand and a backlog following rolling blockades in February.
Despite heavy wheat and crude-by-rail traffic for the Calgary-based railroad operator early in the year, analysts say
"There is no question in our mind that freight volumes in the next few months are going to be severely depressed with no real historical precedent,''
Automotive shipments and container traffic have been hit particularly hard after North American and Asian production hubs went into lockdown due to the virus.
"We're seeing the blank sailings as others are in the international space...and that's going to continue," chief marketing officer
"We're going to go through the ride like everybody else in that space," he said of container and auto volumes, though container revenues jumped six per cent year over year last quarter.
Chief financial officer
Some 40 per cent of CP Rail's revenue stems from bulk commodities — grain makes up more than half, with coal, potash, fertilizers and sulphur bringing up the rear.
Revenue from energy, chemicals and plastics rose 55 per cent last quarter, but Brooks pointed to "demand pressures across all these volumes" in the coming months, citing oversupply owing to the oil price war between
"We're going to take that energy hit in the near term."
In its first quarter, CP saw net income fell to
The six per cent drop comes despite a revenue increase of nearly 16 per cent year over year to
On an adjusted basis, diluted earnings rose 58 per cent to
The company's stock has declined by about 13 per cent over the past two months, a shorter fall than that of many transportation industry companies.
This report by
Companies in this story: (TSX:CP)
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