Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to TFI International Fourth Quarter 2021 Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. Callers will be limited to one question and a follow-up in order to get as many callers as possible. Further instructions for entering the queue will be provided at that time. Before we turn the call over to management, please be advised that this conference call will contain several statements that are forward-looking in nature and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated. Also, as a reminder, TFI changed its presentation currency at year-end 2020 and all dollar amounts are now in US dollars. Lastly, I would like to remind everyone that this conference call is being recorded Tuesday, February 8th, 2022. I would now like to turn the call over to Alain Bédard, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer of TFI International. Please go ahead, sir. Well, thank you very much, operator, and welcome everyone to this morning's call. Yesterday, after the market closed, we released our fourth quarter 2021 results. TFI International completed a very strong year, and that will be remembered as a pivotal year in our history with the successful acquisition of UPS Freight. Our strong fourth quarter results demonstrate the sound rationale behind this transformational event, which drove much of our outperformance, along with continued strong execution across all of our business segments. All four segments generated growth in operating income, contributing to full-year adjusted diluted earnings per share of $5.23, which easily exceeded the high end of our guidance that we provided in October. What we found most compelling is that while UPS Freight, rebranded TForce Freight, is already playing a large role in our outperformance, we still see much upside ahead as we continue to integrate driving both revenue and cost synergies. It is this ongoing upside, combined with our consistent focus on the fundamentals of the business, that provides us with confidence that we will continue to successfully navigate the road ahead with TFI International now in the strongest position in its history. This focus on the fundamentals for TFI International means that getting it right on the details of our business. It means striving for operational efficiencies and selectively capitalizing on strategic acquisition opportunities. Over time, this approach allows us to generate strong returns on invested capital, optimize our free cash flow, and grow our earnings per share. With the overarching goal of creating long-term shareholder value, we also aim to return excess capital to shareholders whenever possible. Importantly, you will notice that before, during, and after the global pandemic, this has been our focus. Regardless of lockdowns, ongoing supply chain disruptions, and labor shortage, and any other changes in operating condition that 2022 may have in store, we are confident that our operating principles will continue to help us succeed. Looking into the new year, in addition to integrating TForce Freight, we plan to especially focus on improving density, increasing our service level, optimizing our pricing, increasing driver retention, and the concept I mentioned last quarter, freight that fits. This means taking on the right freight for our valuable network. Turning to our fourth quarter results, our total revenue climbed by more than 90% year over year to $2.1 billion. During the quarter, we continued to strategically price in order to capitalize on rebounding freight volume across B2B and e-commerce. Given our focus on profitability rather than growth for growth sakes, I'm pleased to report our operating income climbed to $215 million, which was up 84%, and our adjusted fully diluted EPS of $1.57 was up a very healthy 60%. Similarly, we had a long-standing focus on net cash from continuing operating activities, and I'm pleased to report an increase in this measure as well to $190 million. This cash flow strength is strategically important, allowing us to appropriately invest in our business, seek attractive acquisition opportunities in a disciplined manner, and return excess cash to shareholders when possible. Each of our four segments performed well during the quarter, with all four producing an increase in return on invested capital versus the prior year, which is a metric that we track closely. Let's now take a look at each. Beginning with P&C, this segment represents 8% of our total segment revenue and saw a 3% decline in revenue before fuel surcharge versus the year ago quarter, but a 25% increase in operating income to $36.7 million, with the operating margin up a very strong 540 basis points to 24.5%. This improved profitability was the result of strengthening yields for both P&C, B2C and B2B. Our return on invested capital for P&C was very strong as well, at 25.3%, which was up from 18.2% a year earlier. Turning to our LTL segment, which is 44% of total segment revenue. Revenue before fuel surcharge was $823 million, as compared to $141 million a year earlier, with the increase largely due to the acquisition of TForce Freight. Operating income of $103 million was up from $24 million, and our operating margin of 12.6%, as I referred to earlier, has significant upside potential as we continue the important work of optimizing our newly acquired operation. Digging in deeper on LTL, our Canadian business grew revenue before fuel surcharge 3% and delivered a remarkably strong adjusted operating ratio of 78.3, representing a 440 basis point improvement versus the prior year. Our return on invested capital for the Canadian LTL was a strong 17.8, up 420 basis points. Our US LTL business, newly formed with last year's acquisition of UPS Freight, produced revenue before fuel surcharge of $680 million, with an OR that improved another 130 basis points sequentially to 89.4. Our return on invested capital for US LTL was once again exceptional, but we will continue to wait until we have a full year's worth of TForce Freight performance before reporting this measure. Turning to our Truckload segment, which represents 27% of total revenue. Our revenue before fuel surcharge of $506 million was up 16% over the prior-year fourth quarter, and our operating income of $62 million was up 15%. Our Truckload operating margin was unchanged at 12.2%. In addition, the newly acquired TForce Freight Truckload division continues to operate at a modest loss of $2.4 million, a sequential improvement from a loss of $4.6 million last quarter, and we expect continued near-term improvement. Taking a closer look at Truckload revenue before fuel surcharge for US based conventional operation grew 16% with an adjusted OR of 95.5 and a return on invested capital of 5.3%, flat year-over-year. Our Canadian conventional Truckload operation grew revenue before fuel surcharge, a very strong 26%. The adjusted OR was 88.4 versus 85.2 the prior year, and the return on invested capital was 10.9, down 50 basis points. Lastly, within Truckload, our specialized operation grew revenue before fuel surcharge 13% with an adjusted OR of 84.6 and a return on invested capital of 11.2, up from 9.9 a year earlier. Rounding out our discussion by segment, our Logistics business represents 20% of total segment revenue. Our revenue before fuel surcharge jumped 33% to $428 million, with operating income up 24% to $33 million. Logistics operating margin was 7.7, relative to 8.2 the prior year. Return on invested capital was a very strong 19.9, up 460 basis points. This overall strong performance was led by our same-day package delivery business in the U.S. and in Canada, and by the addition of US LTL Brokers, TFWW, which remains a strong performer. Shifting gears. TFI International balance sheet remains a source of strength. During the fourth quarter, we produced free cash flow of $121 million, allowing us to end the year 2021 with a debt to Adjusted EBITDA ratio as calculated in accordance with our debt covenant of 1.51. This low leverage and continued strong cash flow is what allows us to strategically grow the business through prudent internal investment and our long-standing disciplined acquisition strategy. Turning to the outlook for 2022, today we're issuing our initial full year guidance. These initial ranges assume that operating conditions remain relatively stable, and most importantly, reflect our own confidence in our ability to capitalize on the favorable opportunities ahead based on what we at TFI International can control. This includes the compelling opportunities to optimize recently acquired TForce Freight operations, and as always, our emphasis on strong execution, getting the fundamentals of the business right, including our focus on freight that fits, and our preference for cash flow and profitability over growth for the sake of growth. With this in mind, our initial 2022 outlook calls for full-year earnings per share to be in the range of $6.25-$6.50, reflecting a potential growth of over 20% at the midpoint. We expect net CapEx to be in the range of $325 million-$350 million for the full year, and we also expect our free cash flow to exceed $700 million. Throughout the year, we expect our leverage, again, defined as funded debt to EBITDA ratio, as calculated in accordance with our debt covenants, to remain at around 1.5x. In conclusion, before we open the call for your questions, TFI International finished the year on a very strong note, and we're now in the best position in our history to navigate what's ahead and capitalize on the many opportunities that are within reach, especially the compelling opportunities to optimize TForce Freight. We therefore see continued operating opportunity to create and unlock shareholder value, returning excess capital to shareholders whenever possible. Now, operator, we can begin the Q&A session. If you could please open the lines. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, to ask a question, you will need to press star one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, press star one again. As a reminder, callers will be limited to one question and a follow-up in order to get as many callers as possible. Again, that's star one to ask a question, and please limit yourself to one question and a follow-up. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from Scott Group from Wolfe Research. Please go ahead. Hey, thanks, Alain. Can you talk about your expectations for the US LTL margins this year, and then if anything's changing in terms of your longer term expectations, for where the business can operate? Well, you know what? The way we look at Q4 is that we were very prudent and conservative, and we're, you know, looking at Q1 2022 the same way. We've never seen Q1 so far with TForce Freight. What I could tell you, though, is that what we've been able to accomplish so far with the team there, okay, which I think we have a great team in our US LTL, is that all the low-hanging fruits, the easy stuff, okay, is mostly done now. The year 2022 for us is really a pivotal year in the sense that we're gonna be focused on first of all getting the operation, you know, with what we call... You know, first we said the freight that fits, but now we need the network also that fits the operation. We're gonna be really focused on improving the density, on improving the number of shipments per stop, on improving also our footprint in the sense that, you know, to travel 70 miles to deliver two shipments, it doesn't make any sense, right? That's gonna be a major focus of having the operation that fits and the freight that fits the operation as well. To answer your question, I think that, you know, long term, this company has to be an 80 OR. Now, long term is two to three years from now. I believe that probably by the end of 2022, we should be closer to, you know, something like an 86% or an 88% than a 90% or 92%. It's hard to say. The chance we have is that the market, the LTL market in the U.S. is really a great market to be in right now, so that helps us. We have so much to do on the operational side. For sure, equipment has been delayed. That's a little bit of an issue because our MPG on old equipment is just the shit. Our maintenance cost on an old truck is $0.45 a mile, which is about $0.40 more than the normal. These are all things that are being some kind of a handicap for us. In the meantime, we're gonna be focusing on improving the density. Density in my mind is the name of the game in this business. If you look at what we do in Canada in a not so good market, I mean, the reason why we can produce those good results is because we focus on density. We focus on doing more with less, not less with more. In our US operation, I mean, the focus was never really 100% there in that regard, okay? We're working with Paul and all the team there to really change, and we're gonna be focused on trying to get more shipment out of customers instead of trying to get more customers, right? It's gonna be, again, you know, a long trek, okay, to get to an 80 OR. But I think that this company, this team will do it. I mean, if we're able to be sub-80 in Canada, there's no reason, okay, not to be an 80 OR company within the next, I don't know, 24-36 months in the U.S. All right. Okay. Just so I understand, when you talk, you said 86%-88%. Is that a full year 2022 comment or more like a run rate exiting the year? And then maybe just- It's a run rate. Run rate. Okay. I just Yeah. Hey, Scott. Exiting the year, I think that we'll be. Let's say fourth quarter, I see us maybe between 85%-88%, something somewhere like that. Okay. Maybe just your margin expectations for some of the other segments within the guidance would be helpful. Thank you. Yeah. Well, you see, if you look at our P&C, I mean, we're second to none in that regard. I think that P&C, the focus in 2022, we've done a fantastic job of, you know, building a very, very strong foundation. Now the focus is gonna be more growth in 2022 in our P&C. The margin is really solid, second to none. Same story with our Canadian LTL. Our US LTL, I mean, I've said it, I mean, we're gonna start working and improving our operation and improving our density. US Truckload, you know, we've been a little bit disappointed, okay, with the dedicated Truckload division, but I know Greg and the team there are working really hard. We see that, finally, okay, we should end up the year in a OR that's gonna be closer to 90 than closer to 98, like we have right now. Logistics, I mean, we see a lot of growth there in the U.S. and in Canada with our last mile and even our TFWW. Scott is really doing well and growing. All in all, that's why we're able to say, "Guys, we think that we could do 625-650 in EPS in 2022." We're very confident. Don't forget, we're also very conservative. Thank you for the time. Appreciate it. Pleasure, Scott. Your next question comes from Tom Wadewitz with UBS. Please go ahead. Yeah, good morning. Morning. W anted to see if you could provide, you know, I think the framework on LTL OR is really helpful, so thank you for that. I wanted to see if you could provide a little more thought on how you're doing on repricing the book, kind of how much you've gotten your hands on in terms of raising price in LTL. Also how you think about, I guess the taking out lower quality freight. You know, it seemed like you had some sequential decline in tons or shipments that was maybe a bit more than seasonality. Maybe if you could comment on those two levers for where you're at for LTL. Yeah. Yeah. Well, absolutely. In terms of the freight that does not fit, I mean, we're not done. I mean, we did Phase One. The problem that we have is that we need to replace those shipments. Like you said, okay, quarter-over-quarter, our volumes are down a bit, okay? This is why, you know, our sales team has to be on their toes, you know, to be in a position to replace everything that does not fit us. So in terms of repricing the business, I mean, we've done a lot, but we still need a lot to do in terms of catching up to the market. See, the market is improving every month, every quarters. Us, our base was so low because the quality of our freight was so bad in the sense that we had a lot of small shipments. The average weight per shipment is still too low. I mean, we're around 1,070 pound per shipment. Most of our peers are closer to 1,300-1,400. I mean, on the Canadian side, we're above 1,500 pounds per shipment. There's still a lot to do in terms of the freight that fits the mix. I would say that we're probably done half of what we should have, you know, what we should accomplish on that. The big story for us in 2022 is, yes, to a certain degree with market and freight and all that, but it's all gonna be a story in 2022 of improving the cost of operation or reducing our cost of operation. This is the big thing that's gonna help us bring this company closer to an 80 OR than a 90 OR. Okay. For the second question, just wondered if you could offer some thoughts on kind of portfolio and how you think it might change in terms of both divestitures and acquisitions. You know, it seems like there are a lot of, you know, a lot of transports out there that have cash that are interested in doing deals dedicated to an area where, you know, I think their company's interested. Is that something you consider in terms of pruning a portfolio if it doesn't, you know, doesn't necessarily seem to be something that's going well or, you know, is that something you just fix and then, I don't know, thoughts on, you know, deals this year. Are you likely or you still need some more time to do bigger deals again? Yeah, for sure. I mean, we need more times. I mean, we have to deliver on our TForce Freight promise of being closer to an 80 OR. You know, there's been a lot of discussion about, you know, why do you guys run a US Truckload operation, you know, when you have a return on invested capital that's single-digit? I mean, for sure. I mean, I'm getting a lot of question from investors or board members, and I'm saying, "Guys, I mean, we have to demonstrate, okay, what we could do." I'm very confident in Greg's team to be able to get this 5.5 return on invested capital closer to 10. Now, one thing is for sure, I mean, if sometimes, if you look at the track record of TFI, if we cannot grow this business in a sector like, we were in the Waste business, and we sold it to GFL about 5-6 years ago. Why? Because we couldn't grow it. Now, it's the same story with all of our sector. You know, If you look at our P&C in Canada, I mean, it's hard for us to grow in through M&A, but we're gonna be focusing on growing organically. With the return on invested capital that we have there is, I mean, is second to none. So that makes sense. In terms of M&A, for sure, we're always open. We cannot do anything of size before the end of 2022. Maybe from Q3. As soon as we feel really good about TForce Freight, then, you know, we could go to the next step. For sure, we have a plan for the next step because, you know, the next big acquisition for TFI, it's already in the plan right now. I mean, we know what we'll be doing, hopefully, you know, in the next 12-18 months. In terms of divestiture, I have to give a chance to our Truckload guys, you know, to really prove that we, you know, it can be part of the TFI family. Now, in terms of strategy. For sure. When we look at that, if your cost of capital is more than your return on invested capital, it doesn't fit, right? I mean, right now our focus is really TForce Freight and all the migration away from our TSA with UPS. That is really the focus of 2022. In the meantime, our Truckload guys are working, you know, diligently to improve what we have now. Because for sure, showing the results that we have today in our Q4 compares to our peers in USTL, you know, we're a little bit concerned. Great. Thanks for all the perspective. My pleasure. Your next question comes from Ravi Shanker with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Thanks. Morning, Alain. Maybe I'll start my follow-up, which is just to confirm that your 2022 EPS guidance does not include any M&A in it, correct? No. No, no. Everything remains the same, right? No M&A. Yeah. Got it. That makes sense. And maybe if I can follow up on your comments on the USTL business. I mean, we certainly saw the results kind of improve there, sequentially. I think in the last quarter, you had flagged some issues with the residual TL business within the UPS LTL business that you acquired. Seemed like you made a bunch of progress there. Can you elaborate on that a little bit more. I did want to ask you about the potential long-term future of that TL business. Ravi, are you talking LTL or Truckload? Truckload. I'm talking about the Truckload business within the Okay. Truckload. the UPS operation. I think Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yes. Well, let me tell you that we believe that in Q1 we're gonna stop losing money with the UPS Truckload business that we've acquired. I mean, we still have two major accounts there that are not doing a good job for us. We're losing money on two major accounts. I know that Greg and his team are working hard to fix this issue. I mean, we've been working at it for eight months. You know, this was a business that we got that was terrible. Really, really bad because we had commitments with customers, and we didn't have the trucks, we didn't have the power, so we had to go with third party, and we lost a fortune doing that. Now, in terms of our approach to the market is that, guys, I mean, let's fix rates, and that's what we've been doing since day one. We've lost $5 million-$6 million in Q2. We lost $4 million-$5 million in Q3, and then we lost about $2.5 million in Q4, and we anticipate that we won't lose any in Q1 of 2022. It doesn't make any sense, okay, to keep, you know, hauling freight and lose money in this kind of environment. It's so stupid. We had to go through that. At the same time, also, what we did, Ravi, is we moved the Over-the-Road from our TA operation to CFI. Now TA is also just a dedicated Truckload guy. You know, we were also disappointed. When we did that, we found out. You know, when you, when you do two or three times, you know, you're a dedicated, you're Over-the-Road, you're intermodal, you do this, you do that, and you got all kinds of allocations. Sometimes you don't see the global picture of dedicated at TA. Now that we pulled the Over-the-Road, we see that we have issues with it all there as well, with some customers that don't cover the cost and we don't make any money. Dedicated, okay, right now is our biggest problem, okay, that we have to fix within our USTL. But now our guys were so focused trying to fix that even our Over-the-Road, okay, we lost a little bit of focus on market environment, right? If I compare with my peers, even on Over-the-Road, my average revenue per mile is way lower than theirs. This is now after looking at what happened in Q4 with the results of my peers. Now, you know, our teams are saying, "Oh, here we have another issue that we have to fix with our customer." Because if we run on average, let's say, I don't know, $2.20 miles and our peers are running at $2.60 or $2.80 a mile, I mean, we are not at market rate. That's also part of our program early in 2022 to fix. As an example, talking with Greg, as of the month of January, Over-the-Road, okay, we got about $9 million more on a yearly basis from existing customers. Okay. Greg, that's fine. Okay. We need more than that, right? This is why we're doing the same thing in February, adjusting rates to the market with our customers. Got it. Thanks for the call, Alain. Pleasure. Your next question comes from Konark Gupta with Scotiabank. Please go ahead. Thanks, operator. Good morning, Alain. How are you? Good morning. I'm good. How about you? Pretty good, Alain. Thanks so much for the time. I wanna kinda focus on the Package and Courier business as well. I think the 75% OR or 25% operating margin is probably your best ever, if not maybe closest to the best ever you have seen in that segment. I'm just kinda wondering what kind of drove that performance. Was it more of a pricing story in Q4, or was it more of a cost improvement story? Then what do you think about sustainability in that? Konark, what we did, okay. This was Brian's plan, okay, the summer of 2021, is that we're not gonna go through the same story in 2021 peaks as in 2020 peak, right? We got rid of. This is why our year-over-year revenue is a little bit lower. Why? Because we got rid of e-commerce freight that we made very low margin on it, right? That was the plan, and I said, "Brian, I think it's a great plan," and this is why we're showing, you know, 24% OE in that division, okay? If you compare that with last year, okay, we're up about $6 million-$7 million, okay, versus last year. Fine. Now the new plan for 2022, when we're talking to Jimmy and Bob over there and say, "Guys, okay, now we are very strong. We don't have freight that doesn't fit in that B-network. Let's start growing again. Because if you look at the last four or five quarters, you know, we used to grow 15%-20%. Really, if you look at Q3 and Q4 of 2021, we slowed that down a bit, okay, to consolidate our base, to add more trucks, to add more drivers, okay, to beef up our terminals network. We are opening a new terminal in Winnipeg as an example, okay, during Q2 of 2022. Some kind of a, you know, wait a little bit, and now we're focused on growing again in our P&C. To answer your question, it's a combination. Mostly it's getting rid of freight that did not fit, okay, with low-margin that we got stuck in 2020, okay, at peak. Now our base is really, really solid, and we're gonna start growing again there. Makes sense. That's great, Alain. Then if I can follow up, perhaps, you know, lots going on these days with respect to vaccine mandates, and I'm sure there's no resolution as of now, officially. Then, you know, there's some protests going on in Canada as well for that matter. I'm just kind of curious as to your kind of high-level thoughts on what do you think. You know, what's your kind of driver pool like these days. Are you all vaccinated, there and you have kind of, you know, good enough, number of drivers that you need for the business? Or are you seeing any kind of issues around vaccine mandates as well, at TFI? Va ccination at TFI is not an issue at all. I mean, on the Canadian side, most of our drivers are vaccinated, you know. Crossing the border into the U.S. has never been an issue. We anticipated that, so we work with our people to have them convinced that vaccination, you know, it's you're free. You do whatever you want. Okay, we get that. But guys, I mean, to cross the border, we know that at one point it's gonna be an issue if you're not vaccinated. We have a few people or a few drivers that you know, still say no. Well, what we do with them is we just keep them in Canada. They don't cross the border anymore. I would say, guys, that, you know, the way I look at January, I think January is gonna be the best January ever for the company. You know, I mean, the guys are doing a fantastic job. And for sure there's some small carriers maybe in Canada that that are having issues, but TFI, not an issue at all. You know, our biggest issue for us really in January is sick people in the U.S. with COVID. That has been the big thing for us. You know, at TForce Freight, a lot of people got sick, you know, in January in the U.S. because of this new variant there. So that was a little bit of an issue. It creates an issue with servicing customers and all that. But that being said, vaccination, not a problem at all. Okay. Alain, thank you so much, and good luck for the rest of the year. Thank you. Your next question comes from Jordan Alliger with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. Yeah. Hi. Morning. Just quick follow-up on parcel- Morning. The Package and Courier, you mentioned growth again. I assume, are you referring to, you know, you have some tough comps ahead still on shipments and pricing, but do you expect both those categories to see growth again as we move through 2022, maybe as we move later in the year? Yeah. Well, absolutely, Jordan. I mean, what we're saying is that, you know, we took a step back in a sense, okay, with Q3 and Q4, and there's a growth, okay, in 2020, 2021. What we're saying is that now we're set up in 2022 to really turn the screw of growing organically again, right? Now, if you look at bottom line, you know, at 24% in Q4, you know, this is unbelievable. This is highly remarkable. Can we stick to 25% and grow organically, OE? You know, the guys are working hard on that. But don't forget, we have competition from Purolator. We have competition from the U.S. guys like UPS and FedEx, and those guys are not running a 20-point bottom-line operation, right? We may have to sacrifice a little bit the OEs as a percentage, okay, to grow, you know, like 5%-10%. We'll see. Let's have a look at Q1 and then the rest of the year. Let me tell you that when I look at the numbers that we see so far, I mean, so far so good. Even with everything that's been going on in January with the storm, with the weather, with the, you know, the Omicron and all that, we feel really good. Can you just give a quick update on what you're seeing on the Logistics segment? I guess most curious about the same-day parcel delivery aspect. Thanks. Same-day we're doing really well. I mean, the only, you know, rock in our shoe is that our Canadian operation lost all of their volume with the largest e-tailer, right? Those guys, you know, we were dealing with them in the U.S. They walked away from us in the U.S. because, you know, we're all about making money us. Then slowly they walked away from us in Canada. That is a little bit of a step back, but we're replacing that as we speak. On the US side, I mean, we feel really, really good about what's going on. The issues we have right now has been, like I said, weather and this Omicron thing there. It created a little bit of an issue in January. You know, long term, okay, you'll see us doing really way really well. Don't forget, we run these operations with double-digit EBIT. I mean, we don't run these guys at 2% bottom line. I mean, nothing at TFI is single-digit OE except our TFWW, which we bought from Donnelley. At the time, those guys were 2%-3% bottom line. WW is still not a double-digit EBIT guy. Okay, but slowly, you know, we're getting closer to a 5.5. The rest of our business is all double-digit OE. Great. Thanks so much. Your next question comes from Jack Atkins with Stephens. Please go ahead. Okay, great. Good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. Alain. Good morning, Jack. I would love to get an update on your TForce Freight business that you acquired from UPS. How has that been trending over the course of the last couple of quarters, and what are your expectations for that in 2022? Well, if you look, Jack, at you know, you'll see in our MD&A that the average revenue ex fuel per shipment is up big time, you know. We've been correcting, adjusting rates with our customer. Like I said earlier, we're not done. We're not completed with that. I mean, it's an ongoing process, and it will last at least another year because we got a lot of small shipments still in our network that has to go away, but we can't kick them out because we need to replace those small shipments with better shipments. This is the focus of our sales team. Okay, guys, wake up and smell the coffee. We have to replace those shipments by better shipments, right? It's the same story as if you think back when we bought the CFI, okay, in 2016, 2017. It took us a year, okay, in our Truckload division to clean, you know, the freight that did not fit. In an LTL environment, it takes way more than a year. It takes probably more like 2-3 years to really clean up, okay, and get rid of all the shippers or the shipment that don't fit. So we're not there yet at all, okay? So our sales team is highly focused on improving the number of shipments that we get from customers, as an example. Okay, so let's say this shipper gives us two shipments a day. Well, try to get three from this guy. Try to get four from this guy because we're already there, right, to do the first pickup, right? It's a little bit of change, okay. We're working on the mix, but also we're working on the productivity and the efficiency on the operation. This is why during the course of 2022, what we believe is that slowly we'll get closer to an 85 OR, 86 OR by year-end, okay. Into 2023, we'll keep on improving those processes, to get us closer to maybe in 2023, like an 83 OR or an 84 OR, down to the target that we have of being at least an 80 OR a carrier in the US LTL market. Okay. Got it. No, that helps. Thank you. I guess kind of thinking about the structural changes that you're trying to implement within your US LTL business, you know, are you contemplating maybe any incentive changes for your sales force or your operations team? We've seen that with some other LTLs in the U.S. in the past. Yes. Yes. Yes. it's had significant Yes. You know, positive impact. Yes. Absolutely. You're absolutely right, Jack. I mean, we're having a meeting with Paul and his team, I think, next week or the week after next. For sure we're talking about that. Absolutely. I mean, we have to change, okay, the way our salespeople are, you know, their salary and their, you know, their commission and all that. I know that Paul is coming up with a proposal on that. You know, it's you know, the sales team that we have today, the sales leadership, you know, everything has to be questioned about. You know, what we want is the way we judge a sales team is not by the effort, is by the results. I don't know if you understand what I'm saying, Jack, but me, I don't look at, t he guy tells me he works 40 hours a day and he gets no freight. Well, that's not good for me, right? Maybe work less, but get more. Yep. No, totally. It's all about the bottom line. Thanks so much, Alain. Thank you. It's all about the bottom line. Absolutely. Your next question comes from Ken Hoexter with Bank of America. Please go ahead. Hey, good morning, Alain. You mentioned you were- Good morning, Ken. You mentioned you were very confident and but yet very conservative within the model. Maybe just taking a look at that, where do you see the most upside? Is it the LTL margin you talked about? Is it Truckload fixing the pricing in this best ever LTL Truckload market? Maybe talk about Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. where the potential is. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you're right. You're absolutely right, Ken. I mean, you know, in the plan that we have for our USTL guys, I think that we will do better than that. I think that our guys, you know. You know, if you don't see that you have a problem, you can't fix it, right? Now I think that our USTL team, when they look at our peers results for Q4, that were fantastic. Our result, I wouldn't say that they're fantastic, right? We know what to do. It's not about costs, okay? The big issues we have is more like our costs are in line, okay? The problem we have is getting the right market rate for the service we provide to the customer. Our team was, you know, completely focused on Dedicated, fixing Dedicated, which was a disaster that we got from, you know, the acquisition of UPS Freight. Okay, fine. We also overlooked what was going on in the Over-the-Road thing. Now we know, okay? When we look at our peers, the average revenue per mile, we know that we're too far from these, where these guys are. That's one. Number two is, like you said, TForce Freight. We know what to do. It's just the execution could be slow, you know, or fast, or between slow and fast, right? Right now, we don't know what's the speed of these operational changes. Are we gonna be slow or are we gonna be fast? You know, what we've done so far with the low-hanging fruit, I would say that we went really fast on that. Now, on the operation, this affects way more people. You know, it affects terminals, it affects the terminal managers, it affects you know, everything that we do every day. This is why I'm not sure. This is why we're going conservative with TForce Freight pace of change. For my follow-up, let's just dig into that for the service centers and the growth, right? You always talk about density. You talked about there were some opportunities where you could blend some of your operations in terms of better utilizing the service centers. Where are you in that process? How many service centers do you have now and what are you thinking of you know that process going forward? We're just starting, Ken. I mean, as an example, we have shut down one terminal in Chicago, and we're gonna be subleasing that terminal to another carrier. We shut down two small terminals in West Virginia. Those two small terminals will be sold to another carrier. We just closed a small center in Salina, Kansas. We had 40 shipments a day there. It doesn't make any sense to run an operation of 30-some thousand bills for a small operating terminal of 40 shipments a day. We're just starting. I'll give you another example. We have a terminal in Rialto in California, a fantastic terminal, a diamond terminal. I don't know how many doors. I don't remember how many doors, but it's probably like 80-100 doors. I've got 60 shipments a day. Think about that, 60 shipments a day in a huge terminal. We're just signing a deal with another carrier that's gonna take over about 40 spots for parking equipment. Another carrier will take about 40 doors in the terminal. That's gonna bring about $2 million-$2.5 million to the bottom line of the company, because right now this site is, like, empty, right? We're just starting. In Sacramento, as an example, I got three sites. Doesn't make any sense, right? We're working on Sacramento. Our team, we're really focusing on the West Coast right now. It will take time, okay? We're just... Ken, we're just scratching the surface. I mean, I said it many times, we got 12,000 doors over there. We don't need 12. We need maybe, I don't know, 6,000, 7,000 or 8,000. Okay, we have way too many doors. That is an opportunity for us for growth, either organically or through M&A. Yes. In the meantime, everything that doesn't make any sense, we're fixing it, okay? Rialto, we wanna keep the terminal, but we don't wanna keep it empty. Okay, you find another tenant for now, and then we'll see if we need that terminal five years down the road for our own need. In the meantime, let's get the $2.5 million a year to help us cover the carrying costs and eliminate the loss that we have on that terminal right now. Great. Thanks, Line. Appreciate the insight. It's okay then. Your next question comes from Walter Spracklin with RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Thanks very much. Good morning, Alain. Good morning, Walter. You're gonna have a pretty good year in terms of free cash flow. Your leverage is low, and not likely, if I hear you correctly, gonna be looking at acquisitions until perhaps later in the year or early into next year. Does that mean you now deploy that cash into buyback, or is this something you wanna kinda raise cash to keep on hand for something perhaps a little larger, so you can do a larger deal in the fourth quarter or early 2023? Just curious where your head is at in terms of buyback versus retaining cash for acquisitions. Well, buyback is, Walter, always an opportunity. If you look at what we've done in Q4, we bought back 1 million shares, right? The price that TFI stock trades today, okay. Well, today, I can't talk about today, but let's say over the last few weeks, for sure we're gonna be buying back at least 1 million shares, okay? If we are traded right now in sub-$100 USD, I mean, for sure we're gonna be buying at least 1 million shares. Now, going to your point, okay, we also feel that our guidance is conservative. You know, based on what we've seen so far, I think that we'll probably do a little bit better than the guidance, but we're conservative, right? If we look at the opportunity for us to do a deal of size, okay, let's say late 2022 or into 2023, the fact that we do some small M&A, so we'll do probably like CAD 150 million-CAD 300 million of small M&A. Okay. Buying back, let's say $100 million of stock or maybe a little bit more. It does not preclude us from doing something of size late in 2022. Okay. That's perfect. I appreciate the buying back stock when your stock's at a certain level as opposed to when times are good, moving on to constraints. I mean, you know, driver shortage is still an issue. Supply chain- Yeah. is still an issue. We heard a lot in other companies saying that demand was above their volume, right? Absolutely. How much of that was a factor in the fourth quarter, and how much are you assuming supply chain and driver shortage will be a continued constraint when you put out your guidance for next year or for this year? Yeah. Well, you see Walter, the fact that we are already overbooked every day, it's true in the U.S. It's true in the U.S. It was not true in Canada until I would say mid-November. This is because, you know, I was talking to my Canadian guys, I said, "How come this is not in Canada?" It was not in Canada, but I could tell you that what we're seeing in the U.S. for, I would say at least the last six months, we're seeing now the same story in Canada since probably early November. For sure the demand is more than the supply, and that's why I'm saying that probably TFI will have its best ever month of January because of that. See, our Canadian team is taking advantage of market condition. Our US team, like I said earlier on the Truckload side, we missed a little bit of an opportunity in, let's say Q3 and Q4, but now we smell the coffee, and we're gonna take advantage of the market in 2022. Okay. The supply chain, I don't think it's gonna be fixed within the next six months to 12 months. I mean, it's a lot of politics in there. There's lots of changes around the world. So it's gonna be a very, very tight market from what we could see in 2022 and probably into 2023. So, you know, let's see what happens. Our guidance is conservative like always, right? So our team is really focusing on doing better than that. So far, what we could see is that 2022 will be a great year for TFI. Okay. I appreciate the time as always, Alain, and congrats on a good quarter. Thank you, Walter. Your next question comes from Kevin Chiang, from CIBC. Please go ahead. Hi, Alain. Sorry, just taking myself off mute here. Actually, I just have one question. If I could just follow up on the P&C margins, you know- Yeah. 24.5% for Q4. You know, when I look back historically, typically your Q4 margin is a good benchmark to what the following year looks like. You usually lose about 100 basis points as you kinda work through seasonality. If I kinda just use that rule of thumb, it seems like maybe a low 20s margin- Yeah. Seems like maybe the baseline you're starting with, and then you kinda talked about maybe growing the absolute earnings and willing to sacrifice a little bit on margin. I just wonder, is that the right way to think about it that maybe on a full year basis, P&C is a low 20s margin, and then you'll kinda flex that potentially lower? And if there's a level that we can think of in terms of how low that could go, that would be appreciated. Yeah. You see, Kevin, there's two things that will affect us, okay, in 2022. B2B. We're still not back to where we were. B2B for us is even more profitable than B2C. Right? Because the coincidence of delivery versus pickup is better on B2B than B2C. That's why we're saying in 2022, if B2B comes back, because don't forget we still have lockdowns in Ontario, same thing in Quebec, you know. We're still not out of the woods B2B, okay, versus where we used to be pre-COVID. That could help us a little bit in 2022. The other thing also in 2022 is that we're gonna be more focused on highly profitable growth. The potential is there, and we made these investments in drivers and in trucks. If you look at our truck fleet in our P&C, I think that we added about 100 trucks year over year. Now we're in a position to really take advantage of the potential of this market, e-commerce B2C growth, but it's gotta be at profitable rate. Going back to your forecast is that, yeah, we should think that TFI's P&C is gonna run about the 20, but that based on B2B versus B2C, it's still difficult to predict. Let's wait and see what Q1 is gonna come about. What I could tell you so far when I look at our month of January is the guys are really doing a fantastic job. That's helpful. If I could just ask one clarification question. Just in your guidance, does that assume your EPS guidance, that is. Does that assume the million share buyback? No. You mentioned in Walter's question? No. Is there any buyback in there at all? No. Okay. No. There's no buyback in there. There's no M&A, there's no buyback. It's just that. Okay. You know, it's everything stays the same. Don't forget, if everything stays the same, okay, you know, our leverage. In the guidance, we're saying it's gonna stay around 1.5. If we don't do any buyback, if we don't do any M&A, my leverage is going down to around 1. Mm-hmm. That makes sense. Right? That makes a ton of sense, Alain. Thank you very much. Congrats on good quarter there. Okay. Thank you, Kevin. Your next question comes from Brian Ossenbeck from JP Morgan. Please go ahead. Hey, good morning, Alain. Thanks for taking the question. Of course. I wanted to come back to the US LTL. You talked about density and going back for more shipments, but specifically on the operation, lowering the operating cost for LTL, is it primarily, you know, through the top line and through density? You know, you talked about not getting the trucks on time, which sounds like it's a pretty decent-sized headwind. Maybe you can just elaborate on, you know, what are the main drivers of lowering that operating cost. Is it something specific, you know, with those terminals you're pairing off, or is it driven through density or maybe a combination of both? You know, Brian, it's really a combination. What I'm saying to those guys, you know, drivers, they like to drive. You know, why are they drivers is because they like to drive. Me, I like to pick up freight, right? We have a disconnect in terms of. What we want to do is have our P&D guys drive less miles and pick up more freight. How do you do that, right? First of all, first step is every stop that you have, okay, with your drivers, you try to pick up more freight per stop, right? It's something that's never been really monitored at, you know, at UPS Freight. Get more out of every stop. That's number one. Number two is we have guys driving 150 miles, okay? That doesn't make any sense. You know? Because if this guy drives at 40 miles an hour, that means that he's driving about 3-4 hours a day. When he's driving, he's not picking up freight, and when he's driving, he's spending money. He's burning fuel. He's burning tires. As I said earlier, my old trucks cost me $0.45 a mile in maintenance. Our intention, Brian, is to improve the efficiency of our network by picking up more freight and driving less miles. This is what we do in Canada, right? Our LTL, why are we so efficient? It's just because of that, not because we're a bunch of magicians. No. I mean, we do more with less. The intention is to drive less miles and pick up more freight. That takes time, though, Brian. I mean, you don't do that within a month in a huge network like, you know, the TForce Freight network. It's gonna be a combination of that. For sure, if you're running an old truck at $0.45 a mile maintenance and 5 miles or 4.5 miles MPG versus the newer truck which costs you $0.05 and have an MPG of eight, I mean, that also is detrimental to your profitability. Yes, we had some headwinds to that. We were supposed to get 1,000 trucks in 2021. You know, we got 300. By the end of 2021, we got only 300. We will get 500, probably new trucks by the end of Q1 2022. We also have another 1,000 trucks coming for 2022, and it seems like the truck manufacturers are in a better position, okay, to complete the order because we went with four different suppliers. Well, three major ones and a smaller one, right? New equipment's gonna help us reduce the operating cost of the equipment. More importantly, Brian, our focus is do more with less. Travel less miles and pick up more freight. Get more shipments out of the existing customer. You know, don't drive 150 miles to service a shipment. And you know, this is a change, right? This is a change. It fits with our approach of freight that fits. You know, why would you travel for two shipments 150 miles? You know? Reduce the ZIP code, you know, use a little bit more agent where it makes sense. You know, it's what we do all the time in Canada. Okay, great. That's really helpful. Just one quick follow-up. You mentioned synergies a few times with TForce Freight. Is that in reference to starting to change some of the footprint you mentioned earlier with leasing out some of these facilities? Can you start to run- Yes. Maybe more final mile from these now that you're Yeah. You've got a better handle on the real estate portfolio? Yes, absolutely. I'll give you an example. In California, for instance, I mean, our TForce Freight team there used to, you know, use a third party, and now they're using our TForce Logistics division at about 65% of the cost that they used to pay, okay? So there are some synergies, okay, slowly between the family, right? But real estate is a big opportunity for us. It's an opportunity for growth, okay? It's an opportunity for M&A down the road, but it's also an opportunity to get rid of the real estate that does not fit, like those two small terminals I was talking about in West Virginia or the small terminals that we were renting in Salina, Kansas. That doesn't fit. There's no future there. We're trying to make a deal with a carrier there that's got a larger footprint than us for those 40 shipments, okay, that was part of the Salina. It's a global change in what we do. The chance we have, Brian, is that the team there at TForce Freight, they're really drinking the Kool-Aid. They're part of the solution. We don't have these kinds of pushback that sometimes you may have with an acquisition. Those guys are part of the solution. The team there, they're part of the solution. This is why it makes it much more easier for us to work with them and, you know, apply, I would say like the TFI Canadian LTL recipe for success. Okay, great. Thanks for all that, Alain. Appreciate it. Pleasure, Brian. Your next question comes from Cameron Doerksen with National Bank. Please go ahead. Thanks very much. Good morning. Morning, Cameron. Just one question from me. I guess my view is probably this is a non-issue, but in your press release, you do have a, I guess, a disclaimer in there around the internal controls and you know. Yeah. Possible deficiencies as it relates to, I guess, becoming a US reporter. Can you just maybe go over what all that is about? You know, like I said, I think it's probably a non-issue, but just maybe a bit of explanation is- Yeah. would be good. Cameron, I'm not a SOX specialist, okay, but what I could say is this, that the work is not done, the work is not complete. What we see so far, okay, based on, because we've hired PricewaterhouseCoopers to help us on that, we've hired also another firm, MNP, to help us on that, to do the testing and test all these controls and all that, and also under the supervision of KPMG and our internal audit department, is that because TFI is so decentralized. I mean, what the guys are telling me is that they have to test about, I would say like around 900 different controls, okay? Which is huge. This is why it's. We're still in the testing and remediation phases right now. This is why, we said, "Let's be transparent." Okay? Let's put a note in there, a paragraph that says, we don't know. I mean, we'll know, okay, when we come out with our annual filing, okay, if we have an issue or not. But one thing I could tell you, though, Cameron, is if there's a small issue, okay, we'll fix it. I mean, we spend a lot of time and energy, okay, to solve this SOX compliance thing there. And a lot has to do with documentation, which is different than what we used to do at TFI, right? It's an education. It's you know, making sure that everything, okay, is what it should be for SOX compliance. But we said, "Guys, because we're not filing our MD&A now, we're not filing our annual stuff now, so let's put this paragraph in there just in case. Then, you know, if it's an issue when we file, then we'll just say, "Hey, guys, we're committed. We're gonna work on that." We know, and if you maybe talk to David, which he's way more aware than me on that, we know that initial IPO filers in the U.S., about US based new IPO, there's about 50% of them that have some weaknesses, okay, the first year. We also know that foreign filers, okay, on average, okay, have 75% of them have weaknesses the first year. It's no big deal, because TFI's team, okay, is committed to fixing everything that needs to be fixed on that, and it's our first year, right? Okay. No, that's a great explanation. Just, you know, as far as SOX compliance costs, I mean, obviously you've probably incurred costs throughout- Yes. 2021. Yeah. Is this anything material going forward? The you know, additional- No. You know, G&A costs that you're gonna need to spend to be compliant? You know, in our costs of 2021, you've got a few things that are exceptional, for sure. This would probably amount with, you know, all the legal and advisory and all that for 2021. You could say those are probably between $10 million and $15 million that will not re-happen in 2022. In 2022, this SOX thing will probably cost us a few million dollars, Cameron, to get compliant or to do whatever testing needs to be done and change whatever needs to be changed. I mean, the guys are working. It is really taken very seriously by our team. Okay. No, that's great color. I appreciate it. Thanks very much. Pleasure, Cameron. Your next question comes from Bascom Majors from Susquehanna. Please go ahead. Yeah. Thanks for taking my questions. Looking at the TForce Freight deal, it's a large deal, it's a complex deal, and call it nine, 10 months in, it certainly looks like it's a very successful deal. As you go forward and think about doing bigger deals on a larger base, you know, how do you keep the quality of those acquisitions as good as they have been historically for your company, especially as they need to get bigger to move the needle? Thank you. Right. That's a very good question. You know, the proof is in the pudding at TFI. If you go back 20-some years ago, most of our deals were small, and every 2- 3 years, we made a significant bigger deal. We've built a culture at TFI of doing that, right? It's not something new for us. What's new to us, like you just said, is that this deal is really huge. Okay, we've never done a deal of this size. For sure, it takes a lot of our energy to work with the local team. Now, this is why I've also said that, you know, before we do anything of size, we need to be sure that, you know, we are 100% under control, okay, with our TForce Freight, and this is why we don't see anything of size. Probably before the end of 2022 and into 2023 because you know, some of the guys I remember about 15 years ago, they said, "Well, Alain, he's like a deal junkie." No, we're not a bunch of deal junkies. I mean, we do deals where it makes sense for our shareholders, where we can create value, okay, for our shareholders long term. I understand your point. You know, the next one is gonna have to have size as well, you know, to move the needle. It's all part of our plan. We already have some targets that we're working on to make it happen, you know, when the time is right. Time could be right at the end of 2022, or maybe if we're not convinced, we'll wait until 2023. Thank you for that, Alain. If I could just squeeze one kinda housekeeping one in there. I know you don't guide quarterly, but you've made some comments on, you know, on one hand, the TForce Freight business having a really difficult 1Q seasonally historically and working to improve- Yeah. On that. On the other hand, you've talked about having the best January ever for the business. You've certainly come off a great fourth quarter for the company. Can you just help us then directionally about what 1Q might look like so there aren't any surprises when you report in April? Well, we like surprises, the good surprises, though, right? Right. I mean, you have to understand that TFI's approach has always been, you know, underpromise and overdeliver. I mean, that's the story of twenty-some years of success at TFI. What we're seeing so far, okay, when I talk about our month of January, is that it's gonna be a spectacular January for us, yes. But we're also very conservative. I think last year we did about $0.79 EPS in Q1. For sure we're gonna be above $1. Are we gonna be $1.25? You know, it's still too early to say. But TForce Freight is a big part of our success, right? They've never made money in January, those guys. They never made money in December. Well, this year, you know, they made a little bit of money in December, okay? Fantastic. Great. It's still too early. That's why we're cautious about our guidance. We're conservative because we still have not gone through a Q1 with TForce Freight. We know that April normally is a great month for those guys. March should be good, but January is a big issue. Don't forget, like I said earlier, we had a lot of sick people in the U.S. with COVID, right? A lot of sick people. January was bad for that. January was also bad with the weather, right? I mean, we have to be conservative. Thank you. You're welcome. Your next question comes from Benoit Poirier. Benoit Poirier with Desjardins, please go ahead. Hey, good morning, Alain. Good morning, Benoit. Yeah. Based on our discussion with investors, Alain, a lot of people, as you know, are worried about the potential trucking cycle rollover, and I'm sure you're hearing the same concern. What are you answering to these concerns, and any signs of slowdown on the horizon, and how's the dynamic different from the past cycles in your view, Alain? I think this is a perception, and it's a mistake. It's a huge mistake, okay? I understand that you could think about that because the guys are doing so well that you could say, "Well, you know, that's probably the peak, and from there, it's gonna start going down." Well, there's a huge change. Well, first of all, the supply chain is a big problem, as we all know. The fact that it's hard for you to add truckers. I mean, everybody knows that, you know, in the U.S. and even in Canada to a certain degree, you cannot add drivers. It's a fight. It's a big fight. So, you know, when... If you look back at all these cycles, okay, over the last 30 years, you know, we shot ourselves in the foot because the customer was busy, so we were adding capacity, and then there's a slowdown, and there's too much capacity, and then the rate just went to the shit. That issue right now, it's difficult. I mean, it's difficult for a trucker to add capacity. He can't find the drivers, and he can't find a truck. So it's a huge change in these stupid cycles, okay, that we've seen. If you look at the LTL market, both in Canada and the U.S., if you look at the P&C market, both in U.S. and in Canada, I mean, you've got disciplined players in there, you know. US LTL, you got disciplined players. You know, the stupid LTL guys, they're less and less. The Canadian LTL market is still not there yet, but, you know, it's getting better, right? It's just that the Logistics, the last mile, it's the same story. It's hard to find people. To me, I think it's a big mistake to think that, you know, oh, they're at peak and this is the only way these guys are gonna go is down, okay, over the next, I don't know, maybe a year or two. Also, Benoit, it creates opportunity for us. Like I said early on the call, I mean, our stock at the price that it was yesterday or a week before, it creates also an opportunity for us to buy back, right? Yeah. No, that's great color, Alain. Just looking at your CapEx, you've been guiding for $325-$350. Yeah. I would be curious, where are you gonna be at the end of 2022, in terms of fleet replenishment and what could be spent in 2023 and beyond? What could be the sustainable- Yeah Level longer term? It seems that there's some money that is put toward replenishing US LTL. Down the road, I would expect, given your asset-light model, there's an opportunity to reduce the CapEx beyond 2023. If you could try to give some color, that would be awesome. You see the big CapEx, you know, abnormal CapEx that we're doing is for our US LTL operation. Okay? Normally, in the US LTL, we should be buying, let's say, between 600 and 650 trucks a year, normally. Right now, we're trying to buy 1,000. Okay, why? Even with our plan, if we, you know, get the 500 that we were supposed to get in 2021, and we get the 1,000 that we're hopefully gonna get in 2022, and this is in our plan, okay, at TForce Freight, LTL, at the end of the year, we're gonna still be driving 2012, 2013 trucks. That tells you that the same effort that we're doing in 2022, we'll have to do the same thing in 2023 to bring the average age of this division to normality, it will take us 2022 and 2023. After that 2023, okay, there may be some small reduction, but to your model, I think that you should work with right now for 2022 and 2023, the same number. Okay. That's very good color. Thank you very much, Alain. Congrats again. Thank you, Benoit. Your next question comes from Bruce Chan from Stifel. Please go ahead. Yes, thanks, guys. This is Casey Deak for Bruce this morning. I wanted to quickly, you know, thank you for all the guidance on the numbers and the cost drivers, but can you talk a little bit, Alain, about what you think on tonnage for the LTL operations and especially in the U.S.- Yeah. -what, what you think- Yeah. The cadence there looks like. I know it's back and forth a bit on getting rid of the bad freight and trying to find bet ter freight. Well, what we've seen so far is the fact that, for sure, if you look at our bill count, we're down a bit. If you look at our tonnage, we're also down a bit year over year. You know, once we get through Q1, I think that also with our approach with our sales team, our sales leadership, of not looking at just the effort but the results, I think that we're gonna start growing because our peers are all growing. I mean, good peers, you know, the market, the demand is there, but us, our problem is we got so much cleanup to do in terms of you know, getting rid of that shipment, getting rid of that customer, getting rid of that lane, that you know. At the same time, you don't see really the results of our sales team because we have to replenish the 30-some thousand bills a day that we do, right? I think that all during 2022, the cleanup of all that will continue. You won't see us growing organically big time in 2022. In terms of volume, you'll see us improving the quality of the revenue. You'll see us improving with the cost base. In terms of growing organically as our peers are doing, not sure about that in 2022. In 2023, it's gotta be a must. In 2022, the first 6-9 months, I think it's still, you know, replace this and look at that, and this doesn't make any sense, and get more of this guy, and it's gonna be more of a kind of churn still. Okay. At the same time, though, we're focusing on, you know, making sure that we deliver only something that fits our network, okay, and something that fits us in terms of weight. So as an example, our average weight per shipment is still way too low compared to our peers. So our sales team understands that now, so they are focused on, you know, getting the heavier shipments. That makes sense and, you know, getting or reducing the number of low-weight shipments that we're getting. We have a solution because we have GFP, us. Okay. The partnership we have with UPS. If it doesn't fit us or LTL, maybe it fits our friends at the UPS package. That GFP, we're growing that, okay, with our partner UPS. Makes sense for them, makes sense for us. Sure. No, that's helpful. Thank you. The last thing I have for you guys is kind of on the maintenance. Are you seeing anything like your customers when you're looking at picking up good freight or picking up a good customer contract? Is there pushback on the equipment? Are there breakdowns on that old equipment that's kinda hampering your ability to win? For sure. You know, the fact that we run an old fleet is not helping us. It's not helping us with our drivers. It's not helping us with our customers. This is why day one, when we go in there, we say we have to improve that ASAP. Now because of this supply chain mess and it's tough to get the trucks in. Okay. You're right. I mean, it's not easy, okay? Because it affects the service, right? You got an old 2008 trucks and it breaks down, well, the service is gonna suffer, right? This is why, you know, a good carriers and our peers, they don't run old trucks like we do, us today, right? Because when the truck breaks down, the service breaks down as well. And also the driver is mad. It's normal. We're addressing that as we are replenishing, okay, our truck fleet with newer trucks, right? By the end of 2022, we're still driving 2012, 2013. Think about that, we're in 2022, so we're still driving ten-year-old trucks. Today we drive 2006, 2007. Think about that. I mean, we're in 2022, so we are improving. Okay, 2022 is not gonna be enough. We have to keep improving in 2023 so that we don't have service issue because the truck is, you know, a problem. All right. Well, thank you. Thanks for all the clarity. Pleasure. Your last question for today comes from Tim James with TD Securities. Please go ahead. Thank you. Good morning, Alain. Congratulations on- Good morning. A great quarter. Just going back to a question recently, you were commenting on some of your peers being in a position of growth while TFI is doing some cleanup. Now, would you agree that this has and really is a great time, in fact, to be doing that cleanup as opposed to? Yes. be trying to push growth? Yes. I would think it's. Yes. It's actually very opportune to be in that position. Yes, it is. Because we're lucky in a sense that the market condition are great, okay? That our peers are busy growing their business, whereas us we're doing the cleanup. It would be nicer if we would be in a position to, you know, to grow organically as we speak. If you have to be in a cleanup position, I agree with you, this is the best timing to be in a position of having to do some cleanup, right? Because some customers' deals don't make any sense. Yes, for sure we got guys that just walked away. Where are they gonna go? Well, there's always, you know, maybe a solution. Fine. Some of them cannot find a solution. You know, I agree with you. It's the best timing. It's just sad that us, because we're stuck in doing all this cleanup. Okay, well, we can't grow organically too much because, you know, if we add a thousand sh- Oh, I apologize. Alain Bédard's line was disconnected. Just one moment, please. This is the operator. We'll just take a moment. Please stand by. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, you can continue to hold if you'd like in case Mr. Bédard rejoin the call. Thank you. Mr. Bédard, I believe you're back online. They're gonna connect you. Okay. You're now back online, Mr. Bédard. Sorry about that. I don't know what happened here. Where did I get cut off? Hello? Alain, it's Tim James here. Can you hear me? Yes. Yes. Yes, I hear you now. Okay. Okay. Where did I get cut off? Yeah. No, you covered off my question just regarding the kind of timing and the industry backdrop. Okay. that it's actually not a bad time to be in this Cleanup Mode. No. Maybe- Not at all. Maybe I'll move on to my follow-up question, if I could. I just wanna return to the idea around potential businesses or when you consider divesting certain operations, and you indicated that when you feel you can't grow a business, then it would be considered for sale. When you say grow, do you mean in terms of revenue or earnings? I mean, could a low or declining revenue business, but that has improving efficiencies and opportunities for margin expansion and therefore in turn, earnings growth, could that still be a fit for TFI? On that, when I say when we can't grow, let's say we cannot do M&A, okay? Given our waste division that we sold five or six years ago, I was unable to grow it, okay, organically, yes, to a certain degree, but really through M&A was impossible, and we were just sitting on the fence in terms of size. I mean, it's always a global look that we take. Some of the investors are asking about our USTL. For sure we could grow that, okay? For sure, we could do some M&A, okay? Right now the problem we have is that our return on invested capital is below our cost of capital. The story when we talk to our US LTL guys is that, "Guys, we have to move that up." We have the opportunity right now because the market for US LTL, when we look at our peers, is just on fire. Us, I mean, we now understand the opportunity for us to improve those results, and then we'll be in a much better position, okay, down the road. For sure, there's always, can we grow it organically or can we grow it through M&A? If you look at TFI's history of growth, it's always been done mostly through M&A because it's way faster, and we have the talent to do it. I mean, it's not all companies that could grow through M&A successfully, right? Okay. That's great. Thank you very much, Alain. Pleasure. There are no further questions at this time. All right. Thank you very much, operator, and my thanks to everyone for listening in this morning. As always, we appreciate your interest in TFI International and look forward to keeping you posted on our progress throughout the year. Please feel free to reach out with any remaining questions. Stay safe and have a terrific day. Thank you again. Bye.