TFI’s Bédard bemoans ‘broken record’ of disappointment in LTL

TFI International’s U.S. less-than-truckload operations disappointed the Montreal-based trucking conglomerate’s management team in the third quarter of 2026, especially Alain Bédard, and personnel changes were promised. Longtime Chairman and CEO Bédard likened the division’s performance in the most recent quarter to a “broken record,” hammering the performance of managers up and down its U.S. LTL operations, which operate under the TForce Freight brand. As a result, the executive told analysts and investors during TFI’s third-quarter 2026 earnings call that the carrier plans to raid its peers for replacements. The LTL unit’s operating ratio weakened to 91.3 in Q3, from 88.8 in the year-ago period. A carrier’s OR provides insight on how well a company is balancing its costs and revenue generation. The lower the ratio, the better a company’s performance. An OR of 80 is considered exceptional, with most LTL carriers running an OR of between 85 and 90. But Bédard drilled down a little more during TFI’s Oct. 30 earnings call, scornfully noting: “When we report a 91 OR … our U.S. operation is closer to a 97 OR, and our Canadian operation is more like a sub-75 OR operation.” TFII Quotes by TradingView See more transportation stock listings “It’s not [an] issue of the driver or the dock guys or the union, it’s the issue of the local management that are not managing properly or effectively those guys,” said the company’s top executive, whose candor on earnings calls is atypical for executives at large, publicly traded companies in trucking or other industries. Symptomatic of the problem was, in…

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