Forwarder EGL's net profit jumped nearly 50 percent in the fourth quarter as gross revenue pushed to a record $835 million in the last three months of the year.

The strong close to 2006 gave EGL a $58.2 million net profit for the full year, 16 percent better than the year before and had EGL CEO James Crane suggesting that more gains are coming.

Crane said in a conference call that freight "customers are very jittery" in the wake of logistics industry consolidation and cross-modal acquisitions and that more contracts are coming up for bid as a result.

"Because of the turmoil out there," Crane said the normally slack months of January and February are bringing "a lot of bid activity out there on the air side."

"We think we're going to close more business because of that activity," he said.

Crane also said EGL in the past year had purposely "walked away" from some freight business that did not yield enough, especially for accounts in which "the price was set at a point where there wasn't very much left" after covering costs.

While EGL plans to hold to that strategy of turning aside business in which customers demand too low a price, he said "a lot of that business will come back" given the market trends.

EGL's gross revenue for the quarter was up only about 4 percent over the fourth quarter of 2004 but net revenue after direct transportation costs was up 9.6 percent. For the full year, EGL surpassed $3 billion in gross revenue for the first time, growing about 13 percent over 2004, while net revenue of $948.5 million was a 10 percent improvement.

John D. Boyd