Category: UPS News

As the vice president of innovation and UPS ventures at Atlanta-based United Parcel Service, David Lee, ’11, helps one of the world’s largest logistics companies think like a startup. He doesn’t fear a robot-filled future. Robots can have the boring jobs, according to Lee. Humans have more important creative and problem-solving work to do.

Lee believes anyone can bring forth game-changing products and technologies, no matter his or her job title. He even gave a TED Talk (which has 1.6 million views and counting) on the topic. Here’s how Lee inspires innovation at UPS throughout a typical workday.

United Parcel Service, Inc. has been benefiting immensely from the new tax law. This is quite evident from the company’s bottom-line growth owing to significant reduction in corporate tax rate. In first-quarter 2018, the bottom line soared 17.4% for the same reason. Results were also aided by strong performances by the International, and the Supply Chain and Freight segments. In fact, the effective tax rate in the quarter was just a little over 19% compared with 31.8% in the prior-year quarter. Effective tax rate is projected between 23% and 24% for the remaining quarters of 2018.

The reduced corporate tax rate also boosts cash flow. In the first quarter, free cash flow totaled approximately $2.6 billion. Notably, with increased cash flow companies have more cash available to fund share repurchases among other things. In February, UPS raised its quarterly cash dividend by 10%. Furthermore, it paid approximately $840 million as dividend to shareholders in the first quarter, reflecting an increase of 10% year over year. Simultaneously, the company bought back 2.2 million shares for more than $250 million.

Two United Parcel Service Inc employees were injured in an explosion on Wednesday that caused significant damage to one of the package delivery company’s freight facilities in Lexington, Kentucky, a UPS spokesman said.

UPS said a gas leak from propane tanks inside a trailer may have caused the morning blast, some 80 miles east of Louisville. The company said the employees received minor injuries and that it shut down operations.

UPS spokesman Glenn Zaccara said he did not know when operations were expected to resume or how much freight volume was disrupted by the blast.

Mass support for strike action is growing among workers at United Parcel Service (UPS), where the current contract with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) covering 280,000 hourly workers is set to expire on August 1. A strike authorization, which is being held through June 3, is widely expected to provide an overwhelming “yes” vote.

The impending struggle at one of the largest private employers in the United States, with 434,000 workers, comes in the midst of a resurgence of the class struggle in the United States, where man-hours lost due to strikes have already eclipsed totals from all of last year.

A month has gone by since the last earnings report for United Parcel Service, Inc. Shares have added about 2.1% in that time frame.

Will the recent positive trend continue leading up to its next earnings release, or is UPS due for a pullback? Before we dive into how investors and analysts have reacted as of late, let’s take a quick look at the most recent earnings report in order to get a better handle on the important drivers.