Forward Air is pausing the sale of its intermodal business as its performance has improved since the company decided to divest the segment in May, CFO Jamie Pierson said on a call with analysts Nov. 9.
“We are seeing a return to the more consistent level of results that we are accustomed to see for this business,” Pierson said while discussing the company’s Q3 results.
But this doesn’t mean Forward Air is closing the door on selling. Pierson said the company may revisit the sale “if and when the market reflects what we believe is the fair value for this industry-leading management team and asset.”
When Forward Air announced it was selling its intermodal business along with two legacy businesses that operated as part of Omni Logistics, those operations combined accounted for about $394 million of the company’s revenues in 2025. The intermodal business represented about $230 million of those revenues.
The company in August said it sold the two legacy Omni businesses, which helped to streamline its operations. Pierson said that sale raised about $25 million.
Executives said previously the sale of its intermodal segment would take until the end of the year, but according to Pierson the business is “back on track.”
The company is now focused on growing its intermodal business, which reported Q3 operating revenues of $63.5 million, up from $58.3 million a year ago. It was the segment’s best performance in more than three years, executives said, but intermodal operating income declined sequentially from $6.1 million in Q2 to $5.2 million in Q3.
“We have even more conviction today, based on its recent performance and near-term prospects, than ever before,” Pierson said.
He said the drayage segment is on an upswing and described the company’s intermodal pipeline as robust.
While Forward Air’s intermodal appears to have turned a corner “by no means does this preclude a sale, just not on the original timeline that we previously communicated,” Pierson said.
