Marten, citing weak freight market, cuts base salaries of 6 top executives

Marten Transport has cut the salaries of six key executives while leaving the salaries of other employees unchanged.

In documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the truckload carrier announced a 7.5% pay cut for four executives. The four are Randolph Marten, executive chairman; Timothy Kohl, chief executive officer; James Hinnendael, chief financial officer and executive vice president; and Douglas Petit, president.

Chief Operating Officer Adam Phillips’ salary was cut by 5%, as was the salary of Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer Randall Baier.

The reductions were described as temporary in SEC filings. Marten said the move does not affect other types of compensation.

The letter said the cuts were made as part of Marten’s “cost reduction initiative to mitigate the long-term and profound impact of the freight recession on our business, due to oversupply, weak demand and inflationary operating costs.”

All six of those executives were included on the “compensation table” in Marten’s (NASDAQ: MRTN) latest proxy statement, the part of each proxy statement representing the company’s highest-paid executives.

According to the salary table, base pay in 2023 for all directors was about 4.4% higher than in 2022. However, 2022 figures for Phillips and Baier were not provided because Phillips joined Marten in late 2023 and Baier joined in the middle of last year.

Compensation for 2023 and 2022 was: Marten, $811,077 (up from $776,998); Kohl, $744,654 (up from $713,243); Hinnendael, $408,538 (up from $391,346); Petit, $397,539 (up from $380,653). Phillips’s compensation was $288,860 and Baier’s compensation was $266,576.

No director received a bonus in 2023. Stock or option awards granted to all directors ranged from $61,470 for Phillips and Baier to $359,169 for Marten.

In the company’s latest second-quarter earnings report, Marten’s truckload business, net of fuel surcharge revenue, posted an operating ratio of 98.8%, compared to 90.6% in the second quarter of 2023. Revenue fell to $96 million in the second quarter, compared to $101.3 million in the same quarter a year earlier. Average revenue per tractor per week, net of fuel revenue, fell to $4,093 from $4,472.

In an earnings statement released at the time — Marten does not speak to analysts — the company said it had not agreed to any interest rate cuts from August 2023. It made that statement in both the first and second quarters.

Marten’s stock is down about 12.3% over the past year, according to Barchart data. It’s up just 2.25% over the past three months, while the overall stock market, as measured by the S&P 500 Index, is up about 7.6%.

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