Stock price when the opinion was issued
Is higher despite downgrades today. They spun off GXO and RXO. It now trades at 6x EBITDA vs. peers of 10x or 18x, so it's trading at a discount. XPO gained market share last quarter. Shares ran up 32% year to date before earnings, but expectations were so high, so shares fell back after the report. Still, it's cheap vs. peers and run by superior management.
GXO spin-off Splitting up a business can unlock value. GXO is the spin-off from XPO whose CEO boasts a long record of creating value when he ran United Rentals. The CEO consolidated in a highly fragmented industry by buying many companies. From 2014-2018, shares quadrupled. Then, the stock stumbled until last December 2020 when XPO did the spin-off. XPO kept the freight transportation and truck brokerage business, while spinning off the lucrative contract logistics division to make it the second-largest company in this space globally. Which one to buy? The XPO spun-off has given XPO a 73% gain since Jan. 2020. GXO has already surged from $57-79 after only a few weeks. People want a logistics stock, important to the new e-commerce economy. He likes both. XPO has more upside. GXO's warehouses give great exposure to e-commerce and logistics outsourcing, powerful long-term trends. GXO could be lowballing its forecasts and faces little competition in this space. There's still room to run here, too.