SWFT Swift Transportation Company Class A (delisted)

Swift Transportation Co. Chief Executive Jerry Moyes, who over 50 years built one of the largest U.S. trucking companies, will retire at the end of the year, the company said Thursday.

Mr. Moyes, the son of a truck driver, was among the last active members of a class of trucking magnates who came to dominate the industry after it was deregulated in the early 1980s. He started his business in 1966 with a single truck, leading Swift's expansion into a public company with a fleet of almost 20,000 trucks and $4 billion in annual revenue.

In the past year, the 72-year-old executive had come under criticism from corporate governance watchdogs and investors for pledging Swift shares worth hundreds of millions of dollars as collateral for personal loans. Swift's board repeatedly raised limits on how much stock Mr. Moyes could borrow against, as Mr. Moyes faced margin calls amid a steep slide in Swift's stock price. As of May, Mr. Moyes and his family had pledged 75% of their controlling stake in Swift, worth over $700 million.

Mr. Moyes will serve as co-CEO with Richard Stocking, Swift's chief operating officer since 2010, until the end of the year. After that, Mr. Stocking will become sole CEO, while Mr. Moyes will remain a director.

Mr. Stocking joined Swift in 1992, and had been taking on increasing responsibility from Mr. Moyes since his appointment as COO, said Jason Bates, vice president of finance.

Mr. Moyes is traveling and unavailable for comment, Mr. Bates said.

Mr. Moyes's retirement comes at a challenging time for the trucking industry. Many fleets, including Swift, expanded rapidly in recent years, only for demand to slip over the past year, depressing rates. Swift has been making adjustments to its fleet in recent months, keeping some trucks parked and shifting some to the spot market. The company reported a net income of $42.9 million in the second quarter on just over $1 billion in revenue, down nearly 16% from its earnings the same period a year earlier.

Mr. Moyes also started numerous side businesses over the years, including real estate holdings, stakes in professional sports teams and a charter airline. Some of these ventures failed during the recession; a legal dispute with the National Hockey League stemming from the 2009 bankruptcy of the Phoenix Coyotes, which Mr. Moyes co-owned at the time, was only settled this year.

Mr. Moyes's tenure as Swift CEO wasn't unbroken. He resigned the position in 2005 after settling insider-trading allegations with the Securities and Exchange Commission, where he didn't admit wrongdoing. In 2007, he took Swift private in a $2.6 billion leveraged buyout, then took it public again in 2010, a move analysts say was made in part to help fund his other businesses.

Donald Broughton, an analyst at Avondale Partners, described Mr. Moyes as a "passionate salesman," who took advantage of a wide-open freight market 30 years ago to build a trucking empire, eventually surpassed his peers.

Mr. Broughton, who said he has known Mr. Moyes for over 20 years, described the executive as detail-oriented, one of the few trucking-industry CEOs who still negotiates directly with customers, parts makers and truck dealers.

"He's a very energetic guy," Mr. Broughton said. "I can't envision him sitting around somewhere gathering dust."

Robbie Whelan contributed to this article.

Write to Brian Baskin at brian.baskin@wsj.com and Loretta Chao at loretta.chao@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 08, 2016 19:25 ET (23:25 GMT)

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