J.B. Hunt Transport Services Inc. of Lowell said Wednesday its board of directors has authorized another $1 billion stock buyback program.
The company (Nasdaq: JBHT) is nearing the end of a $1 billion buyback initiative that was authorized in July 2024. J.B. Hunt said it has repurchased more than 5.4 million common shares of the company for $782 million since Jan. 1.
The new buyback program will begin after the completion of the buyback currently in action.
J.B. Hunt said in a filing with the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission that there were approximately 95 million outstanding common shares.
Shares closed at $168.98 on Wednesday. In pre-market trading Thursday, shares ticked up less than 1%.
Over the past 12 months, shares were down 4%. The share price has fluctuated as transportation companies have dealt with a lingering freight recession, federal tariffs and an inflationary economy.
J.B. Hunt reported third-quarter earnings on Oct. 15 and said it had generated $8.9 billion in revenue in the first nine months of 2025, down from $8.94 billion in 2004. Income for the first three quarters was $417.2 million, up from $415.4 million.
In June during a conference call with analysts to discuss second-quarter earnings, then-CFO John Kuhlow was asked about the company’s stock repurchases. The company reported buying approximately 3.6 million shares for $512 million in 2024 under a $500 million buyback program approved in July 2022 by the board of directors.
“Obviously, we want to reinvest in our core businesses,” said Kuhlow, who is now the company’s chief accounting officer. “And traditionally, that is through our revenue equipment purchases. [In] the current environment, we do have a strong free cash flow, and we have used that to repurchase our shares, mostly from an opportunistic [point of view] just looking at the value of our stock, multiple relative to S&P, RSI.
“We look at all those factors when we think about how we repurchase. But the bottom line is we want to continue to maintain our dividend. We want to maintain our leverage. To the extent we have free cash flow, we will, again, take a look at opportunistic possibilities for repurchasing stock.”
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