Today's Pickup: Does Uber Freight Have Clothes?; Pitching Tents In Delivery Land - Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN)

Good day,

Uber's S-1 IPO filing dishes out some misleading information about the prospects for its Uber Freight operation and its impact on the parent. That's the view of veteran logistics analyst Steve Banker, vice president of supply chain services at ARC Advisory Group. Writing in Forbes, Banker said Uber vastly overstates the addressable market for Uber Freight, positions the unit as offering a unique digital-brokerage model when others are already doing it, and its "freight gross bookings," or freight under management, is dwarfed by at least four rivals. Uber Freight is hemorrhaging money and growth slowed in its last reporting quarter, Banker noted; investors in platform solutions can forgive the former, but are wary about the latter, he said. If this was a stand- alone prospectus for Uber Freight, and if the unit did not have the Uber name, "who would be foolish enough to invest in them," Banker wrote.

Did You Know?:

That 65percent of Amazon.com Inc.'s AMZN fulfillment and sorting center growth in 2018 and 2019 is located east of the Mississippi River, according to a Deutsche Bank report published last week analyzing secular shifts in middle-mile transportation.

Quotable:

"An important point to frame is that we are at historic levels in terms of the amount of non-U.S. capital coming into institutional quality commercial real estate."

Gunnar Branson, CEO of A Fellowship for International Real Estate (AFIRE), in an interview in National Real Estate Investor.

In other news:

Start-ups vie to lead India's logistics revolution

Well-funded apps such as Rivigo aim to overhaul an inefficient logistics market that has hurt the broader Indian economy. (Financial Times)

Wanted: Warehouse and logistics technicians

The Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry has launched a program to train people to meet the demand for warehouse and logistics technicians. (abc27.com)

Location, location and more location

CT Realty's development of the 882,000 square-foot Westport Logistics Center in Ft. Worth, Texas, one mile west of Interstate 35 and adjacent to Ft. Worth's Alliance Airport, underscores the overarching importance of location in industrial real estate selection. (GlobeSt)

`NIMBY' action could stall development of San Bernardino (California) air logistics center

Citizens and activists have protested plans to build an air logistics facility at the site of the old Norton Air Force Base, saying it will cause severe disruptions and not result in well-paying jobs the area needs. (San Bernardino Sun)

Are Hunt's weak first quarter results a harbinger of a broad economic slowdown?

The company's sub-par numbers, especially on the intermodal front, have again advanced the thesis that "as shipping goes, so goes the economy," (Barron's)

Final thoughts:
Amazon.com, Inc.'s volumes are so immense that the company has pitched tents to support its deliveries. According to Business Insider, Amazon has erected fabric tents – which it calls "delivery stations" – in at least eight states. The tents are used to house and sort packages before they're delivered to their final locations, Business Insider said. The tents are temporary until the company can find permanent structures, a spokesperson told the outlet. Marc Wulfraat, whose firm, MWPVL International, tracks Amazon's physical distribution efforts, said that most tents were erected in mid-size markets, and that the plan in some markets is to replace them with larger leased buildings. Pop-up structures have been used before, notably by UPS, Inc. to add delivery density during peak season.