Good morning, CFOs. Q&A with UPS CFO Brian Dykes on the company’s growth plan; the AI boom continues to drive economic growth; plus, Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern want to form a coast-to-coast railroad.

United Parcel Service is planning a return to growth as the delivery giant wraps up its effort to draw down Amazon deliveries, its CFO tells WSJ Leadership Institute reporter Mark Maurer, who writes for today’s Morning Ledger:

The company has been reducing volumes from Amazon, its largest customer, as well as closing buildings and slashing operational positions as part of a restructuring. UPS said it has achieved about $600 million in cost savings from these initiatives in the first three months of 2026 and is on track to realize about $3 billion in cost savings this year.

In an interview, Chief Financial Officer Brian Dykes talked to me about where things stand.

Head count: In January, UPS said it would cut 30,000 operational positions this year, on top of 48,000 operational positions eliminated in 2025. The company this month set limits on the number of buyout payments to 7,500 drivers under an agreement with the Teamsters union.

Operational positions, which include drivers, will likely plateau in the back half of the year despite expected company growth because automation will handle the growth, Dykes said. But these positions are driven by volume, meaning the company might increase them as it grows, he said.

“Drivers are the face of our business. And the more volume you have, the more drivers you need," Dykes said.

Building closures: The company closed 23 buildings in the first quarter, with another 27 slated to shutter, primarily in the second quarter, Dykes said. UPS closed more than 90 buildings in 2025.

Dykes said he doesn’t expect any large-scale building closures on a “programmatic basis” once capacity is adjusted at the end of the second quarter.

Leadership lesson: UPS navigated an internal restructuring while simultaneously managing macro issues such as a “freight recession,” the Middle East conflict, the rise of AI and “the largest trade policy change in a hundred years,” he said, referring to the end of the de minimis exemption that had allowed low-cost goods into the U.S. tariff-free.

And what did Dykes learn from helping lead the company through the Amazon-volume reduction effort?

“Time is always the most important factor, and as I look back, making sure that we're moving fast enough is super important,” Dykes said.

—Mark Maurer

📆 Earnings

• Chevron
• Colgate-Palmolive
• Dominion Energy
• Estee Lauder
• Exxon Mobil,
• Linde
• LyondellBasell Industries
• Moderna

📈 Economic Indicators

The Institute for Supply Management releases its Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index for April.

AI growth engine. The AI boom continues to reverberate across the U.S. economy. U.S. economic growth picked up in the first quarter as businesses invested heavily in AI, rebounding from a fourth quarter dented by a government shutdown, Harriet Torry writes. Still, the economy didn’t expand as fast as economists expected, weighed down by softer consumer spending growth.

• U.S. Debt Tops 100% of GDP
• Nasdaq, S&P Close at Records, Finishing Best Month Since 2020

The Iran war hitting home. Farmers overseeing millions of acres of land from North Dakota to Kentucky are switching up which crop seeds to plant, cutting fertilizer purchases and using fewer seeds than originally planned this planting season. That’s because the war in the Middle East has sent fertilizer prices soaring, Patrick Thomas reports. The cost of diesel fuel for tractors and other farm machinery is also rising, leading farmers to cut costs.

The latest dealmaking news comes from the railroad industry… Esther Fung reports that the proposed $71.5 billion merger between Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern to form a coast-to-coast railroad run by a single operator would have a projected 39% of the market share of rail freight in the U.S., the two railroads said.

The companies resubmitted their merger application to U.S. regulators on Thursday, this time including a description of conditions that would compel Union Pacific to walk away from the merger. Such conditions typically include requirements that the buyers cede control of certain parts of the combined railroad and concessions that allow other rail carriers access to its rail lines and facilities.

• Activist Hedge Fund Makes Nearly $3 Billion Offer to Buy Meineke Owner

📰 Other headlines

• Elon Musk Takes The Stand for a Third Day in Lawsuit Against Sam Altman
• Boaz Weinstein Scores Victory in Fight Over Fund With SpaceX Stake
• Hershey CEO on Making Luxury Chocolate Accessible—and Battling Ozempic Breath
• Blue Owl Expands Other Businesses With Private Credit in Turmoil
• Exclusive: White House Opposes Anthropic’s Plan to Expand Access to Mythos Model
• Lululemon’s New CEO Is Already in the Hot Seat—and She Hasn’t Even Started
• U.S. to Remove Tariffs on Scotch Whisky After King Charles-Trump Meeting
• Investors Are Suddenly Piling Into Flint’s Dilapidated Housing Market
• Berkshire Has a Website From the ’90s and Buffett Fans Say Don’t Mess With It

📈 Earnings wrapup

• Merck First-Quarter Sales Rise on Continued Keytruda Growth
• Caterpillar Lifts Outlook as AI-Fueled Power Demand Persists
• Wayfair’s Market Share Holds Despite Furniture-Industry Slowdown

For more earnings news, click here.

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Halozyme Therapeutics, the San Diego-based biopharmaceutical company, has hired Darren Snellgrove as the company's new CFO, effective June 8. Snellgrove joins the company from Johnson & Johnson, where he currently serves as vice president of investor relations, the company said. Snellgrove also spent nearly four years as finance chief of J&J's pharmaceuticals sector, which generates more than $50 billion in annual revenue. Snellgrove will receive an annual salary of $670,000, a $350,000 sign-on bonus and an annual bonus with a target of 50% of his base pay.

CCC Intelligent Solutions Holdings' top finance executive, Brian Herb, is leaving the Chicago-based cloud platform provider for the insurance industry to pursue another opportunity. CCC said Herb has resigned as executive vice president and chief financial and administrative officer, effective May 25. Rodney Christo, currently senior vice president of finance and chief accounting officer, will step in as interim finance chief while the company seeks a successor. Herb joined CCC in his current post in February 2020. Christo has spent more than three decades with the company.

—Colin Kellaher contributed to today’s Ledger.

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