Tony Hatch has been a senior transportation analyst on Wall Street for over twenty years, starting at Salomon Brothers; proceeding to Argus, PaineWebber, and most recently at NatWest Markets (USA) prior to becoming an independent analyst/consultant at the latter's closing of operations. After initially covering the airline sector, Mr. Hatch's coverage has been focused on the freight transportation segment, particularly surface transportation. The core of this coverage has been the large cap railroads, with sub sector coverage of trucking, air freight and express, maritime, transportation suppliers, leasing companies, logistics companies and freight forwarders. Mr. Hatch is known for his knowledge of the intermodal area, where the various modes of freight transport converge, on which he has held a dozen specialized conferences.
Recently, Mr. Hatch has been providing not only “traditional” institutional transport research but also providing due diligence and other services to new forms of transport investment such as private equity and hedge funds. At the turn of the century, Mr. Hatch was the leading consultant expert on the rail industry's B2B e-commerce efforts, working both on e-procurement and commercial ("virtual rail") applications. Mr. Hatch has advised the AAR and the railroad industry's "E-Policy" Team on the selection of a strategy consultant and consulted on the Steelroads project, and has been an active consultant to Rail1.com. Mr. Hatch is also a columnist on rails and for Progressive Railroading's print and digital editions. He served on the Advisory Board of3Plex, iLink Global, and advised Arzoon.
Mr. Hatch's research approach is based on evaluation of company fundamentals, together with in-depth management meetings. He believes the future direction of surface transportation depends on a combination of the outsourcing/logistics movement and further intermodal development (i.e., how rails interface with other modes of transport such as trucks and ships). Mr. Hatch also believes that investors, sidetracked by historic valuations, do not fully appreciate the emergence of a "railroad renaissance", a phrase he coined when analyzing the promise of the pre-consolidation period. It is his thesis that in the new millennium, railroads will operate more efficiently, produce consistently high returns and regain customer confidence and market share.
Since the closing of NatWest, Mr. Hatch has been active as an independent analyst and consultant, doing work for major railroads such as CSX, Union Pacific, BNSF, Kansas City Southern, Canadian National and the Association of American Railroads, the American Short Line and Regional Rail Road Association, the United Transportation Union, the Canadian Transportation Agency, the Railway Association of Canada, various freight shipper and supplier organizations such as ARC, the AFI. NARS, WESTAC and the AAPA, as well as for management consulting firms Mercer Management, Mitchell Madison Group / USWeb..
Mr. Hatch has been named to various honor rolls, including the Institutional Investor and Wall Street Journal All Star teams and garnering the top spot in the Greenwich Poll. He is a past President of the Motor Carrier Analysts. His career highlight was testifying before Congress on railroads.
