UTi Worldwide Inc. Chief Executive Edward G. Feitzinger scaled back the global logistics company's earnings projections after reporting deeper losses in the second quarter as a result of declining ocean and airfreight forwarding business.

The loss of $70.7 million, or $0.70 a share, in an earnings report after the market close on Thursday was followed by a 19.6% decline in the company's stock price to $5.25 per share in after-hours trading, the lowest the company's stock has been in more than a decade. The share price moved higher in trading Friday but remained at $5.70 a share at midday, 14% behind the close the day before.

UTi now projects earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of $75 million to $100 million for the fiscal year ending in January 2016, down from its previous projection of $125 million to $150 million.

The loss in the quarter ending July 31 compared with a $19.2 million, or $0.24 a share, the logistics and forwarding company reported in the same period a year ago.

UTi's revenues decreased 16.5% to $913.9 million in the second quarter, and net revenues—which subtract direct transportation costs from gross revenues—declined down 14% from the year-ago quarter to $338.5 million.

Net revenues for the freight forwarding segment declined 21.8% to $140.8 million, while revenues for its contract logistics and distribution segment decreased 7.4% to $197.7 million.

Mr. Feitzinger said currency shifts cut into the revenue but that "normal seasonal volume growth did not occur in the second fiscal quarter due to the global macroeconomic slowdown." UTi also appeared to lose market share in the global freight forwarding business: rival Expeditors International of Washington Inc. recently reported a record $118 million profit on strong gains in air and ocean freight volume in the quarter ending June 30.

Mr. Feitzinger said UTi anticipates higher volumes and net revenues because of new contracts with shippers. "Although we cannot control the macroeconomic environment, we believe that our forwarding sales efforts have reached an inflection point, and we should start to see the impact in our reported results in the second half of the year," he said.

UTi was the 20th largest third-party logistics company in the world in 2014 with $4.2 billion in revenue, according to research firm Armstrong & Associates Inc. UTi was in talks with various groups about a sale last year, and disclosed in late 2014 that discussions with Denmark-based logistics company DSV A/S had ended without an agreement.

Write to Erica E. Phillips at erica.phillips@wsj.com

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(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 04, 2015 13:05 ET (17:05 GMT)