Trinity Industries Q2 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
August 1, 2024

There are 6 speakers on the call.

Operator

Good day, everyone, and welcome to the Trinity Industries Second Quarter Ended June 30, 2024 Results Please also note today's event is being recorded. Before we get started, let me remind you that today's conference call contains forward looking statements as defined by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and includes statements as to estimates, expectations, intentions and predictions of future financial performance. Statements that are not historical facts are forward looking. Participants are directed to Trinity's Form 10 ks and other SEC filings for a description of the business issues and risks, a change in any of which could cause actual results or outcomes to differ materially from those expressed in the forward looking statements. At this time, I'd like to turn the floor over to Liam Mann, Vice President of Investor Relations.

Operator

Please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us for the company's Q2 2024 Financial Results Conference Call. Our prepared remarks will include comments from Gene Savage, Trinity's Chief Executive Officer and President and Eric Marchetto, the company's Chief Financial Officer. We will hold a Q and A session following the prepared remarks from our leaders.

Speaker 1

During the call today, we will reference certain non GAAP financial metrics. The reconciliations of the non GAAP metrics to comparable GAAP measures are provided in the appendix of the quarterly investor slides, which are accessible on our Investor Relations website at www.trend.net. These slides are under the Events and Presentations portion of the website, along with the Q2 earnings conference call of EnLink. A replay of today's call will be available after 10:30 am Eastern Time through midnight on August 8, 2024. Replay information is available under the Events and Presentations page on our Investor Relations website.

Speaker 1

Before I turn the call to Gene, I wanted to remind you that Trinity completed our 2024 Investor Day on June 25th. The replay of that webcast is also available under the Events and Presentations page on our Investor Relations website. It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to Jean.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Ann, and good morning, everyone. Seeing some of you in person for our Investor Day in June was great. I encourage you to watch the webcast as it lays out our longer term priorities over the next several years and our progress since our last event in 2020. We believe we have an unmatched rail platform that provides a full suite of customer solutions and will ultimately drive higher shareholder returns. We are a premier railcar leasing company with a platform of integrated rail capabilities to support our lease fleet and serve our customers.

Speaker 2

One of the messages we wanted to convey at our Investor Day was our ability to optimize lifecycle returns due to a less volatile operating environment combined with the reduced cyclicality of our platform. Our strong performance in the Q2 highlights this ability and showcases significant improvement and durability of margins across our business. Here are a few key points before we get into the details. First, we are at GAAP EPS of $0.67 and adjusted EPS of $0.66 which is up $0.33 sequentially and $0.43 year over year on an adjusted basis. 2nd, revenues are up 16% year over year and operating profit is up 43% year over year.

Speaker 2

This reflects improved lease rates, higher external deliveries, and improved labor and operational efficiencies. 3rd, our cash flow from continuing operations in the quarter was $243,000,000 driven by higher external deliveries and working capital improvements. And finally, as we discussed at Investor Day, we are moving to a more traditional post tax definition of ROE as a key performance indicator. Using this updated metric, Trimdall's last 12 month adjusted ROE was 16.8%, showcasing strength in operating results and balance sheet positioning. In short, our team delivered strong financial results in the 2nd quarter, giving us confidence in the second half of the year.

Speaker 2

As Eric will discuss in his prepared remarks, we are raising our annual guidance by $0.20 to a 2024 full year range of $1.55 to 1 $0.75 which implies steady performance in the second half of the year. Before discussing Trinity's performance, I'd like to update you on the railcar market. Demand for existing railcars remains strong, with continued steady carload volumes expected in the back half of the year. Consistent with normal seasonal trends, we have seen railcars and storage tick up slightly, but we view the overall state of the railcar market favorably. The North American railcar fleet has grown somewhat in the last 18 months as railcar users look to optimize scrapping decisions as replacement cars are delivered.

Speaker 2

As we mentioned at our Investor Day, there are still large pockets of aging railcars that will need to be replaced in the coming years. Furthermore, train speeds are favorable and dwell times are down, which is a good sign for the overall longer term conversion of modal share to rail, but reduces the demand for railcars in the short term. Carloads are down slightly year over year, primarily due to a slowdown in coal carloads. Removing coal, carloads are up slightly year over year. Over the last few weeks, North American rail originations of construction and metals, agriculture and downstream and chemical products were up about 9%.

Speaker 2

Combined railcars in these segments represent over 75% of our fleet's net book value. We expect industry deliveries of around 40,000 railcars in 2024 and 120,000 railcars over the next 3 years. The builders, including Trinity, are demonstrating great market discipline to keep the industry fleet well utilized and diversified. The railcar build cycle is expected to be less volatile than prior cycles with lower peaks and higher floors. Trinity's business has 2 main segments, Leasing and Services and Rail Products.

Speaker 2

I'll start my comments in the Leasing and Services segment, which includes our leasing, maintenance and logistics services businesses. In our leasing business, we are proud of our lease fleet's continued strength and momentum. The future lease rate differential or FLRD is a positive 28.3%. This metric has stayed consistently high as market rates maintain their strength. During the 9 quarters in which we have seen this metric in positive double digits, we have repriced about 44% of our fleet.

Speaker 2

Our renewal lease rates were 32.5% above expiring rates and leasing and management revenues were about 9% higher than a year ago. In the quarter, we had a renewal success rate of 72% and a utilization rate of 96.9%. Our strategy is to evaluate the best market for our railcars to maximize long term returns, which can mean shifting railcars at the end of expiring contracts to best position our fleet for long term value creation. Given the markets, car types and customers with expirations in the quarter, we feel good about our fleet's current positioning and utilization. We completed a portfolio sale of 13 15 railcars and related leases for an aggregate sales price of approximately $143,000,000 And we recognized gains of $23,000,000 on all lease portfolio sales in the secondary market this quarter.

Speaker 2

Our maintenance business is part of our leasing segment, and as volume shifts between internal and external repairs, the margin in that business can vary significantly. However, having a strong maintenance network and the ability to service our own fleet is a competitive advantage and makes us a better railcar owner and partner. Moving to our rail products business, which supports our lease fleet and includes railcar manufacturing and our aftermarket parts business, I am pleased with our substantial progress, especially in labor and operational efficiencies. Our operating margin of 7.9% in the 2nd quarter is up significantly both sequentially and year over year and is at the higher end of our full year guidance of 6% to 8%. We received orders for 2,495 railcars in the quarter and delivered 4,755 railcars.

Speaker 2

Inquiries remain supportive of our replacement level demand and customers continue to efficiently place deliveries into service. A narrower railcars build cycle allows for more consistent operations and smoother labor and supply chain planning. This helps support consistent or modest margin growth in this business without volume growth in the near term. Before I conclude, I want to note that at the end of June, we published an interim update to our corporate social responsibility report, which is available on our website. I encourage you to review the report to get a timely update on our company's sustainability initiatives.

Speaker 2

I'll now turn to Eric to discuss the financial statements and update our views on the rest of the year.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Gene, and good morning, everyone. I want to walk through some highlights from our financial statements and then I'll close with some thoughts on our expectations for the rest of 2024. Starting on the income statement, quarterly revenues of $841,000,000 reflect higher external railcar deliveries and improved lease rates. GAAP earnings per share from continuing operations was $0.67 and adjusted EPS was $0.66 As Gene noted, this represents significant growth both sequentially and year over year. We benefited in the quarter by lower eliminations and lease portfolio sales.

Speaker 3

We also saw consistently better performance in our business and improved operating margins for both segments of our business. Moving to the cash flow statement, we generated cash flow from continuing operations of $243,000,000 in the quarter $300,000,000 year to date. As you'll remember, we ended 2023 with a higher working capital balance driven by year end issues at the border. Those railcars have now been delivered and converted into cash, which you can see in our lower working capital balance of $699,000,000 down approximately $92,000,000 from the Q1. The combined result of $163,000,000 in leased railcar sales and fewer deliveries to the lease fleet in the quarter is a net fleet investment of a negative $77,000,000 Our net fleet investment guidance range for the full year remains unchanged as secondary market activity is often lumpy.

Speaker 3

We expect to see net investment increase in the back half of the year with more deliveries in the lease fleet and fewer railcar sales in the secondary market. The RIV sale in the 2nd quarter marks the fulfillment of our original program agreement. We expect to continue selling leased railcars to our ROV partners. We currently have liquidity of $985,000,000 Our loan to value for the wholly owned lease portfolio is 68.3% within our new target range of 60% to 70%. In the Q2, 2 significant debt and capital market transactions strengthened our balance sheet and optimized our loan to value.

Speaker 3

First, in May, we issued $432,000,000 of green secured RevPAR equipment notes, the TRL 2024 notes. The proceeds from this issuance were used to repay warehouse borrowings and redeem the outstanding ABS debt of TRL 7. 2nd, in June, we issued an additional $200,000,000 of principal on our unsecured senior notes, increasing the aggregate principal amount to $600,000,000 We use the proceeds from this transaction and cash on hand to repay our Trinity unsecured 2024 senior notes. And now let's talk about what we expect in the second half of twenty twenty four. As Gene mentioned, we still expect about 40,000 industry railcar deliveries in 2024 to support replacement level demand.

Speaker 3

We expect to invest between $300,000,000 $400,000,000 in our fleet on a net basis. Our operating and administrative capital expenditures of $50,000,000 to $60,000,000 a year, which includes investments in automation, technology and modernization of facilities and processes remains unchanged from previous guidance. Finally, as Gene mentioned, we are increasing our full year EPS guidance to a range of $1.55 to $1.75 for 2024. As we plan for the next 6 months, I want to provide more color around our guidance. First, as expected, we accomplished a large railcar sale in the quarter.

Speaker 3

Year to date, our gains on railcar sales are $25,000,000 We've previously stated that we expect gains to be about half of what they were in 2023. So the implication is that gains from sales in the secondary market will be lower in the second half of the year. 2nd, on our 2023 Q4 call, we stated that we expect about 20% to 25% of our deliveries to go into lease fleet for 2024. In the Q2, it was about 10% due to the timing and planning of our manufacturing and delivery schedule. This benefited our quarterly earnings in the Q2 due to a lower revenue and profit eliminations.

Speaker 3

We expect a higher percentage of deliveries going into our lease fleet in the second half of the year. This is in support of our fleet investment goals and our conviction and the returns we will achieve by leasing these railcars instead of selling them new. When we add a railcar into our fleet, the associated revenue and profit for manufacturing are eliminated. Therefore, a higher percentage of railcars going to our fleet on the same number of deliveries will reduce quarterly earnings per share, but we will generate better long term returns on the railcar and provide multiyear visibility in forward cash flow through lease contracts. As we discussed at our Investor Day, we expect 2024 operating margins between 38% 41% in our leasing segment and between 6% 8% in our rare product segment.

Speaker 3

While we expect margins to average at these rates over the years, there can be some variability throughout the year. Leasing segment operating margins can move due to secondary market activity, maintenance volume and mix. Rail product margins can move due to product mix, line changeovers and production efficiency. We are proud of our performance in the Q2 and feel increasingly confident in our visibility in the rest of the year as evidenced by raising our EPS guidance. In our leasing segment, consistently high FLRD has driven lease rates upward and the revenue growth from higher lease rates flows to the bottom line.

Speaker 3

Our maintenance and digital services businesses are also performing well, providing a broader customer offering and a better customer experience. In the rare products group, our higher operating margin reflects consistent and disciplined efforts around labor and operational efficiency. Our legacy parts and holding businesses are performing well and reducing the overall cyclicality of the segment. In summary, our suite of products and services are all performing well, improving the returns of our business and driving shareholder value. Operator, we are now ready to take our first question.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we'll begin the question and answer session. Our first question today comes from Bascome Majors from Susquehanna. Please go ahead with your question.

Speaker 4

Good morning. From a little shaping, you were very clear on the internal versus external sales dynamic and how that would impact the second half. Can you talk a little bit about the margin progression, which has been really strong for several straight quarters? And if in the OE side of the business, if that keeps moving up, would potentially put us in the higher end of your range by year end. But also, we understand that there may be some absorption issues with more of that revenue and profit being eliminated and trying to balance the underlying trend with the accounting of it?

Speaker 4

Thank you.

Speaker 2

Well, Bascome, you summarized it really well. So when we look at the second half with the products group, as Eric mentioned in his prepared remarks, it really depends on the mix of cars that we're producing, the number of line changeovers that are occurring during that time period and then the efficiencies, different car types have different efficiencies that go along with them. So the group will continue to work on all the initiatives. Some of the early successes we've seen have been along the supply chain and procurement area, along with some of the changeover work that they've been doing. So we expect to continue that, but still we're holding the guidance for the year of 6% to 8% for the margins of products.

Speaker 2

Remember that steps up next year and the range we're giving there is 7% to 9%.

Speaker 4

And that was actually my next question. There's a modest step up next year and really more of a leap in your long term guidance to 9% to 11% in 2026. And can we walk I mean, this came up at the Investor Day a few weeks ago, but can we revisit that the caution on next year and the visibility or hope into a more meaningful increase in the year after? Is that really just some kind of cyclical cushioning? Or is there something you have visibility into in the mix and backlog that suggests that you really should see a bigger leap 18 months from now rather than 6 months from now?

Speaker 4

Thank you.

Speaker 2

Sure, Baskin. So it is not the mix. What we're looking at is the initiatives. Remember, we said we're working on workforce staffing, retention and development, standardizing product offerings and complexity reduction, enhancing our production planning capabilities, advanced supply chain processes and strategic sourcing and then technology and automation. All of those take time to come through to the bottom line beyond the supply chain.

Speaker 2

So it's really about the timing of getting those done and bringing those in. And what we told you at the Investor Day was from 2024 through 2026, we expect industry deliveries to be 120,000. So you're talking about a fairly stable environment overall. There could be a little bit of lumpiness year to year, but that's fairly stable. And so it's going to take these initiatives coming through to continue to improve that margin.

Speaker 4

The last one for me. Can you talk a little bit, so I think you said that you're through 44% of your fleet repricing since lease rates really took off a few years ago. Can we talk about how long the runway is to get to 100%? I think people just have kind of assumed maybe 15% a year as a proxy. But if lease rates on an absolute basis stay where they are, how much runway do you have into repricing the existing fleet at meaningfully better returns as we get through that without needing to see sequential strengthening or increases in the lease rates on an absolute basis?

Speaker 4

Thank

Speaker 2

you. So Bascome, I'll go on that and then Eric can jump in if he needs to. When you look at the tight market that we're in, it's really a balanced market and supply driven. So that's kept the discipline there within the market. And so with only 44% of our fleet repriced and you were correct, we repriced about 15% of our fleet on an annual basis.

Speaker 2

We still see headroom going forward. Remember in the quarter, our renewal rates were up 32.5% versus expiring rates. So we're still seeing strength there. You'll see any changes in that coming through in our FLRD in the future, but an FLRD of 28.3% is still very strong.

Speaker 3

Thank you, both.

Operator

Thanks. Our next question comes from Steve Barger from KeyBanc Capital Markets. Please go ahead with your question.

Speaker 5

Hi, good morning. This is Jacob Moore on for Steve today. Thanks for taking the questions. Some of these are similar to Bascome, but maybe asking in slightly different way. So the first for me is, this looks like one of the lower revenue per car quarters since 4Q 2021 and I'm not exactly sure how the segment reclassification affects that.

Speaker 5

So I guess my first question is, can you talk about what's going on with mix and what does mix look like in the second half? Look like it was a negative call out on the manufacturing revenue line.

Speaker 3

Yes, Jacob, this is Eric. Thanks. As far as the mix goes and we're still it's still more of a freight car led market and even in which freight cars generally have on average a lower selling price than the tank cars. And within that there's a wide swing of mix. So I think that's fairly I wouldn't call too much attention to that.

Speaker 3

As we go forward, we expect a little more a modest increase in tank car delivery. So that should help that average selling price. We're more focused on the margins on all those railcars. And so we feel good about where the pricing environment is overall on kind of across the board

Speaker 2

in all car

Speaker 5

types. Okay, got it. Thanks for that. Second one for me, Your first half orders averaged 2,200 per quarter versus a delivery average more than twice that at 4,700. So my question is if that pattern persists in the second half, my math suggests backlog would end around 16,000 cars.

Speaker 5

Is there any thought to slowing down production or do you have firm delivery schedules for everything that's in the backlog right now?

Speaker 2

So I'll take that one. When you look at the order entry, so the builders are getting quicker on delivering cars. So in the past, when supply chain had issues, it would we would get orders earlier because everything filled up quicker. We're pretty much sold out for 2024. And when you look at the makeup of those, as Eric said, it's still freight car led, but tank car is starting to improve on it.

Speaker 2

We're not really concerned. Order entry can be lumpy. Remember, we had a large multiyear order come in. We've got about 46% of the industry backlog sitting on our books. And as you said, we've delivered 40% plus of the deliveries for the last four quarters.

Speaker 2

So overall, it's really the lumpiness in quarterly entry and then the backlog that we already have.

Speaker 5

Okay, got it. And that leads nicely into my last question, if you will. If deliveries are lower next year, could you maintain manufacturing margin in the 8% range? Or maybe better ask what's the minimum delivery schedule to achieve your target manufacturing margin?

Speaker 3

So Jacob, as far as 2025 goes, we just did our Investor Day a few weeks ago and we gave pretty good indications of activity and margin guidance for 2024, 2025 and 26. That's as far as we're going to go today in terms of 2025. But as Gene just mentioned, we're expecting 120,000 railcars over the next 3 years. So that's which is the same number we've seen in the last 3 years. So it should be pretty smooth or won't be $40,000 every year, but we're kind of on pace for about $40,000 this year.

Speaker 3

So you're not you can't really get that much variation off of it. And the margin profile, our knowledge of our margin profile for 2025 is reflected in our Investor Day comments.

Speaker 5

Understood. That's good clarification. Thanks, Eric. And thank you both for taking questions.

Operator

Thanks, Jacob. Thank you. And our next question is a follow-up from Baskin Majors from Susquehanna. Please go ahead with your follow-up.

Speaker 4

Eric, just with all the accounting nuance that we can see in your numbers sometime between the eliminations and that sort of thing, Could you walk us through the $0.20 guidance increase on the EPS line, just so we kind of understand a little better what's accounting and what's maybe upside surprises in the core performance of the business? Thank you.

Speaker 3

Yes. Thanks, Bastian. So I mean, I think the setup in your question kind of is accurate. First, I'd say the 2nd quarter activity, we're real happy with where the activity came out and we still see solid performance in both of our segments. When you compare that to what our guidance was for the year back when we talked last talked in late April, early May.

Speaker 3

The second quarter does reflect better performance than we expected at the time. It also reflects our current guidance reflects better performance in the back half of the year. And so we knew I talked about in prepared remarks the timing of gains. We've had more of the gains in the first half compared to the second half. I think that's pretty clear on that.

Speaker 3

And as you mentioned or referenced, the eliminations are certainly back end weighted this year. And that's just the way the production schedule fell. Some of that was reflected in our beat in the Q2. We had fewer eliminations. The gains were a little higher than we expected as one of the deals got done in the 2nd quarter, but we're holding our gain outlook for the full year.

Speaker 3

Our elimination outlook for the full year is held the same. So overall, we're real happy with it. The last thing I'd just say is remember we had some deliveries that were hung up at the border in the 4th quarter. Those have now all delivered and converted to cash. So we got the benefit of that roughly 1,000 units in the first half.

Speaker 3

We won't have that in the second half.

Speaker 4

And to your comments about being happy with better performance than we expected in both the Q2 and with that carrying to the second half is if we really wanted to drill down into that, is that mostly about manufacturing efficiency and margin? Or I mean, what are the 1 or 2 things you would point to on where you surprised yourselves versus the budget you had in April? Thank you.

Speaker 3

Yes, I would say the margins on the Rail Group, we did specifically the deliveries at the border, the flow through of our supply chain, all led to better efficiencies. And so that gives us a lot of confidence as we move forward. On the leasing side with an FLRD of 28%, last quarter 32%. We expect lease rates to keep improving. And so and we have we're confident that in the back half of the year, we'll continue to reprice assets up.

Speaker 3

And so we're confident in that as well. Thank you. Thanks.

Operator

And ladies and gentlemen, with that, we'll be ending today's question and answer session. I'd like to turn the floor back over to management for any closing remarks.

Speaker 2

Well, thank you for your time today. The strength of the Trinity platform comes from our consistent focus on protecting and enhancing the returns of our lease fleet. And we're pleased with our 2nd quarter results, and we believe we are well positioned for continued improvement on the returns of our business.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, with that, we'll conclude today's conference call and presentation. We do thank you for joining. You may now disconnect your lines.

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