FTAI Infrastructure Inc. (FIP) Earnings Call Transcript

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Third Quarter 2026 FTAI Infrastructure Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would like now to turn the conference over to Alan Andreini, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Michelle. I would like to welcome you all to the FTAI Infrastructure Earnings Call for the third quarter of '26 joining me here today are Ken Nicholson, the CEO of FDI Infrastructure; Buck Fletcher, the company's CFO, and John Carnes, CEO of New Wheeling, our freight rail business. We have posted an investor presentation and our press release on our website, which we encourage you to download if you have not already done so. Also, please note that this call is open to the public in listen-only mode and is being webcast. In addition, we will be discussing some non-GAAP financial measures during the call today, including adjusted EBITDA. The reconciliations of those measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures can be found in the earnings supplement. Before I turn the call over to Ken, I would like to point out that certain statements made today will be forward-looking statements including regarding future earnings. These statements by their nature are uncertain and may differ materially from actual results. We encourage you to review the disclaimers in our press release and investor presentation regarding non-GAAP financial measures and forward-looking statements and to review the risk factors contained in our quarterly report filed with the SEC. Now I would like to turn the call over to Ken.

Okay. Thank you very much, Alan. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the call. It's been a very active past few months at FTAI, and we are excited to provide updates on a number of important developments. We had a great quarter financially posting new records for revenue and EBITDA, led by continued growth at our railroad and walk you through the building blocks of all of that in just a bit here. But equally important, we advanced a handful of strategic priorities away from the railroad that should contribute to meaningful value creation in the quarters to come. I'm going to kick things off on Slide 3 of the supplement. Our core business is the freight railroad and in Q3, we again posted record financial results. We're seeing a strong environment, both in terms of volumes and pricing and are optimistic about continued organic growth. Nippon Steel recently announced some additional investments at the Mon Valley facilities in Pittsburgh, and we'll see meaningful incremental volumes of propane shipments commencing next year. All in, we're forecasting continued double-digit growth in revenue and EBITDA in the year ahead. In addition, we're experiencing a high level of M&A activity in the market, and we're actively evaluating several potential acquisition opportunities. I firmly believe that our business is one of the best positioned buyers in the market, especially as it relates to larger more strategic rail assets, and I'm excited about a number of near-term opportunities. At our Long Ridge power and gas business, I'm thrilled to report that just this week, we finally received the regulatory approvals for the sale of the company. With approval in hand, we expect to close the sale by the end of this month. Gross proceeds of just over $1.5 billion will be used almost entirely to repay debt resulting in a material reduction in leverage and more importantly, lower interest expense at our parent level. With a lighter balance sheet, we plan to continue our focus on growing our core rail business. And finally, we continue to position our terminals for monetization next year. Last month, we announced the acquisition of logistics assets from USD Group, which we plan to combine with Jefferson to transform the value proposition of that combined business. And at Repauno, our Phase II buildout is approaching completion and setting us up for an exciting 2027. As we look ahead, our strategy is straightforward: continue to reduce leverage, grow the value of our rail platform materially increased EBITDA at Jefferson Repauno and ultimately monetize those terminal assets as we are doing with Longbridge. I'm going to move to Slide 4, and we'll dig into the consolidated financial results for the quarter. Adjusted EBITDA for Q3 came in at $95.3 million, up materially from $70.9 million in the third quarter of 2025. On the right side of the slide, we illustrate our historical quarterly adjusted EBITDA, excluding the results of Long Ridge, given the pending sale. Excluding Longbridge, adjusted EBITDA was $54.4 million for Q3, another quarterly record. And in the quarters ahead, we expect EBITDA to continue to grow, driven by a handful of high confidence events. First, organic growth at our railroad; second, the USD acquisition and the inclusion of USD's financial results with Jefferson going forward, and third, the commencement of Phase II operations at Ripon next year. Flipping to Page 5. I'll talk briefly about our balance sheet and our deleveraging trajectory. With the long reach sale, we expect to eliminate approximately $1.4 billion of total debt from our balance sheet, of which a little over $1.1 billion is at the long ridge level and a little under $300 million is at other parent entities. Debt service at our parent level will decline by approximately $25 million per year, meaningfully improving our leverage metrics. And we expect our leverage profile to continue to improve over the next several quarters as we integrate the USD assets and bring online Phase II at Ripon. I'm now going to walk through the more detailed financial performance at each of our segments, and we'll also talk about some recent developments and our priorities in the quarters ahead. We're going to start with our railroad on Slide 7. We posted new quarterly records across the board. Carloads, average rates per car, revenue and EBITDA all came in at all-time highs. Revenue was $104.2 million, and adjusted EBITDA was $47.4 million for the quarter, compared with Q3 2025 revenue of $61.7 million and adjusted EBITDA of $29.1 million. We closed the acquisition of the Wheeling and Lake Gary railed in August of last year, so year-over-year comparisons are not entirely comparable. But even if we assumed we had owned the wheeling for the entirety of Q3 last year, all key metrics would be higher year-over-year. Volumes for the quarter were strong in all categories with the exception of slightly lower volumes at our Gary Railway as U.S. Steel continue to undertake a substantial overhaul and upgrade of the largest blast furnace at Gary Works, which was completed in September and is once again operating at full capacity. Average rate per car reflected a strong pricing environment as well as higher fuel surcharges, which we pass along to our customers. Integration of the Wheeling and Lake area is largely complete with the final systems integration taking place here in November, so we should continue to see cost savings opportunities continuing into this fourth quarter. We expect strong growth in our rail business continuing to 2027, and we highlight some of the drivers of that on Slide 8. Organically, the outlook for both volumes and rates is favorable, with shipments of energy products steel products and other raw materials, all strong and pricing also trending higher again next year. Nippon continues to roll out committed investments at U.S. Steel's Pittsburgh and Gary facilities that should drive incremental volumes in the years to come. And propane shipments originating in Ohio destined for our Repauno terminal will commence next year. While the outlook for organic growth is favorable, we are equally excited about the M&A market and opportunities that we are evaluating. Our objective is not simply to add EBITDA. It is to build scale in a highly strategic portfolio of assets where we believe our operating capabilities and existing networks should make those assets more valuable under our ownership. Now on to our Jefferson terminal. At Jefferson, we reported $24.9 million of revenue and $14.2 million of adjusted EBITDA in Q3 versus $21.1 million of revenue and $11 million of EBITDA in Q3 of last year. Refined products came in at a new quarterly record in terms of both volumes and revenues as our export business continues to grow. Fruit volumes continued to be impacted by volatility in the Middle East and the temporary reduction in inbound ship volumes. But we're encouraged to see inbound crude volumes recovering materially so far in Q4 with October crude volumes averaging 85,000 barrels per day, more than double the 41,000 barrels per day we averaged during Q3. Based on our most current interactions with the refineries we serve, we forecast the remainder of Q4 to be strong on the crude front. We continue to negotiate new contracts to expand our business at Jefferson and have recently finalized commercial terms with two new customers for crude oil exports. The new business will commence on January 1, next year and should represent approximately $8 million of incremental annual EBITDA. We also continue to discuss larger opportunities with existing customers that involve expansions of the services we currently provide with little to no CapEx. Our goal is to execute on all of these larger opportunities in the coming months. But as I mentioned, the majority of growth at Jefferson will be driven by the acquisition of the USD assets which we expect to be reflected in our Jefferson financials upon closing of that transaction in the middle of this month of November. On Slide 10, we walk through the USD acquisition in more detail. The assets we're acquiring include a rail connected fruit terminal in the Bolon Port Arthur energy complex and a 50% joint venture interest in a diluent recovery unit in Alberta, Canada. Two assets formed the bookends of a supply chain that handles approximately 50,000 barrels per day of Canadian crude oil under a take-or-pay long-term contract with an investment-grade customer. Crude oil originates in Canada, where low-value diluent, which is used in the initial recovery process is removed from the product to concentrate the oil into higher-value pure crude which is then shipped by rail to Beaumont and piped to the P66 crude oil hub. Altogether, at the contracted minimum volumes, the USD assets generate approximately $50 million of annual EBITDA. What is particularly attractive to us is both the quality and visibility of that EBITDA. More importantly, the addition of the USD assets transforms our Jefferson business, and we talk through some of the highlights on Slide 11. We Jefferson's growth trajectory takes another leap forward with the addition of USD volumes and ultimately has the potential to drive meaningful value creation in advance of our plans to monetize Jefferson next year. The combined business will provide critical energy logistics services to a total of seven high-quality customers under long-term contracts. The resulting combined EBITDA is expected to exceed $100 million annually before including the impact of increased capacity utilization at Jefferson's main terminal. We expect to execute these additional contracts in the near term, and we see opportunities also to realize cost savings from integrating the USD assets with Jefferson. Together, those initiatives provide meaningful upside to EBITDA in 2027 and importantly, should enhance the value of Jefferson as we position the business for sale next year. And finally, turning to Repauno. Our focus continues on Phase II where construction proceeds as planned toward our goal of completing in the coming months and revenue commencing shortly thereafter. We have long-term contracts in place for a portion of our capacity and are seeing high demand for the remaining available space. Spreads for propane exports continue to be attractive. And based on the conversations we are having, we expect to commence revenue service in 2027 near or at full capacity. Construction of Phase II is progressing well with the new progenic tank readying for completion as well as the pipes and manifolds, connecting the tank to our rail racks and ship dock. Here in Q4, we are converting our existing cavern previously utilized for butane handling to propane in order to start handling propane in advance of completion and commissioning of Phase II. Repauno is approaching an important inflection point. We have invested the capital, construction is nearing completion, and the focus is now shifting from development to cash flow generation. As that cash flow becomes visible in 2027, we believe the value of Repauno should be increasingly apparent and position us well for a potential monetization. I will conclude our remarks there, and now let me turn the call back over to Alan.

Thank you, Ken. Michelle, you may now open the call to Q&A.

[Operator Instructions] First come from Julian Bologna with Compass Point.

Congrats on successful great quarter. coming over to the rail side. It looks like the growth in EBITDA in the Rail segment is accelerating. Can you expand on that and what's driving that acceleration and how durable it is?

Julian, thanks for the question. Yes, we're very happy with Q3 and the results, we certainly are seeing a very good start to Q4. So everything I mentioned, double-digit year-over-year growth in revenue and a little more than that in EBITDA is what we continue to expect. It really is not one specific thing. Which is great. It's a combination of many things. Carloads and the overall volume environment just continues to be strong. We're seeing propane volumes as high as I think we've ever seen them or certainly the wheeling has ever seen them. And it's great to have the business at Gary now back online for the entirety of Q4. The largest blast furnace in Garidana was out of out of service for the bulk of Q3. So we're excited about that. Pricing in the rail industry continues to be attractive. We continue to see at least mid-single-digit pricing growth going forward. In some cases, pricing will be higher than that into the higher single digits next year. That's not in all cases, but in some cases. And so really, the growth is driven by revenue gains, and we're really happy with what we're seeing. And yes, I think it's very sustainable into 2027.

That's very helpful. And then you mentioned the rail M&A environment is robust. Can you give us a little more color on what you're seeing and the types of opportunities you're looking at?

Yes, definitely. I mean I do have to say, we've been invested in the rail sector here for quite some time, and we've seen the waves of M&A and consolidation. This is certainly one of the most active, if not the most active environments we've seen in -- I mean, at least 10 years, maybe 20 years. there's a lot going on, and it's driven by a number of various dynamics, big companies, smaller companies, all looking to sell -- you have -- the rail industry is a dynamic one. You have lots of different types of companies with different ownership profiles. There are over 500 short line and regional railroads, in North America. So there's a big base of potential candidates for consolidation in a fragmented market. But you've got either individual owners who have owned their rail assets for significant periods of time, and they're just getting to a point where they're ready to sell and move on to their next challenge. There was a big wave of M&A over the past five or 10 years, and a lot of private equity firms came into the sector and their funds, which typically have 10-year terms are coming up on maturities, and so they need to sell. And then we continue to look at some corporate carve-outs kind of like our acquisition of Transtar from USL particularly fondo those types of situations because I think we can be a very differentiated buyer given our experience U.S. Steel. So it's super active looking at all different types of things. I do think our focus is going to be on the bigger opportunities. There are a handful of smaller things out there that don't quite move the needle for us. And I think our time and energy is probably better spent on some of the bigger, more strategic situations.

And the next question will come from Greg Lewis with BTIG.

I was hoping to talk a little bit about Jefferson just following the acquisition. Could you talk about that impact on the acquisition and what that does for Jefferson, not only in terms of how you're thinking about integrating that and organically growing EBITDA. But maybe does this lead to a potential I don't know, strategic alternatives opportunity where this could be sold at some point in the future?

Yes. Greg, thanks for the question. The answer is yes. I think the acquisition does a lot or Jefferson. First, outside of any strategic opportunities, it materially changes the cash flow profile of the business. Jefferson is an asset that's been bought over years and years, and the team down in Beaumont has done an exceptional job building out the infrastructure. I mean that is a gold-plated terminal and I really believe all of our customers are very happy with the performance down there. But it has taken time, of course. There have been some frustrations in the amount of time that it has taken to ramp up. I really think we've done a phenomenal job, again, led by the core team down in Beaumont. Finally, getting to a point where cash flows exceed interest expense on the debt that was incurred to build out all that infrastructure. That infrastructure will live for the next 50 to 100 years, but it took a lot of capital, and we were able to borrow a fair amount of that capital to build out those infrastructure. But it has left Jefferson relatively tight on a cash flow basis. This acquisition of USD completely transforms and changes the cash flow profile of the business. Jefferson will now be generating ample excess cash flow, and that just in and of itself is very important. On the strategic front, I do think there is the 1 plus 1 equals 3 dynamic here. We added new high-quality pure investment-grade customer. We get access to new products, kind of akin to renovating your house before you sell it. And I'm looking forward to preparing the company for sale next year. Obviously, we're still going to execute somewhat. But look, I think the combined capital we have at the Jefferson and the purchase price of will certainly be less than the total proceeds we'll get from a sale and it's a very accretive transaction as we look to a potential monetization next year.

Our next question will come from Matthew Ortner with Jones.