Joe Adams
Analyst · Stephens. You may begin
Thank you, Alan. To start the call, I am pleased to announce our 12th dividend as a public company and our 27th consecutive dividend since inception. The dividend of $0.33 per share will be paid on May 29 based on a shareholder record date of May 17. Before going over the numbers for each operating entity, I would like to highlight a few of them: first, adjusted EBITDA of $48.1 million our highest ever; second, normalized Aviation FAD run-rate $230 million, our highest ever; third, projected Aviation FAD considering our current LOIs now $265 million; throughput at Jefferson Energy terminal, 3 million barrels, our highest ever; and finally, total company normalized FAD $28.2 million, which is greater than the dividend. Now, let me review the numbers in more detail. The key metrics for us are adjusted EBITDA and FAD or funds available for distribution. Adjusted EBITDA for Q1 2018 was $48.1 million compared to Q4 of 2017 of $47.8 million and Q1 of 2017 of $22.1 million. FAD was $34.4 million in Q1 versus $47.2 million in Q4 of 2017 and $21.7 million in Q1 of 2017. During the first quarter, the $34.4 million FAD number was comprised of $62 million from our equipment leasing portfolio, negative $12.3 million from our infrastructure business and negative $15.3 million from corporate. The overall infrastructure number improved due largely to strong results at the Central Maine & Quebec Railway or CMQR. Corporate FAD improved from Q4 2017 primarily due to lower corporate G&A and lower acquisition and transaction transition costs. Once we normalize the Q1 numbers, we again see as we did at the end of Q4 continuing strength in our ability to generate adjusted EBITDA and FAD on a run-rate basis. More importantly, we see that trend both continuing and accelerating. Let me now turn to Aviation by first setting a backdrop for the business. The macros for the industry overall continue to be impressive. Global passenger traffic growth for Q1 of 2018 was 7.6% increase and is projected to continue growing at 5% to 6% per annum. Freighter demand due to rapidly growing e-commerce continues also to be very strong. Here are the Aviation numbers to our Q1. Aviation had another terrific quarter, which I never get tired of saying. Aviation normalized FAD in Q1 was approximately $57.5 million or $230 million annualized, up from $184 million annualized number in Q4. The portfolio is performing very well and the outlook is outstanding. As of this call, we have closed on $135 million of new investments year-to-date and expect to close $65 million more in Q2 or more than the $180 million we had in signed letters of intent at year end plus an additional $20 million from new deals. In addition to that, we have added another $30 million of signed LOIs that should close in Q3 and Q4 of this year bringing our new expected run rate Aviation FAD to approximately $265 million per annum. With our core portfolio today of 110 engines and 61 aircraft which on those aircraft we also have 126 engines and our talented and dedicated team we have established FTAI aviation as a major part of the global commercial engine business, which is a great space the be in with above average growth rates and very high barriers to entry. And because of the size of the aftermarket opportunity with the CFM 56-5B and 7B engine that I have been talking about, the best is still yet to come. 100% of all 737 next gen aircraft are powered by CFM 56-7B engines and 60% of the large A320 family are powered by CFM 56-5B engines. So in total there are over 22,000 of these engines flying every day, the largest commercial engine market by multiples. Today about half of these engines are covered by power by our service agreements provided by CFM and half are served by the independent maintenance and repair organizations otherwise called MROs and operators which is our target market. Over time as those aircraft transition from the original operator to the second, third or fourth airline operator that percentage that is served by the aftermarket or our market goes up. So today 11,000 aftermarket engines on average go through a major shop visit every 5 years or approximately 20% of those per annum, which means every year there are over 2,000 annual shop visits for CFM 56 engines. The average shop visit cost today is nearly $5 million and has been increasing every year and is projected to increase going forward at rates well above inflation, so the market opportunity in this sector is huge and growing. Our suite of products that we have been developing for the last 3 years, we believe can save between $1 million and $1.5 million per shop visit. Those products are; one, our advanced engine repair through our joint venture, two, module swaps, three, partnerships – partnership with the parts distributor for sourcing lower cost used material and four, coordinating and concentrating our shop visits with our preferred MROs. We expect to be offering unique cost saving products and services to airlines who operate CFM engines, which we believe can add material earnings to our business beginning this year and very much accelerating in 2019 and 2020. Turning now to offshore, the offshore market remains oversupplied, but is definitely improving. All three of our vessels run lease for all of Q4 and for most of Q1. Two of the three vessels will likely be on a hire for the balance of 2018, while the Pride will have a few shorter jobs this year. Additionally, we are also exploring the possibility of converting the Pride to a dedicated well intervention asset. The vessel is well suited for this highly specialized well intervention market which is much less oversupplied and significantly more profitable than the construction market. We hope to have the vessel actively trading in that market by year end 2018. Turning now to infrastructure and starting with Jefferson, Jefferson continues to grow in terms of both throughput and construction to support new business demands. The macros for refining and storage needs in the Gulf are the best they have been for decades and continue to strengthen. Jefferson had an excellent quarter and that one we handled record volume of product through the terminal including 2 million barrels of ethanol, 400,000 barrels of refined products and 650,000 barrels of crude. All 2 million barrels of storage currently built is under contract and we are presently constructing an additional 800,000 barrels for crude. Third, we expect additional contracted volume of refined products by rail to Mexico. We secured additional contracted volume of refined products to rail – by rail to Mexico and are doubling the capacity of the system from 20,000 barrels per day to 40,000 barrels per day by early Q4 of this year and believe there is additional demand and capacity for us to go to 60,000 barrels per day early in 2019. And fourth, we advanced our commercial, technical and engineering plans around pipeline connectivity and additional storage and have mapped out our development program for the next 2 years. So in 2018, with the additional refined products business and the 800,000 barrels of storage online, we will be investing approximately $80 million this year in the terminal and expect to be at an EBITDA run-rate at year end of approximately $40 million to $50 million per annum. In 2019, our plan is to invest approximately $400 million in the terminal in one, an additional deepwater dock; two, the Market Link and Zydeco pipeline connections for inbound and outbound crude; and three, an additional 3 million barrels of storage. Prior to making this investment decision, we expect to have customer commitments for use of a substantial portion of the new capacity that I just mentioned. We expect this expansion to add approximately $50 million to $70 million of incremental annual EBITDA bringing the total run-rate EBITDA at the end of 2019 to approximately $90 million to $120 million per annum. For a terminal which will have 6 million barrels of storage, two deepwater docks, one barge dock and inbound and outbound pipeline connectivity. In addition to all of this, we will continue to have the exceptional rail capability that we have being served by three Class 1 railroads, BN, UP and KCS. Beyond 2019, we expect to begin planning for two additional deepwater docks, 14 million additional barrels of storage and additional pipeline connectivity. For this phase, with approximately $700 million in capital invested should generate approximately $200 million to $300 million of additional EBITDA annually. Turning briefly to the Canadian crude by rail market, we do expect a very favorable market opportunity and wide WCS WTI spreads for this year and most likely through at least 2020 before new pipeline capacity can be added to the Canadian market. We have 8 trains lined up for Q2 and 5 trains per month committed beginning September 2018 running through November 2019. Now, let’s turn to CMQR, revenue for Q1 was $11 million and adjusted EBITDA was $3.4 million. While these numbers are the highest ever, it’s important to note that we had two events which had a positive effect in the quarter. First, we booked a 45G tax credit for 2017 of $1.3 million. Second, we benefited from short-term detour traffic, which lasted most of Q1, but is now ended. While we are obviously pleased that these events took place, it would be unfair to annualize the quarter for all of 2018. Having said that, Q1 was an excellent quarter for a regular way business and traffic and pricing are good. As to new business, we expect the car cleaning operation to commence this quarter and the bottom line is that Ryan Ratledge and the team at CMQR are doing a terrific job. Now, let’s turn to Repauno. Repauno has taken significant steps forward in developing the full potential of the natural gas liquids or NGL opportunity. Firstly, we are currently filling the existing 200,000 barrel cavern with butane as we did last year, which we expect will generate approximately $3 million in EBITDA this year. Second, we are reconstructing the dock which will be operational by year end 2018. Third, we are mostly done with the core sampling, which was needed to determine the size of the granite formation available for new cavern development and the results of that are very positive. On the commercial front, we are in active discussions with numerous potential buyers of propane and butane mostly international which we would source from the Marcellus, most likely from our Long Ridge facility and moved by rail to Repauno and then load into ships for export. Fully built out, we expect that 3 million barrels of storage and a dock would require approximately $450 million of capital and would generate approximately $150 million in annual EBITDA beginning in 2020. Prior to full completion of the caverns, we are working to be able to load ships direct from rail and generate meaningful EBITDA in 2019 and 2020 and we hope to have more detail on those numbers by our next call. Long Ridge Energy terminal formerly known as Hannibal has made great strides forward this year. In addition to the power plant, we have now started up a frac sand trans-loading business. We have one customer signed for a 3-year minimum volume commitment deal and many others actively looking. We invested in this year $2 million in the unit train loading and unloading system and that coupled with the significant barge stocks and good road access we have make our site uniquely desirable for the growing frack sand usage in this area. We expect frack sand to generate a minimum of $2 million in EBITDA this year and a minimum of $5 million in 2019. We can also use this unit train loading capability for propane and butane and we are in discussions with local fractionators to secure volume for that potentially by pipeline, which is very cost effective to our terminal direct pipeline connection. One ideal destination for these trains would be obviously Repauno, which I just discussed. On the power plant, we have secured the gas supply through a joint venture with a local gas E&P company and we are in active negotiations now with offtakers for the power under fixed price 10-year contracts. Our goal is to sell half the output of the power plant to industrial users and the other half to datacenter users who additionally be new tenants on our property. By securing power offtake contracts, we believe a substantial amount of capital needed for this project will be available from attractive long-term non-recourse project debt financing. Based on our current negotiations and we have one signed LOI, we believe the power plant will require $600 million in total capital and generate a minimum of $100 million in EBITDA per annum beginning 2020. Let me conclude. Aviation continues to outperform with our profitability metrics remaining strong even as we had new assets. And for the first time since the inception of FTAI, we believe infrastructure is going to be a positive contributor to EBITDA in 2018 and more importantly we currently see that number growing every year and in fact growing significantly in 2020. As a result of the infrastructure turning positive this year, 2018 is going to be a cash generation year for FTAI and every quarter we have had stronger cash flow and every quarter we get closer to our objective of 2-to-1 dividend coverage. With that, let me turn the call back over to Alan.