Joe Adams
Analyst · JMP Securities. Your line is open
Thank you, Alan. To start the call, I’m pleased to announce our 17th dividend as a public company and our 32nd consecutive dividend since inception. The dividend of $0.33 per share will be paid on August 27, based on a shareholder record date of August 16. The key metrics for us are adjusted EBITDA and FAD or funds available for distribution.Adjusted EBITDA for Q2 2019 was $94.1 million compared to Q1 of 2019 of $66.3 million and Q2 of 2018 of $52.2 million. FAD was $86.9 million in Q2 versus $70.2 million in Q1 of 2018 and $44.8 million in Q2 of 2018. During the first quarter, the $86.9 million FAD number was comprised of $126.8 million from our equipment leasing portfolio, negative $10 million from our infrastructure business and negative $29.9 million from corporate.Now let’s turn to Aviation. Our Aviation business just completed its best quarter ever. Adjusted EBITDA in Q2 was approximately $103.6 million or $324 million annualized, up from $290 million annualized in Q1. During Q2 we closed $87.1 million in new investments and we ended Q2 with $340 million approximately and signed letters of intent or purchase agreement, which includes the $160 million for Avianca planes, which we announced on July 24. The large increase from the $290 million annualized number in Q1 to the $324 million annualized number in Q2 was a result of a couple of things.Number one, three of the five aircraft we had off lease in Q1, started new six-year leases in Q2 and we put five new aircraft and seven new engines on lease and Q2. As we mentioned on our Q1 call, we have started harvesting the premium in our portfolio by selling in Q2 $61.3 million of assets that had a book value of $38.7 million for a gain of $22.6 million.We expect to realize more gains in Q3 as we continue to take advantage of the strong market, while we replace those assets that we sell and simultaneously continue growing our portfolio. Our advanced engine repaired JV is making great progress. We fully expect to have the first commercially available products in the market in the first half of next year. As a reminder, we funded $15 million of development costs in early 2018 in exchange for 25% ownership of the JV, plus preferential pricing on the JV products for use on FTAI’s and owned engines.With this progress and a very positive market for aftermarket engine overhauls and repairs, we have agreed to expand the joint venture and have commenced the development of additional products following the same process and JV structure and an additional $13.5 million investment in the JV. These parts in repair – the repairs will provide FTAI with unique and proprietary products that will substantially reduce the cost of aftermarket shop visits for us and our airline partners and generate a meaningful incremental EBITDA contribution to FTAI beginning in the second half of next year. The bottom line is our Aviation business continues to outperform our expectations. Our offering becomes more differentiated every quarter and the macros for the industry remain very strong. I like this business more every quarter.Turning out offshore. In general, the offshore marine industry remains in a position of oversupply but there are signs of some recovery. Offshore spending is expected to grow modestly in 2019, marking the first year of CapEx growth since the downturn and is expected to be an outsize contributor to upstream spending over the next several years. As we’ve mentioned previously, we are in the process of transitioning the Pride away from the general inspection repair maintenance sector into well intervention. The new tower for the Pride, which will enable the vessels to carry out well intervention is currently under construction with an expected completion in early 2020.As such, we have recently signed a letter of intent and are negotiating definitive agreements with Helix Energy Solutions, whereby Helix would provide certain additional equipment and operational expertise, while jointly marketing the Pride. Helix is a leading – is the leading provider of well intervention services globally and we’re particularly excited about the potential for this strategic partnership.Turning now to infrastructure and Jefferson. From a financial performance standpoint, Jefferson was a little short of where we wanted it to be. We had hoped to be EBITDA breakeven our slightly positive this quarter, instead we were slightly negative at minus $2.6 million. However, from an operational contracting and flow standpoint, it was our best quarter ever. So let me explain both of those.On the financial performance side, we had two main issues, our refined products customer experienced delays with their receiving tanks in Mexico and as such we did not move the volume levels we or they had anticipated. The expectations of these issues will be resolved by the end of this month and increased shipments will begin immediately thereafter. Also secondly, the WCS versus WTI spread which served us well in the Q4 of 2018 and Q1 of 2019 was not sufficient to generate positive EBITDA this quarter.On the positive side of that equation, our train accounts are growing faster than we had expected. In Q2 we did 27 trains into the terminal on April, 29 in May and 33 in June and our scheduled trains for the balance of this year continue to grow and we’re now expecting to end the year with over 40 trains per month based on customer estimates and contracts in hand.On the construction front, we are on track to complete an additional 1.4 million barrels of storage in early Q4. That project remains on budget and ahead of schedule. Of the three tanks that comprise the 1.4 million barrels, one is fully committed for three years, one is option for three months during a test period and we’ll convert to a fully committed three year deal if the test trains are successful. And as to the third tank, we’re in negotiations and expect to have that signed by the end of this quarter.The demand for tankage continues to exceed our supply and as such we began work on an additional 2 million barrels to be delivered in the middle of 2020, at which time we will have approximately 6.4 million barrels of storage at Jefferson.On the pipeline connection front, we made progress on two important initiatives. Our multi-pipeline construction project to one of our neighbor refiners is about to commence. We are finalizing approvals and expect to have two refine products pipelines fully operational by mid-2020. This is important to our refined products customer, because they would like us to handle 60,000 barrels a day by that date, an increase from the approximately 20,000 barrels a day that we’re currently moving. Their expansion plans in Mexico are aggressive and we are expanding to keep pace.Our second main pipeline project is moving forward at an accelerated pace as well. Final right-of-way and engineering checkpoints have been met and we expect construction to begin no later than Q4 2019 and to be completed by mid-2020, at which point our existing three-year storage deal with that customer will become a five-year deal. The bottom line is that Jefferson is now experiencing the growth we had always expected it to have, as such surprising given the very positive macros for Gulf Coast refiners that had been developing over the last 18 to 24 months.It’s also worth of noting that Jefferson is rapidly morphing from a purely development company into an operating company. Then like most infrastructure projects, the big uplift comes from new opportunities arising that can be exploited from the existing infrastructure. And waxy crude opportunity from Utah, which we discussed last call is a great example of this.Finally, I want to let you know that we plan to do approximately $500 million non-recourse debt financing at Jefferson late Q3 or early Q4 of this year. We plan to refinance approximately $250 million in existing tax exempt debt and taking approximately $250 million in new capital at the Jefferson level to fund these expansion projects. Jefferson is finally coming together as we had hoped from the beginning. And it’s an exciting time for our team at Jefferson and its exciting time for our customers.Now turning to CMQR, the railroad had another good quarter. Carloads were up 9,153 in Q2 of 2019, which is a 56% increase versus Q2 of 2018. And in addition, we have experienced improvement in both dwell and velocity metrics. Net revenue was up to $10 million in Q2 2019, a 13.6% increased versus Q2 of 2018, primarily driven by base transportation services and car cleaning revenue.Adjusted EBITDA in Q2 2018 was $900,000 versus $1 million in Q2 of 2019. Excluding startup costs for the car cleaning operation and several one-time charges, adjusted EBITDA for Q2 2019 would have been $1.5 million versus $900,000 for Q1 of 2018. Our car cleaning operations is starting to ramp and as well positioned for continued growth within an established space now of over 15 customers. This is an important metric in the car cleaning operation, because car cleaning is recurring in nature once customers have used the service and are happy with it.As of this time, we now have the three largest owners of railcars in the country as customers. I’m pleased that all three of these are now repeat customers. In short, the business is now growing and Ryan Ratledge and his team are excited about the prospects for accelerated growth this year and next.Turning now to Repauno. You remember from the last call that our next goal was to secure long term natural gas liquid export agreements for the rail to ship phase of the Repauno development. We’ve received five proposals in our deepen negotiations with these parties. We expect to have these negotiations concluded before the end of this quarter and both we and the counterparties want this concluded, because the counterparties want to start receiving natural gas liquids by Q2 of 2020.To do that, we’re targeting having these contracts signed and construction started no later than early Q4 of this year, and we are on schedule to meet that timeline. As to our current butane cavern, we are now 86% full and expect to be 100% full for the selling season, start in late Q3, early in Q4. Once again, we expect this operation to generate approximately $3 million EBITDA primarily in Q4 of this year.Now for Long Ridge, the frac sand operation is on track to deliver between $5 million and $6 million in EBITDA this year. Q2 was slower than expected due to periods of flooding on the Ohio River when barge traffic was either limited or suspended. That’s now been resolved and we’re off to a good start in Q3 including entry into a multi-year contract with one of the largest sand companies in the U.S.As to the power plant construction has commenced and is on budget and on schedule. We continue to expect commencement of operations no later than November of 2021. As I believe most of you have seen, we entered into a non-binding data center power purchase agreement with DP Facilities.That contract permits DP to take up to 125 megawatts of power under a 15-year contract, which if fully executed would increase annual projected EBITDA for the power plant by between $10 million and $30 million per annum up to a total of $130 million to $150 million EBITDA per year for the power plant. As to the sale of a 50% interest in the plant, we still expect this process to be completed by the end of Q3 or early Q4. And we have received preliminary non-binding offers within the ranges we have previously discussed.Finally, let me discuss the dividends as we sit today approximately one month into Q3, I feel comfortable saying that our dividend coverage for Q3 will be coming in somewhere between 1.7 and 2.0 times coverage. And as we look at Q4 now that range would go higher. And as we’ve said in the past, once we exceed two times coverage, we will consider increasing the dividend and we’re close.So in conclusion, we just completed our best quarter ever as it relates to net income and adjusted EBITDA. As pleased as I am about that, I’m even more pleased about seeing growth accelerating in all of our businesses. One of our goals in aviation is then to continue growing our book of business, but only if we are maintaining our target returns of approximately a 15% unleveraged ROE and a 25% EBITDA yield. We’re doing exactly that.Our other main goal has been to continue to widen the moat between us and the competition by developing proprietary and bespoke lease products and value-added service offerings. In short, our offerings in the aviation leasing side are better, more differentiated and more robust every quarter. We truly have built a unique franchise now and the marketplace recognizes that.As for infrastructure, I think we will look back on this year as the inflection point where our ports and terminals in Jefferson ramped as we had always expected them to. We have made good choices as to the assets we purchased, where we purchase them and how we’ve been developing them. With the push to get crew to the Gulf Coast refineries and natural gas liquids to the East Coast, we could not be in a better position.Jefferson, Long Ridge and Repauno are positioned squarely in front of the flow of these hydrocarbons. As a result, we’re seeing demand from customers, that is exceeding our high expectations. As of this date, we have more multi-year contracts signed with investment-grade customers that then at any time in the history of FTAI. And even better, we’re in the middle of more contract negotiations with our customers than ever in our history. It has taken a few years to get into this position, but that’s the nature of infrastructure development. The exciting news is we’re now here.With that, let me turn the call back to Alan.