Earnings Labs

Icahn Enterprises L.P. (IEP)

Q4 2012 Earnings Call· Fri, Mar 15, 2013

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning, and welcome to the Icahn Enterprises L.P. Fourth Quarter 2012 Earnings Call with Felicia Buebel, Assistant General Counsel; Daniel Ninivaggi, President; and Sung Hwan Cho, Chief Financial Officer. I'd like to hand the call over to Felicia Buebel, who will read the opening statements.

Felicia Buebel

Management

Good morning, and welcome to our call. The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 provides a Safe Harbor for forward-looking statements we make in this presentation, including statements regarding our future performance and plans for our businesses and potential acquisitions. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that are discussed in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including economic, competitive, legal and other factors. Accordingly, there is no assurance that our expectations will be realized. We assume no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements should circumstances change, except as otherwise required by laws. This presentation also includes certain non-GAAP financial measures. And now I'd like to turn it over to Daniel Ninivaggi, our President and Chief Executive Officer.

Daniel A. Ninivaggi

Management

Good morning, and thanks, Felicia. Welcome to the fourth quarter 2012 Icahn Enterprises Earnings Conference Call. Joining me on today's call are Sung Hwan Cho, our Chief Financial Officer; and one of our top guys, Keith Cozza, our Chief Operating Officer of Icahn Capital and Executive Vice President. I'd like to begin by providing some brief highlights on the year. Sung will then provide an in-depth review of our financial results and the performance of our business segments. We'll then be available to take your questions. Icahn Enterprises net income for 2012 was $396 million or $3.75 per depository unit compared to net income of $750 million or $8.15 per depository unit in 2011. As Sung will discuss in more detail later, 2012 net income was negatively impacted by impairment restructuring charges at Federal-Mogul, as well as turnaround costs and hedging losses at CVR. In 2011, we benefited from a gross return of approximately 35% in our Investment segment. 2012 adjusted EBITDA attributable to Icahn Enterprises was $1.5 billion, about even with 2011. In short, 2012 was a solid year, and we're off to a very good start in 2013 with our investment funds up about 12% year-to-date. Before going into more detail on our financial results, I'd like to talk a little bit about our track record, IEP's operating strategy and our outlook for the future. Turning to Slide 4. Since 2000, when we fully embraced our activist strategy, the market value of IEP's depository units has increased by over 800%. Comparatively, the S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial Average and Russell 2000 Index have increased approximately 36%, 72% and 124%, respectively, over the same period. Since the inception of the investment funds in 2004, our investment funds gross return through March 13, 2013, is over 200%, representing an annualized…

Sung Hwan Cho

Management

Thanks, Dan. I will begin by briefly reviewing our consolidated results for the fourth quarter and full year 2012 and then highlight the performance of our operating segments and comment on the strength of our balance sheet. Net income attributable to Icahn Enterprises for 2012 was $396 million compared to income of $750 million in 2011. For the fourth quarter, our net income attributable to Icahn Enterprises was $6 million, as compared to net income of $260 million in the prior year period. We ended 2012 with consolidated cash and cash equivalents of approximately $3.1 billion, and our direct investment in the investment funds was $2.4 billion. As Dan mentioned earlier, we successfully completed an equity offering, from which we raised approximately $200 million in cash in the first quarter of 2013. The offering helped bolster our liquidity, broaden our shareholder base and strengthen our balance sheet. I will now provide more detail regarding the performance of our individual segments. Our Investment segment had income attributable to Icahn Enterprises of $157 million in 2012 due to the return on our direct investment in the investment funds. Excluding gains from CVR after early May, when we acquired control, the investment funds had a gross return of 6.6% for the -- for 2012. The funds aggregate gross return for 2012 would have been 20.2% if the investment funds had elected not to distribute shares of CVR to one of our subsidiaries and its additional purchase had been made by the investment funds instead of through Icahn Enterprises. For the fourth quarter of 2012, the Investment funds had a gross return of 1.5%, compared to 12.3% for the fourth quarter of 2011. Year-to-date in 2013, the investment funds are up approximately 12%. During 2012, our net equity exposure decreased from (sic) [to] 13%…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Charles Fisker [ph] from LS Partners [ph].

Unknown Analyst

Analyst

I have a quick question. As part of your secondary -- you put together a slide deck, which had a couple of slides which were very helpful in providing information that was previously sort of hard to obtain for Icahn Enterprises, including kind of a particular breakdown of our ownership in the public equity, plus our percentage ownership of Icahn, plus a very detailed NAV. And I was just hoping that you could provide that on a quarterly basis moving forward.

Sung Hwan Cho

Management

It isn't a question. If you look at the press release, there's a...

Unknown Analyst

Analyst

There's NAV at the bottom.

Sung Hwan Cho

Management

Yes, there's NAV at the end of the press release, which hopefully is very helpful to you.

Daniel A. Ninivaggi

Management

Yes, but I -- we take your point, and we'll be happy to include that stuff in the investor deck going forward.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] We also have a question from the line of Ken Bann from Jefferies & Company. Kenneth P. Bann - Jefferies & Company, Inc., Research Division: I was just wondering if you might want to -- if you can talk about Federal-Mogul and maybe other cost reductions or restructuring programs that might be undergoing -- ongoing there to turn around results, while the European market remains soft, and also talk a little bit in the Metals segment, what you might be able to do there to improve results in the Metals segment.

Daniel A. Ninivaggi

Management

Yes, Ken, this is Dan. So on Federal-Mogul, I think there are a number of cost reduction opportunities, both on the SG&A side and on their manufacturing and engineering footprint. So breaking the segment into OE and aftermarket sort of exposed, to us at least, some inefficiencies in their cost structure, particularly on the SG&A side. We announced last year the first phase of the manufacturing footprint restructuring, $60 million last summer, and we talked about a multi-site restructuring program that were -- that's underway right now, in addition to that. So we think that will take 2, 2.5 years to complete, but the paybacks on it are very positive. But I would see the overall cost structure go down pretty significantly. On the Metals side, I mean, really, we've just had headwinds in the market. I mean, the steel mill operating rates started out last year pretty strong, and then they tapered off during the course of the year. There's been scrap substitution, with iron ore prices where they are, that's impacted the prime grades. Obviously, the ferrous -- the non-ferrous business have been growing significantly, even grew last year, but copper and aluminum prices were down. So there, it's less about cutting the cost structure than the macroeconomic environment. But having said that, we brought in a new management team last year, and they're -- they are also identifying reductions in the cost structure. We took an action in the fourth quarter, which we didn't really break out, but it was a relatively significant headcount reduction. And we are streamlining the operations in each region. Kenneth P. Bann - Jefferies & Company, Inc., Research Division: And then in the Food Packaging, obviously, you've done a great job turning that around and improving results this year after some of the problems last year. Any thoughts about monetizing that investment in Food Packaging now that they're hitting such strong results?

Daniel A. Ninivaggi

Management

Well, we're seeing that capacity -- the capacity just started to come online in the fourth quarter. So obviously, you're not seeing the full run rate there. We're very bullish on 2013, just catching up on the inventory, frankly. But there's -- on the NOJAX side, there's -- there was unmet demand last year. We do think that there is one more stage in consolidation in that area, and we expect to participate it -- in it one way or another. So we think it's a good opportunity, whether we grow the business or sell the business. But we're actually just very bullish on it overall. Kenneth P. Bann - Jefferies & Company, Inc., Research Division: Okay, great. And then just the railcar lease fleet, does that show up within the holding company segment or will that be showing up as you increase the fleet?

Sung Hwan Cho

Management

The railcar lease fleet that's owned by IEP, shows up within the Railcar segment. And so the sales from ARI to IEP, when IEP purchases cars for its fleet, are canceled out in consolidation. And it all shows up net within our Railcar segment.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] And we have no further questions in queue at this time.

Daniel A. Ninivaggi

Management

All right. Well, thank you, everybody, for joining the call. Like I said earlier, we look forward to a great year, and we thank all the employees and members of the team, and we look forward to talking to you in a couple of months. Take care.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program, and you may now disconnect. Everyone, have a good day.