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Transcript
OP
Operator
Operator
Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the FTAI Infrastructure Inc. Fourth Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speakers' presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Alan Andreini, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
AA
Alan Andreini
Management
Thank you, Shannon. I would like to welcome you all to the FTAI Infrastructure Inc. earnings call for 2025. Joining me here today are Kenneth Nicholson, the CEO of FTAI Infrastructure Inc., and Buck Fletcher, the company's CFO. 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 reconciliation of those measures to the most directly comparable GAAP can be found in the earnings supplement. Before I turn the call over to Kenneth, 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. I will now turn the call over to Kenneth.
KN
Kenneth Nicholson
Management
Thank you, Alan, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to the call. As we typically do, we will be referring to the earnings supplement, which you can find posted on our website. I am going to get right into it starting on page three. Adjusted EBITDA for the fourth quarter was a new quarterly record, coming in at $80,200,000, up from $70,900,000 for 2025, and $29,200,000 for 2024. The $80,200,000 of fourth quarter EBITDA excludes a $9,000,000 gain in the quarter from a write-up of one of our non-core investments in Clean Planet Energy. Since we do not necessarily expect that gain to continue in the periods ahead, we are excluding it for purposes of this discussion. For the full fiscal year of 2025, adjusted EBITDA was $232,300,000, up substantially from $127,600,000 in fiscal 2024. Reflecting on the 2025 year, it was an extremely active one for FTAI Infrastructure Inc., with many of the transactions we completed setting the stage for what we expect to be a highly productive 2026 ahead. It is important to note that as a result of the specific timing of closing of a number of investments during the year, our 2025 annual results reflect only a partial financial contribution from those events. In February, we purchased the 49% of Long Ridge that we did not previously own and started reflecting 100% of Long Ridge’s results. In August, we purchased the Wheeling and Lake Erie Railroad, a transformative transaction for our Rail segment. And in November, we commenced activity under a new 15-year ammonia export contract at our Jefferson terminal. As a result of these events, we exited the year at an EBITDA run rate of just over $320,000,000 annually, meaningfully higher than our reported figures. Flipping to slide four, I will briefly talk through the highlights…
AA
Alan Andreini
Management
Shannon, you may now open the call to Q&A.
OP
Operator
Operator
Thank you. Star 11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Our first question comes from the line of Giuliano Bologna with Compass Point. Your line is now open.
GB
Giuliano Bologna
Analyst
Good morning, and congratulations on another great quarter of execution there. It is great to see Jefferson really starting to ramp up during the fourth quarter. Can you expand on the business development opportunities that you are seeing at Jefferson and the upside related to some of the contracts, like the ammonia contract that should flip to a full quarter of impact?
KN
Kenneth Nicholson
Management
Yes, definitely. Good morning, Giuliano. Yes, it does feel like all cylinders are firing. We are excited about the year ahead, and Jefferson is an important cylinder. We really see a pickup in the commercial interest and activity level at Jefferson. What we particularly like about it, as I said, is these are all expansions of existing services. So these are opportunities that do not require the capital to build new infrastructure and take the time to build out new infrastructure. One of the stories with Jefferson has been timing-based, among other things, but this would be quick, no capital, and just incremental volumes through existing assets. They break into three categories. The first is more ammonia. The ammonia system now at Jefferson South is fully built out. The additional ammonia volumes that we are talking about would roughly double the quantities that we are currently handling. So that is somewhere between $10,000,000 and $15,000,000 of incremental EBITDA just for that opportunity. The second is for additional refined products leaving by rail. More gas stations are being built in Mexico, and therefore, there is more demand for gasoline and diesel, and we expect to increase volumes through that contract in the coming months. That could represent meaningful additional EBITDA, another $10,000,000 to $15,000,000. And then finally, Utah crudes. There is a lot of investment in the two major refineries in Beaumont in handling and producing various products for which Utah crudes are the ideal input. And so we expect to significantly increase inbound volumes of Utah crudes. We have expanded the existing contract. That could be substantial, another $25,000,000 of EBITDA. So we are very focused on it. It is certainly subject to execution, but having had a series of conversations with all these players over the years, we feel like the probability for each of these is as high as it has ever been.
GB
Giuliano Bologna
Analyst
That is very helpful. It is great to see the progress on all fronts, and I will jump back in queue.
OP
Operator
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Brian McKenna with Citizens. Your line is now open.
BM
Brian McKenna
Analyst · Citizens. Your line is now open.
Hey. Thanks. Good morning, guys. Just a couple of quick questions on Repauno to start. I think Phase 2 was previously expected to be operational by the fourth quarter of this year. It looks like that has been pushed out a little bit here to 2027. So just kind of curious about some of the puts and takes there. And then on Phase 3, I appreciate the detail in your prepared remarks, but it would be great just to get some additional color on what is going on behind the scenes here in terms of planning. What are the next few major milestones in the process? And then can you remind us when you expect to break ground and when that construction is expected to be completed?
KN
Kenneth Nicholson
Management
Good morning, Brian. The timing: we have always been end of this year for Phase 2. And whether we commence operations December 31 or January 15, it is not a precise science. There is going to be some commissioning of that whole system. If you went to Repauno today, you would see the tank largely built, so a lot of the important work that would typically cause any meaningful delays or cost overruns is behind us. All the geotechnical work and driving of piles is done. So we are at a point where I think we have de-risked a fair amount of that construction. I do not see a lot of risk in any meaningful delays, but we will need to commission it, and as we have been talking about it, we want our customers thinking about very early 2027 rather than late 2026, just to be a little cautious there. But no change. The good news is we are expected to be fully utilized when we commence operation. There has been significant demand, and this feeds into your second question—what is driving that demand? The simple answer is more supply and a need for accessing more demand markets. Natural gas production in the Marcellus and Utica continues to grow, and with the gas comes liquids. Demand for things like propane in the Northeast is stable but not growing as significantly as production. So producers are looking for more outlets, more demand markets. There are only two terminals in our area, Repauno and the Sunoco Logistics terminal at Marcus Hook, that these guys can really access for large volumes over time. And so we are getting a lot of interest, and it has caused us to really refocus and push on Phase 3. At this stage, there are a number of things we need to do to put a shovel in the ground on Phase 3. We are finishing up construction estimates and all of the planning around construction. We obviously have the permits in place. And then the commercial development—those conversations are underway. I do not see us starting construction and building Phase 3 on spec. We are going to want to have some anchor customers. So our goal would be to have some anchor customers over the next six months while in parallel we are advancing all the construction elements. And hopefully sometime later this year, potentially pretty late this year, we are starting construction.
BM
Brian McKenna
Analyst · Citizens. Your line is now open.
That is great. Thanks, Ken. And then just switching gears a little bit, going to the Rail segment. You highlighted you are actively pursuing multiple new additional M&A opportunities. I think you said there are four there. I think this makes sense longer term, and you have talked about transitioning FTAI Infrastructure Inc. to more of a pure-play freight rail company. But it is still early days of the Wheeling integration and driving synergies there. It sounds like there is great momentum. And then, looking at the balance sheet, you have made great progress there as well. But the capital structure still has some moving pieces. I think there are still some opportunities to enhance that. So why not focus entirely on execution and integration this year, start to drive EBITDA and cash flow even higher, deleverage with any excess capital, and then look to do some of this M&A in 2027 and beyond?
KN
Kenneth Nicholson
Management
The M&A opportunities—good observation. We are a higher-leveraged business than we expect to be in the coming years, and we are very focused on deleveraging. I think there is a lot of equity value to create as we deleverage and reduce our cost of capital. We have a higher cost of capital than we hope to have in a couple of years, and deleveraging is going to drive that. The Long Ridge transaction, if successful, which we are expecting, will go a long way in deleveraging at the parent level. Make no mistake about it: priority number one is to maximize the benefits of the combined Wheeling and Transstar, for sure. And management is doing a phenomenal job every day focused on that. That said, M&A opportunities come to us. And when some of them are in the no-brainer category—and maybe they are smaller situations but even more accretive—we are definitely going to look at those. Something that is local, that is connected to the Wheeling or Transstar, where we think we can acquire assets at a five times, six times, seven times EBITDA multiple feels like we have a duty to do that because it is just so accretive. Double, triple EBITDA out of the targets. We agree with you. We have our priorities of deleveraging and optimizing the railroad we own today before we start growing. But we certainly are going to look at additional rail properties as they come up, particularly if we think they are a very good fit for us.
BM
Brian McKenna
Analyst · Citizens. Your line is now open.
Thanks so much. I will leave it there.
OP
Operator
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Sharif El Megravy with BTIG. Your line is now open.
SM
Sharif El Megravy
Analyst · BTIG. Your line is now open.
Hey. Good morning. Thank you. Sticking with Rail for a second, I think you gave some very nice color about your ideal acquisition targets. But can you talk about the M&A market for rail a little bit more broadly? How many opportunities are there that kind of bolt on geographically to your existing footprint? And could you look at anything else maybe a bit further away? I think there is a rail line in Texas, for example.
KN
Kenneth Nicholson
Management
The M&A market in rail—we have been doing rail stuff here for 20 years. It comes in waves, and it feels like the wave is coming at us and not going away from us. We are looking at four opportunities. They are all very actionable. Three actually are smaller properties that are very natural fits for the Wheeling and Transstar, meaning they connect or are nearby. One is not connecting. I really hope we can be the best bidder on the things that are close to us because we can certainly perceive the most value. They are not huge dollars, but they are highly accretive, and so they are certainly worth doing. And they are easy to integrate. Management will not be distracted, and this is in their backyard, and so they are pretty much no-brainers. But as more opportunities come—there was a big transaction announced earlier this week and that was in a slightly different space, more like rail services and switching. A couple of great companies that we have a lot of respect for. My understanding was that transaction occurred at pretty sporty multiples. So if you can acquire businesses at single-digit multiples and own a portfolio that trades at mid–double-digit multiples, that has to be a smart thing to do. We are staffed up, and we are going at it. Our goal, as Brian said earlier, is to increase the scale of our rail portfolio over time at FTAI Infrastructure Inc., and I think we have a good shot at doing that.
SM
Sharif El Megravy
Analyst · BTIG. Your line is now open.
Got it. Very helpful. And then shifting gears a bit, the Sustainability and Energy Transition business contributed $9,000,000 of EBITDA this quarter. Do you have a sense of what is going on there, and if that business is something that will become a regular EBITDA contributor?
KN
Kenneth Nicholson
Management
I am glad you asked, actually. The answer to your last question is yes. We have a handful of investments we do not talk about much in non-core entities. Some of the investments are minority stakes. Clean Planet Energy is a fantastic company that is in the waste-to-energy business. They are based in the U.K. It is a global company. Years ago, we invested in a U.S. subsidiary. We set up a JV to build waste-to-energy facilities in the United States. That market, no surprise, has slowed down. And so we had an opportunity to exchange our 50% interest in the U.S. JV to a 49% stake in the global company. That was a great transaction. It resulted in a write-up of our holdings in Clean Planet Energy. I am super bullish on Clean Planet Energy. They have a great management team, and I think they are focused on the right markets. Waste-to-energy is a huge business globally. It is not seeing a lot of activity in the United States right now, but across Europe and other regions, there is a lot to do there. And at Clean Planet, there is one facility under construction, two under advanced development. Yes, those will contribute EBITDA over the coming years, and we will record our portion of EBITDA. So I do think we will be reporting EBITDA. Given this single transaction, the exchange from an interest in the U.S. entity to the global parent, that is not going to happen again, and so when we were describing EBITDA for purposes of this call, we excluded that as a one-time gain. But I do think Clean Planet will be a contributor in the quarters ahead starting in 2027.
SM
Sharif El Megravy
Analyst · BTIG. Your line is now open.
Got it. Thanks for taking my questions.
OP
Operator
Operator
Thank you. Our last question comes from the line of Craig Shere with Tuohy Brothers Investment Research. Your line is now open.
CS
Craig Shere
Analyst
Good morning. Thanks for taking the question and congratulations on the good quarter. To start with, is your asset sales process at Long Ridge impacting the data center discussions you are talking about? Obviously, if it can make progress there, it would certainly help with the value of any ultimate sale. Can you give us any more color about the timing of the monetization process? Would you expect any serious tax implications to it? If you had, you know, call it $4,500,000,000 in net proceeds, what are your thoughts about allocating something like that?
KN
Kenneth Nicholson
Management
All good questions, and I am going to do my best within the limits of what we would like to say on this call as it relates to the sale process. Your first question about the level of activity in data developments: no, there is no impact. The parties that are looking at Long Ridge are all very well capitalized and interested in data center development and other land uses and on-site generation. And any party we are talking to about utilizing the land would be very comfortable were someone else to own Long Ridge, as long as it is a well-capitalized counterparty. So we are pushing hard to advance all the opportunities. I completely agree, of course. As those opportunities advance, the visibility of value creation at Long Ridge becomes that much more clear, and so it is nice to have commercial momentum when you are in the midst of a monetization process. In terms of timing, our goal would be to have an announced transaction in the first half of this year. In terms of what the transaction would mean, it would be significant for us, hundreds of millions of dollars of net proceeds. I am not going to go beyond that in terms of quantifying our expectations, but we set out with a certain expectation, and so far, we are certainly trending in line with those expectations. There would not be much of a tax drag on the sale. The beauty of being in the development business is, for better or for worse, you generate a fair amount of net operating losses over the time of developing assets. And so we do not expect there to be much tax leakage. So most of the gross proceeds, after debt repayment, should flow to FTAI Infrastructure Inc. And finally, what do we do with those proceeds? I think we will probably deleverage, mostly. It would be a really good thing for us. It may give us an opportunity to actually refinance this loan we put in place. We deliberately put a loan in place that is not of a very long-term duration and that limits the prepayment premium. And we negotiated an even lower premium with proceeds from the Long Ridge sale. So it gives us the flexibility to deleverage initially. Brian asked about some of the rail acquisitions, so obviously we will be—needless to say, we are focused on deleveraging. I think you should assume we use proceeds from the Long Ridge sale to deleverage high-cost debt.
CS
Craig Shere
Analyst
Gotcha. And how far down does new Phase 3 underground storage cavern development have to go—how far down the road does it have to go—before thinking about monetizing that business as well?
KN
Kenneth Nicholson
Management
I think the closer we get to operational completion, the more value any buyer would perceive. It is not a precise science. I think you certainly need construction underway and commercial contracts. Then you have the certainty. I think the team at Repauno has done a great job delivering on constructing, and I think any buyer of Repauno would give us credit for being able to get the job done. But at a minimum, we have to get through the next six to nine months and be under construction and at least have anchor customers for Phase 3 before we would be considering monetizing that asset.
CS
Craig Shere
Analyst
Right. So if that is a 2026 goal, the idea that this could monetize, I do not know, by the first half of next year is not unthinkable.
KN
Kenneth Nicholson
Management
Correct. Yep. I think that is a good way to think about it.
CS
Craig Shere
Analyst
Great. Thank you.
OP
Operator
Operator
Thank you. I would now like to hand the conference back over to Alan Andreini for closing remarks.
AA
Alan Andreini
Management
Thank you, Shannon, and thank you all for participating in today’s conference call. We look forward to updating you again after Q1.
OP
Operator
Operator
This concludes today’s conference. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.