Earnings Labs

Icahn Enterprises L.P. (IEP)

Q4 2013 Earnings Call· Mon, Mar 3, 2014

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning, and welcome to the Icahn Enterprises L.P. Fourth Quarter 2013 Earnings Call with Jesse Lyn, Assistant General Counsel; Keith Cozza, President and CEO; and SungHwan Cho, Chief Financial Officer. I'd now like to hand the call over to Jesse Lynn, who will read the opening statements.

Jesse Lynn

Management

Good morning. I'll now read the Safe Harbor statement. 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 required by law. This presentation also includes certain non-GAAP financial measures. And now I'd like to turn over the program to Keith Cozza, our President and CEO.

Keith Cozza

Management

Thanks, Jesse. Good morning, and welcome to the Fourth Quarter 2013 Icahn Enterprises Earnings Conference Call. Joining me on today's call is SungHwan Cho, our Chief Financial Officer. As we announced in a press release earlier last month, Dan Ninivaggi, our former President and CEO, has taken a position as the Co-Chief Executive Officer of Federal-Mogul Corporation, a subsidiary of Icahn Enterprises. Dan will continue to serve as a director of Icahn Enterprises G.P. Inc., the general partner of Icahn Enterprises, as well as certain affiliates of Icahn Enterprises. Dan has done an excellent job as our President and CEO over the past 4 years, and we are confident he will be successful in his new role. I'd like to begin by providing some brief highlights. Sung will then provide an in-depth review of our financial results and the performance of our business segments. We will then be available to address your questions. We continue to employ an activist strategy within our Investment segment and across all of our operating segments, which has aided Icahn Enterprises in delivering outstanding results over the past decade. We are finding no shortage of investment opportunities involving situations where our activist strategy can be used as the catalyst to unlock value for all shareholders. Our Chairman, Carl Icahn, has released a letter to our shareholders discussing our strategy and our 2013 results. I encourage all of our stakeholders to read the letter, which is available at www.ielp.com and www.shareholderssquaretable.com. We are proud of our 2013 results and excited about the solid start we are seeing in 2014, which has led our Board of Directors to increase the annual distribution policy from $5 per unit to $6 per unit in 2014. Now turning to the fourth quarter and full year results. Net income attributable to…

SungHwan Cho

Management

Thanks, Keith. I will begin by briefly reviewing our consolidated results for the fourth quarter and full year 2013 and then highlight the performance of our operating segments and comment on the strength of our balance sheet. In Q4 2013, our net income attributable to Icahn Enterprises was $222 million compared to net income of $6 million in the prior year period. In Q4 2013, we reversed the tax valuation allowances at Viskase due to its improved profitability, and at Federal-Mogul due to its tax consolidation into IEP. We are proud to say that 2013 was a record year for net income attributable to Icahn Enterprises. Full year 2013 net income attributable to Icahn Enterprises was over $1 billion compared to income of $396 million in 2012. As you can see on Slide 5, the change in 2013 net income from prior year was primarily due to the strong performances of the Investment and Automotive segments. 2013 was also a record year for adjusted EBITDA, led by the performance of the Investment Funds. I will now provide more detail regarding the performance of our individual segments. On Slide 6. Our Investment segment had a gain attributable to Icahn Enterprises of $812 million for 2013 due to the strong performance of our direct investment in the Investment Funds. For Q4 2013, the Investment Funds had a gross return of 3.5% compared to 1.5% for Q4 2012. For the full year 2013, the Investment Funds had a gross return of 30.8% compared to 6.6% in 2012. Our long positions had a 65% return for the year, while our short positions and other expenses had a negative performance attribution of 34%. Since inception in November 2004, the Investment Funds gross return is 257% through the end of 2013, or 15% annualized. At the…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Dan Stan (sic) [Fannon] from Jefferies.

Daniel Thomas Fannon - Jefferies LLC, Research Division

Analyst

I guess the first question is just on the NAV disclosures and if you could kind of walk us through the step-up in the AEP Leasing from a -- quarter-over-quarter from a roughly $214 million to the $754 million?

Keith Cozza

Management

Sure. You can...

SungHwan Cho

Management

I'll take it. Yes, thanks, Dan. So That's primarily related to, early in Q4, we acquired our 75% interest in ARL. And so that was approximately 27,000 cars in that portfolio, with significant equity value in those cars. So the step-up in value there primarily relates to that transaction, okay? So the increased value from the ARL fleet, as well as there's $300 million-plus of cash within ARL post close of that transaction.

Daniel Thomas Fannon - Jefferies LLC, Research Division

Analyst

But did you not disclose that? I guess the ownership stake then before that you broke out within the last couple of quarters for the first time was not 75%, so the ownership stake just picked up. Is that the difference?

SungHwan Cho

Management

That's right. It -- the transaction closed in October. So for Q3, ARL was not part of IEP. So that represented only the -- under 3,000 cars that were held directly within AEP Leasing.

Daniel Thomas Fannon - Jefferies LLC, Research Division

Analyst

Okay, okay, okay, I guess, and then just thinking about the movements in the other subsidiaries that are nonpublic, quarter-over-quarter even year-over-year, I guess, if we were just thinking about the quarter-over-quarter movements with Tropicana coming down and Viskase going up, I guess that we just -- should we think about that as public comp changes, or really just more of the underlying changes within the business with regards to the cash flows and other metrics you guys look at?

SungHwan Cho

Management

It's really the public comp valuations that I think we disclosed in the footnotes to the NAV table, the multiples that we use for each of those periods. And so you can see, in Q4 for Tropicana, it was a lower multiple that we used than Q3, and that's based upon trading comps for other Gaming casino -- Gaming companies.

Daniel Thomas Fannon - Jefferies LLC, Research Division

Analyst

Okay. And then just thinking about you guys obviously have been very active over the last year within the Investment portfolio and within the hedge fund. I mean, is it reasonable to assume over the next -- as we think about 2014 that your kind of wholly owned subsidiaries would increase? Or do you expect to be more active in the -- just within the liquid side, within the fund?

Keith Cozza

Management

Dan, it's Keith. I think the answer is both. I think you'll continue to see us be very active in the Investment segment, as you have already in the early parts of this year, but I don't think it's -- I don't think we view it as one or the other. I think we're seeing a lot of opportunity in our operating segments. You saw in the Federal-Mogul segment, we had 2 bolt-on acquisitions of the Honeywell brake business and the Affinia's chassis business. And late last year, we announced a bolt-on acquisition of the Lumière casino within the -- in the Gaming segment. So we're kind of always on the lookout to -- for expansion opportunities in all our segments. It just seems like the Investment segment gets a little bit more of the media's attention, but it's -- I think you'll see both.

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from the line of Ken Bann from Jefferies.

Kenneth P. Bann - Jefferies LLC, Fixed Income Research

Analyst

Could you just talk about the swing in EBITDA at the holding company level? Is -- what's that do? Is that foreign currency? Or what's...

Keith Cozza

Management

No. The -- so in the fourth quarter, we had made a distribution of some derivative hedging transactions out of the funds to all the partners in the fund. And IEP being one of those partners, it wound up having some losses related to those derivative positions. They were on the underlying S&P 500 Index. And this is all laid out in our 10-K. But at the end of the day, it was the movement in the S&P related to those distributions that caused that swing for the fourth quarter.

Kenneth P. Bann - Jefferies LLC, Fixed Income Research

Analyst

Okay. And I'm sorry if I missed this, did you a give a bit on the -- sort of where your cash and investment in the funds are now post the financing you've done so far in the first quarter?

SungHwan Cho

Management

No, we didn't.

Keith Cozza

Management

Yes. No, we didn't. I mean, you -- we'd -- I suppose we did lay out all the components, though. It's fairly easily to do. We added $1.3 billion of cash to the balance sheet from financings in January of '14, so you can kind of roll it forward.

Kenneth P. Bann - Jefferies LLC, Fixed Income Research

Analyst

Okay, so all that's remaining at cash at the holding company at this point?

SungHwan Cho

Management

Some of it was invested into the Investment segment, but I -- we haven't disclosed exactly how much.

Keith Cozza

Management

Yes.

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from the line of Andrew Berg from the Post Advisory Group.

Andrew Berg - Post Advisory Group, LLC

Analyst

On the Real Estate side, you're seeing a pick-up in the business there. Is that stuff you're going to develop? Or are you just looking to sell the raw lots?

Keith Cozza

Management

No, no. We've started -- we've bringing [ph] with some development as demands picked up, specifically in New Seabury. We're going at a measured pace, but our early market read is that the returns are fairly compelling and meet our internal hurdles. So we are going at a measured pace to develop out not just raw land but to develop out full units.

Andrew Berg - Post Advisory Group, LLC

Analyst

And how does that play out kind of in line in terms of capital you'd -- you'll commit to that build-out process? And when do you hope to be able to start marketing properties for sale?

SungHwan Cho

Management

Yes, it's a very minimal use of cash. And we've already started marketing. We've maintained an inventory of properties throughout these last several years. And so we continue our marketing efforts on the existing inventory as well as a few more houses that we're putting up right now.

Andrew Berg - Post Advisory Group, LLC

Analyst

Okay. So is -- it doesn't sound like it's a big capital commitment.

SungHwan Cho

Management

Yes, it's insignificant to IEP. Yes.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] I currently have no more questions in the queue.

Keith Cozza

Management

Okay, great. Well, thanks, everybody. And we'll look forward to speaking with you to discuss first quarter results.