Earnings Labs

Icahn Enterprises L.P. (IEP)

Q3 2014 Earnings Call· Tue, Nov 4, 2014

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning, and welcome to the Icahn Enterprises L.P. Q3 2014 Earnings Call with Jesse Lynn, Assistant General Counsel; Keith Cozza, President and CEO; and SungHwan Cho, Chief Financial Officer. I would now like to hand the call over to Jesse Lynn, who will read the opening statement.

Jesse Lynn

Management

Thank you. 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 law. This presentation also includes certain non-GAAP financial measures. I'll now turn the presentation over to Keith Cozza, our Chief Financial Officer.

Keith Cozza

Management

Thanks, Jesse. Good morning, and welcome to the Third Quarter 2014 Icahn Enterprises Earnings Conference Call. Joining me on today's call is SungHwan Cho, our Chief Financial Officer. 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. For the third quarter of 2014, Icahn Enterprises recorded a net loss attributable to Icahn Enterprises of $355 million or $2.90 per LP unit, compared to net income of $472 million or $4.10 per LP unit in the prior year period. Icahn Enterprises investment results for the third quarter of 2014 were impacted by a significant decline in our core Energy positions. The Investment Funds recorded a total return of negative 5.3% for the quarter compared to a return of 18.4% in the prior year quarter. Year-to-date, the Investment Funds remain up 4.4% compared to prior year of 26.3%. Q3 of 2014 sales and operating EBITDA for Federal-Mogul improved from the prior year period, driven by higher sales volumes and market share gains in our Powertrain division. In September, Federal-Mogul announced its plan to separate its Powertrain and Motorparts divisions into 2 independent publicly traded companies by spinning off the Motorparts division to current shareholders. The spinoff will provide additional operating and financial flexibility for each division to aggressively grow and improve this distinct business. In our Energy segment, Q3 performance was impacted by the downtime caused by a fire at one of the refineries in late July. In spite of the downturn, combined refinery total throughput was over 176,000 barrels per day for the quarter. At CVR Partners, realized fertilizer prices for Q3 were in line with expectations, while UAN production was somewhat lower than anticipated. Our Railcar segment continued to have strong tank railcar and hopper railcar shipments in Q3 of 2014. The segment also continues to build its lease fleet, which has grown to over 38,000 railcars at the end of the quarter. In our Gaming segment, Tropicana's earnings have been solid, despite weakness in the broader Atlantic City market. Trop AC has benefited from the closure of a competitor in Atlantic City as well as from Internet Gaming revenues, which commenced in November of 2013. IEP ended the quarter with substantial liquidity, with cash and liquid investments of the holding company totaling over -- approximately $5.9 billion. We continue to identify and execute on various investment opportunities across a number of our segments, which we believe will produce compelling returns over the long term. With that, let me turn it over to Sung to discuss the financial results.

SungHwan Cho

Management

Thanks, Keith. I will briefly begin by reviewing our consolidated results for Q3 2014 and then highlight the performance of our operating segments. In Q3 2014, the net loss attributable to Icahn Enterprises was $355 million, due primarily to the performance of the Investment Funds, as Keith mentioned earlier. As you can see on Slide 5, Q3 2014 adjusted EBITDA, attributable to IEP, was a loss of $2 million compared to a gain of $714 million in the prior year. Most of the decrease was tied to the performance of the Investment segment in the respective periods. I will now provide more detail regarding the performance of our individual segments. Our Investment segment had a loss attributable to Icahn Enterprises of $270 million for Q3 2014. The Investment Funds that we manage had a return of negative 5.3% in Q3 2014 compared to a return of positive 18.4% in Q3 2013. Long positions had a negative 6.4% return for the current quarter while short positions and other expenses had a positive performance attribution of 1.1%. Year-to-date, the Investment segment has generated a 4.4% return compared to 26.3% in the first 9 months of 2013. Since inception in November of 2004 through the end of Q3 2014, the Investment Funds gross return is 273%, or 14% annualized. The Investment Funds continue to be significantly hedged. At the end of Q3 2014, net long exposure was 4% compared to 13% at the end of 2013. IEP's investment in the funds was $4.8 billion as of September 30, 2014. And now to our Energy segment. For Q3 2014, our Energy segment reported net sales of $2.3 billion and consolidated adjusted EBITDA of $144 million. Q3 results were impacted by a fire that occurred in late July at CVR's Coffeyville refinery. Even with the…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Dan Fannon with Jefferies.

Daniel Thomas Fannon - Jefferies LLC, Research Division

Analyst

I guess just on -- at a high level, has anything changed, as you think about the macroenvironment or just from an investment effective, your idea about the environment in terms of how you're seeing opportunities, sourcing those opportunities and then just looking at the investments today versus how bullish you guys have been in earlier in the year or even last year?

Keith Cozza

Management

Dan, it's Keith. I don't think much has changed from our perspective. I think the environment continues to be robust from a point of view of what we do, our activist strategy. There is no shortage of opportunities, and we continue to identify new toehold positions that we think we could be the catalyst to unlock value. But as far as the macroenvironment goes in general, we've been saying this for many years. We are always very cautious. We can never predict where markets are going to trade at. And so we tend to keep the book pretty hedged. You probably noticed or you will notice in the Q, and I think some mentioned that our -- we dramatically reduced our net long exposures. We ended the quarter at 4%, which is effectively flat versus -- I'm doing it from memory, but I believe the last quarter was more in the 35% to 36%, maybe 39%. So we're even a little bit more cautious on the macroenvironment. But on -- as far as stock-picking and finding opportunities where we can skew the results in our favor, so to speak, or where we think we have a competitive advantage using activism, we're still seeing a robust pipeline of opportunities.

Daniel Thomas Fannon - Jefferies LLC, Research Division

Analyst

Great. And I guess, any update on kind of performance thus far into the fourth quarter?

Keith Cozza

Management

Yes, we're -- you know the rules. The lawyers don't let us update it. So you're going to have to wait on that.

Daniel Thomas Fannon - Jefferies LLC, Research Division

Analyst

Fair enough. And then, I guess, just on the dividend, I guess that you guys have had, for the last several years, raised your payout. I guess, as Carl and the board think about going into 2015, any thoughts around updating the policy or any changes?

Keith Cozza

Management

The board reviews the policy every quarter, but -- and then we'll have an even more robust discussion for the -- at the January Board Meeting. But I can -- so we don't have anything set in stone. But I can tell you that the board's goal is to absolutely maintain the existing dividend at this level, and then we'll have a healthy debate based on the results and the outlook as to whether or not to increase that. But our goal, certainly, is to maintain the existing dividend.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Mark Heiman with Saguaro Capital Advisors.

Mark Heiman

Analyst · Saguaro Capital Advisors.

First question, just on the Gaming segment, given that it's the first full quarter with Lumiere. Would you be able to just strip out that EBITDA from the comparison, so we could just see apples-to-apples comparison?

Keith Cozza

Management

I'm going to ask Sung if he has it in front of us. Otherwise, we'll have to get back to you offline.

SungHwan Cho

Management

Yes, I don't have the specific breakdown, so we can come back to you on that one.

Mark Heiman

Analyst · Saguaro Capital Advisors.

Okay, that's fine. And then my second question. Recent, I guess, press reports on the Trump bankruptcy, is that deposition [ph] held in the fund? Or is that a separate investment?

Keith Cozza

Management

Half of the investment's held in the funds, and half of it is held in -- at the holding company level.

Mark Heiman

Analyst · Saguaro Capital Advisors.

Okay, got it. And this may be premature, but is that with an eye to put it into the Gaming segment as part of Tropicana? Or is it just too premature to think about that?

Keith Cozza

Management

It's slightly premature, but I think you'd be -- you're thinking about it in the correct way. And if -- as we work our way through the bankruptcy process, if we wind up owning -- consolidating a greater than 50% position, we -- it wouldn't be our goal to hold that in our Investment Funds. It would be part of the Gaming segment. That would be the goal, but it's probably a touch premature to speculate giving all the moving pieces.

Mark Heiman

Analyst · Saguaro Capital Advisors.

So -- I mean, obviously, reported in the Gaming segment, but I mean, would it -- but actually, as part of Tropicana in the company?

Keith Cozza

Management

No, no, no. I'm sorry. Let me be clear about that. Tropicana is its own public company. I just meant from a reporting standpoint. But if we own -- so we own approximately 68% of Tropicana, and if we owned a greater than 50% position in the Trump equity, it would be -- at the segment level, it would be moved out of the Investment Funds. No, there's absolutely no plans right now or anything of that nature to combine with Trump or anything like that. It's just too premature. We're not even thinking along those lines right now.

Mark Heiman

Analyst · Saguaro Capital Advisors.

Got it. So right now it's an investment. Great.

Operator

Operator

I currently have no more questions in the queue.

Keith Cozza

Management

Okay. Thanks a lot, everybody. We'll look forward to talking to you after the new year.