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spk01: Good morning and welcome to the Icon Enterprises LPQ2 2021 earnings call with Jesse Lynn, General Counsel, Eris Kakajian, President and CEO, and David Willits, Chief Financial Officer. I would now like to hand the call over to Jesse Lynn, who will read the opening statement.
spk13: Thank you, Operator. 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. Forward-looking statements may be identified by words such as expects, anticipates, intends, plans, believes, seeks, estimates, will, or words of similar meaning and include but are not limited to statements about the expected future business and financial performance of Icon Enterprises, LP, and its subsidiaries. Actual events, results and outcomes may differ materially from our expectations due to a variety of known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that are discussed in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including economic, competitive, legal and other factors, including the severity, magnitude and duration of the COVID-19 pandemic. 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. A reconciliation of such non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures can be found in the back of this presentation. I'll now turn it over to Aris Kakajian, our Chief Executive Officer.
spk11: Thanks, Jesse. Good morning and welcome to the second quarter 2021 Icahn Enterprises Earnings Conference Call. Joining me on today's call is David Willits, our Chief Financial Officer. I will begin by providing some brief highlights. David 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 Q2 2021, we had net loss attributable to Icon Enterprises of $136 million, or 53 cents per LP unit, compared to net income of $299 million, or $1.36 per LP unit, in the prior year period. The quarterly net loss was primarily driven by interest expense on our senior unsecured notes and income taxes offset in part by gains in our investment segment. Adjusted EBITDA attributable to Icon Enterprises for Q2 2021 was $192 million compared to $696 million for Q2 of 2020. Our investment funds had a positive return of 1.4% for Q2 of 2021 compared to 11.7% for Q2 of 2020. The positive performance was driven by net gains in certain long equity positions, primarily in the energy industry, offset in part by net losses in our short index and short single-name equity positions. Adjusted EBITDA attributable to ICON Enterprises at our energy segment decreased by $10 million to $49 million for Q2 of 2021, compared to $59 million in the prior year period. Our petroleum business was positively impacted by higher throughput volumes, and increased product cracks offset by exorbitant rinse pricing. Our fertilizer business continues to benefit from strong pricing for both ammonia and UAN. Net sales and service revenues for our automotive segment was $637 million for Q2 of 2021. We continue to see our automotive service business revenues return to pre-pandemic levels. As a reminder, Icahn Automotive Groups continues to push forward with a multi-year transformational plan to restructure operations and improve profitability, which is illustrated by the reduction in losses in Q2 versus the prior year quarter. We have substantially completed the legal separation of our automotive service business from our aftermarket parts business, which will position the service business for new growth and value-enhancing opportunities. In April of 2021, Icahn Enterprises issued $455 million of 5.25 senior unsecured notes due in 2027. The proceeds were used to repay the remaining $455 million principal amount of 6.25 senior unsecured notes due in 2022. For the six months ended June 30, 2021, indicative net asset value increased by $956 million to $4.5 billion, compared to $3.55 billion as of December 31, 2020. we closed the quarter with cash and investments in the funds of over 6.9 billion finally the board declared a two dollar quarterly distribution payable in either cash or additional units with that let me turn it over to david thank you eris i'll begin by briefly reviewing our consolidated results and then highlight the performance of our operating segments and comment on the strength of our balance sheet for q221 for the three months ended june 30th
spk03: we had a net loss attributable to Icon Enterprises of $136 million compared to net income of $299 in the comparable prior year period. For Q2 2021, adjusted EBITDA attributable to Icon Enterprises was $192 million compared to $696 million in the prior year period. I'll now provide more detail regarding the performance of our individual segments on the next pages. In our investment segment, we had net income attributable to Icon Enterprises of $68 million for Q221. The investment funds had a positive return of 1.4% for Q221, compared to a positive return of 11.7% in the comparable prior year period. Long positions had a positive performance attribution of 6.6% in Q221, while short positions and other had a negative performance attribution of 5.2%. Since inception in November 2004, through the end of Q221, the investment funds' gross return is approximately 91.3%, or 3.9% annualized. The investment funds had a net long notional exposure of 5% at the end of Q221, compared to a net short exposure of 19% at the end of Q121. Our investment in the funds was approximately $4.7 billion as of June 30, 2021. And now on to our energy segment. In Q221, our energy segment reported net sales of 1.8 billion compared to 675 million in the prior year period. Consolidated adjusted EBITDA was 102 million for Q221 compared to 109 million in Q220. The total throughput was approximately 217,000 barrels in Q221 compared to 156,000 barrels in Q220. The Q221 refining margin per throughput barrel was $6.72 compared to $10.43 in the prior year. While increased crack spreads and volumes contributed to the improvement in refining margins, higher RINS expenses offset much of the benefit. CVR's previously announced renewable diesel project is under review pending improved feedstock market pricing, while process design engineering for a pretreatment unit continues. CVR Partners reported Q221 adjusted EBITDA of $51 million compared to $39 million for Q220. Corn planting and prices are attractive and are driving increases in fertilizer prices and demand. Now, turning to our automotive segment. Q221 net sales and service revenues for Icon Automotive Group were $637 million, an increase of $50 million from the prior year period. Q221 adjusted EBITDA, which excludes the losses associated with closed and closing parts stores, was $25 million compared to a loss of $6 million in the prior year period. Icon Automotive continues to push forward with a multi-year transformational plan to restructure the operations and improve profitability. Service revenues increased due to the reduced impact of COVID-19 pandemic, and this was offset in part by store closures related to the transformation plan. which declined for Q221 when compared to the prior year period. Now turning to our food packaging segment. Q221 net sales increased by $2 million, or 2%, and adjusted EBITDA attributable to Icon Enterprises was $14 million for Q221, compared to $13 million for Q220. Net sales increased due to price and product mix and the favorable effects of foreign exchange. And now on to our metals segment. Q221 net sales increased by $119 million, and adjusted EBITDA increased by 15 main compared to the prior year period. Volumes and prices continue to be strong, driven by high demand from steel mills. And now on to our real estate segment. Q2, 21 net operating revenues increased by 2 main compared to prior year. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was a loss of 2 main compared to earnings of 10 main in the prior year period. Revenue from our real estate operations for both Q2 2021 and Q2 2020 were substantially derived from sales of residential units and rental operations. Now turning to our home fashion segment. Q2 21 net sales increased by 14 million compared to the comparable prior year period. Sales to hospitality customers recovered due to the reduced impact of COVID-19 pandemic. West Point's adjusted EBITDA was 1 million for both Q2 21 and Q2 20. Now turning to our pharma segment. We started to consolidate the results of Vivas beginning December 2020 within our new pharma segment. Q221 net operating revenues were 19 million and adjusted EBITDA was five million. Now I'll discuss our liquidity position. We maintain ample liquidity at the holding company and at each of our operating subsidiaries to take advantage of attractive opportunities. We ended Q221 cash, cash equivalents, our investment in the investment funds, and revolver availability, totaling approximately $7.5 billion. Our subsidiaries have approximately $645 million of cash and $579 million of undrawn credit facilities to enable them to take advantage of attractive opportunities. In summary, we continue to focus on building asset value and maintaining ample liquidity to enable us to capitalize on opportunities within and outside our existing operating segments. Thank you. Operator, can you please open up the call for any questions?
spk16: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder to ask the question, you need to press star then one on your telephone. To withdraw your question, press the pound key. Again, that's star one to ask the question. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A rosters. Our first question comes from the line of Dan Fannin with Jefferies. Your line is open.
spk05: Thank you. Good morning. My first question is just on the fund and the positioning and how you guys are thinking about the current investment backdrop. I believe your investment in the fund is $4.7 billion, as you stated, but I think if I heard correctly, $6.9 billion is the total in terms of available or cash. I just want to make sure the liquidity or kind of how it seems like there's more cash I guess, less investments in the fund, more conservatism based on, I think, some of the numbers I heard.
spk11: Thanks for the question, Dan. The actual $6.9 billion number includes cash at the holding company level, so the amount of investment in the funds has not changed. It's at 4.7, as you highlighted. You asked about positioning of the fund. In this current backdrop, we obviously are taking a look at the kind of valuations that we're parsing through. Clearly, we are trying to pick our spots. The fund is positioned at a net short, sorry, net long of 5%. That's consisting of 24% net long in the equity book and about an 18% net short in the credit book. Hopefully that answers your question.
spk05: Yep, that is helpful. And on just the returns for the second quarter, the short position is driving the, I think, 5.2% of the traction and performance. But you also mentioned other returns. I guess as we think about just the positioning, is there, is there illiquid or other things that outside of just normal securities? Cause I don't think I recall you using the term other outside of just the short positioning. If there was something else that we should think about when that you guys are doing in the portfolio.
spk11: The other is actually quite de minimis. It's just expenses. I wouldn't, I wouldn't draw much attribution to that.
spk05: Got it. Got it. Okay. And then just lastly is, you look across your businesses and the environment where you highlighted, you know, certain like the auto where you're seeing, you know, things improve. Is there portions of your business or as you look across that are still lagging, you know, pre-pandemic that, you know, are still waiting for kind of the, more return to normalcy or are taking longer than others? If you could just kind of dissect a bit the various segments that are maybe kind of returning faster versus others that might still be lagging behind.
spk11: Yeah. Well, look, I think for the most part, we're seeing pretty good rebound in our portfolio companies in terms of pre-pandemic level performance. In fact, in the auto services business, we're seeing the business perform at a pre-pandemic level. But one of the things we do see across the portfolio still is supply chain lags. That combined with some degree of inflation and pressure that we see across the portfolio. I think those are all pandemic, still pandemic related. In fact, in some of our more international related businesses, we're seeing some issues around shipping and containers, getting access to them and things like that. So the supply chain is still clogged up quite a bit. And that's a common thing that we're seeing. So hopefully, when that clears up, we'll see even better performance. But for the most part, I think what we're seeing in our portfolio is a pretty good rebound to pre-pandemic levels.
spk04: Great. Thanks for answering my questions.
spk16: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Bruce Monrad with Northeast Investors. Your line is open.
spk06: Hi, and thanks for hosting the call. I'd love to pick up on that, actually, on the cost question with regard to this case. And you mentioned price mix, FX all favorable, and that's great. So there must have been a cost issue because the overall 100% EBITDA was a little bit lower. So it seems like it's a little bit of a rerun of 2018. And I guess my question is on pricing. Are your customers benefiting from price protection, or what's the outlook for for catching up on the cost side, if I'm diagnosing it right, please.
spk11: Well, I think you have two things going on in this case. One is this case actually performed even better during the pandemic. For whatever reason, the shutdown in place environment created significantly better demand. So performance last year was quite good compared to most of the portfolio. But the other thing that you're seeing in this case is definitely some price pressure in terms of raw material costs and supply chain costs. businesses in the process of applying price increases and surcharges to offset that. Those are all in place and underway as we speak.
spk06: Could I just, sometimes I think in the past it has been an annual issue with customers. Are you saying, please, is that current? Is that, you know, we say in place, is that for now and, you know, 3Q, 4Q type things, or is it wait until the new year? Thank you.
spk22: This is David.
spk03: I think the short version is we're just seeing a typical lag between supplier price increases and our ability to share those price increases with our customer. Customers have generally been pretty open and aware that there are significant price increases out there in the market. So we are taking a look on a quarter-by-quarter basis at raising prices where it makes sense, respecting our customers. But there will be a time lag as our prices catch up to what the market inflation has been on our cost base. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. You're welcome.
spk16: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Chris Morrell with Retail Investor. Your line is open.
spk19: Yeah. Hi. Thanks. Good morning. And thanks for the call, guys. So really two questions in and around the dividend. So can you just tell us how the dividend is funded through time and then How do you want us to think about dividend sustainability? Is it economic sensitivities? Is it investment return sensitivities? Just give us a sense of kind of how you want us to think about that.
spk11: Well, we've got plenty of cash on the books, as you can imagine. So funding the dividend is not necessarily an issue for us whatsoever. We do like our current capital allocation policy. As you know, we just approved a $2 dividend for the quarter, which has been consistent with relatively past practices, and I think we intend on continuing that, at least at this point in time, unless things change.
spk12: Okay, thank you.
spk16: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Roberts For Good with RIS Investments. Your line is open.
spk20: Yeah, concerning that dividend, Carl Icahn owns most of the stock of the company, and you give him the option of taking stock instead of cash. So I don't think you would be paying out as much as $2 for every share that you have out. Is Carl Icahn, in the past, and as far as you know, taking stock instead of cash on the dividend?
spk11: Well, Carl Heitkamp has been consistently taking stock in lieu of cash with the exception of a particular quarter last year. So we, at this point in time, as indicated to date, that's been his practice. and we intend to believe that that will be the practice going forward, unless things change.
spk20: So his ownership of the company is being increased greatly every time there's one of these dividends paid out, and the company is not paying out this tremendous dividend in cash. Is that a fair statement?
spk11: I think your statement, your question is whether or not He's taking dividends, increases his ownership in the company. I think that's an accurate statement.
spk20: All right. And further, he made a statement on May 27. He's been pretty bearish on the dollar. And he made a statement about cryptocurrency. And I was taken aback by that because at that time, the cryptocurrency was about $53,000 for the Bitcoin. And he said something. bad things about the American dollar. And I hope he didn't buy any of it. He said he was going to put a billion dollars. Do you have any information about whether he's invested in these cryptocurrencies since May 27th or before that?
spk11: I think what Carl indicated on that call was that he is much like we look at all kinds of different investment opportunities, cryptocurrency is a topical subject and one that we're evaluating, among others. At this point in time, I don't have any other comments other than that. We don't actually comment on any particular investment theses.
spk20: He's been pretty negative on the market last year and beginning of this year, and he's got a lot of good investments that he does buy in companies. Is he still basically... He basically runs the company anyway. Is he still basically negative? What percentage are you guys short in the market?
spk11: I think what we indicated is we're net long 5%, which is consistent of a 24% net long position on our equities and an 18% net short position on our credit books. So I think you could maybe overall call our position relatively neutral.
spk20: this point in time okay I mean the market is running like tremendously in a bull market and he's always been a great investor and he's always found great investments but he's moved over and it's a big turnover in the company now you have new new people running the company and some people are starting to say that Carl Icahn is is getting on and look at that dividend I mean what do you have to say about that dividend When a stock is trading at $58 and paying an $8 dividend, there aren't too many companies doing something like that.
spk11: Well, we definitely have a high dividend yield, and that's one of the factors that makes the stock attractive. So I think you're highlighting that fact.
spk20: Okay. What is our book value right now? That's the last question I'll ask. Thank you for taking my questions. I appreciate it. But what is the book value of our company now? It's so hard to figure out. I mean, Carl Icahn is a fighter for stockholders, and we have stock in several hundred companies, and we have a lot of trouble trying to figure out what's going on in this company. So what is the book value of the company?
spk11: The book value, and you'll see this today in the 10Q, is $3.7 billion.
spk20: Divided by the shares, how much is that coming out to per share? Yeah.
spk10: Again, I think you can do the math.
spk20: Okay. All right, I appreciate it. Thank you very much.
spk16: Thank you. As a reminder, ladies and gentlemen, that's star one to ask the question. Our next question comes from the line of Andrew Bird with Post Advisory Group. The line is open.
spk14: Thank you. Hey, guys, just a couple of housekeeping questions. With respect to automotive, the EBITDA that you guys report, Nice increase from a $6 million loss to a $25 million gain. But I think you said that excluded closed store loss. Can you quantify what the closed store loss was, and was that all a non-cash loss, or was any of that cash to close them?
spk22: So in terms of two questions, one is what do we think the actual loss for the closed store is, and then how much of that was cash?
spk03: I think when you take a look at our adjustments, this is a heavy transformation program, but effectively the total cost to close the stores, pay the severance, and continue the transformation is approximately $67 million this year. We view those as one-time costs that obviously don't repeat once we finish the transformation. In terms of the cash, the cash is a little misleading simply because you have...
spk02: you have to record the expenses well in advance of when you actually pay the cash down and write inventory down.
spk03: So we'd expect the cash to continue over the course of the next two to three quarters, but to approximate the $67 million as we wrap things up.
spk14: Does that help? Yeah, the $67 million was year-to-date. Do you happen to have the comparable numbers, 2Q21 versus 2Q20? I believe you said that the amounts are coming down.
spk02: Yeah, so the comparable numbers for 2020 were approximately $44 million.
spk14: That's year-to-date or quarter?
spk03: It would be six months ended 2020.
spk14: Do you happen to have the 2Q numbers or can you follow up on that offline?
spk03: One second. 2020 2Q was $24 million.
spk14: And the same figure for this year? 2Q?
spk21: It would be 43. Okay.
spk11: These figures are in the adjusted EBITDA. They're in the adjusted EBITDA reconciliation in our package if you need any more. Okay.
spk14: I'll go back and look at it. I didn't realize it was in there, so I apologize on that. And then the loss in real estate for EBITDA, given the relatively flat revenue numbers, what's driving that?
spk11: I think what you have in the real estate portfolio in particular is we have a triple net lease property in Atlanta that was a single tenant lease, fully leased up until last year. We're in the process of turning that into a multi-tenant property this year. There were some delays as a result of COVID, but we're back on track in terms of getting core tenants in place. So there's some timing lag associated with that process, but we're in the process of repositioning that portfolio building.
spk14: Okay, great. And then lastly, with respect to investments, there's a question earlier on crypto. To the extent Carl does start getting involved in it one way or the other, when you guys report, will that end up being factored into the net equity or the net credit portion of how you're going to be reporting things if you were to start getting along that? Or would it end up being a separate line altogether?
spk11: I think if we actually get into crypto, to your point, and have it as a significant investment, we'll actually consider identifying that as other, I imagine, at this point in time.
spk14: Okay. Fantastic. Thank you, guys.
spk16: Thank you. I'm showing no further questions in the queue. I would now like to turn the call back over to management for closing remarks.
spk11: Thank you, Operator, and thanks, everyone, for your questions. We are looking forward to following up with you in our third quarter update coming up. Up until that time, we wish you a happy morning and a good rest of the day. Thanks a lot.
spk16: Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. © transcript Emily Beynon Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
spk15: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Bye. Thank you. Thank you. Amen. music music
spk01: Good morning and welcome to the Icon Enterprises LPQ2 2021 Earnings Call with Jesse Lynn, General Counsel, Eris Kakajian, President and CEO, and David Willits, Chief Financial Officer. I would now like to hand the call over to Jesse Lynn, who will read the opening statement.
spk13: Thank you, Operator. 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. Forward-looking statements may be identified by words such as expects, anticipates, intends, plans, believes, seeks, estimates, will, or words of similar meaning and include but are not limited to statements about the expected future business and financial performance of Icon Enterprises, LP, and its subsidiaries. Actual events, results and outcomes may differ materially from our expectations due to a variety of known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that are discussed in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including economic, competitive, legal and other factors, including the severity, magnitude and duration of the COVID-19 pandemic. 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. A reconciliation of such non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures can be found in the back of this presentation. I'll now turn it over to Aris Kakajian, our Chief Executive Officer.
spk11: Thanks, Jesse. Good morning and welcome to the second quarter 2021 Icahn Enterprises Earnings Conference Call. Joining me on today's call is David Willits, our Chief Financial Officer. I will begin by providing some brief highlights. David 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 Q2 2021, we had net loss attributable to Icon Enterprises of $136 million, or 53 cents per LP unit, compared to net income of $299 million, or $1.36 per LP unit, in the prior year period. The quarterly net loss was primarily driven by interest expense on our senior unsecured notes and income taxes offset in part by gains in our investment segment. Adjusted EBITDA attributable to Icon Enterprises for Q2 2021 was $192 million compared to $696 million for Q2 of 2020. Our investment funds had a positive return of 1.4% for Q2 of 2021 compared to 11.7% for Q2 of 2020. The positive performance was driven by net gains in certain long equity positions, primarily in the energy industry, offset in part by net losses in our short index and short single-name equity positions. Adjusted EBITDA attributable to Icon Enterprises at our energy segment decreased by $10 million to $49 million for Q2 of 2021, compared to $59 million in the prior year period. Our petroleum business was positively impacted by higher throughput volumes, and increased product cracks offset by exorbitant rinse pricing. Our fertilizer business continues to benefit from strong pricing for both ammonia and UAN. Net sales and service revenues for our automotive segment was $637 million for Q2 of 2021. We continue to see our automotive service business revenues return to pre-pandemic levels. As a reminder, Icahn Automotive Groups continues to push forward with a multi-year transformational plan to restructure operations and improve profitability, which is illustrated by the reduction in losses in Q2 versus a prior year quarter. We have substantially completed the legal separation of our automotive service business from our aftermarket parts business, which will position the service business for new growth and value-enhancing opportunities. In April of 2021, Icon Enterprises issued $455 million of 5.25 senior unsecured notes due in 2027. The proceeds were used to repay the remaining $455 million principal amount of 6.25 senior unsecured notes due in 2022. For the six months ended June 30, 2021, indicative net asset value increased by $956 million to $4.5 billion, compared to $3.55 billion as of December 31, 2020. We closed the quarter with cash and investments in the funds of over $6.9 billion. Finally, the board declared a $2 quarterly distribution payable in either cash or additional units. With that, let me turn it over to David.
spk03: Thank you, Eris. I'll begin by briefly reviewing our consolidated results and then highlight the performance of our operating segments and comment on the strength of our balance sheet. For Q221, for the three months ended June 30th, we had a net loss attributable to Icon Enterprises of $136 million compared to net income of $299 in the comparable prior year period. For Q221, adjusted EBITDA attributable to Icon Enterprises was $192 million compared to $696 million in the prior year period. I'll now provide more detail regarding the performance of our individual segments on the next pages. In our investment segment, we had net income attributable to Icon Enterprises of $68 million for Q2-21. The investment funds had a positive return of 1.4% for Q2-21 compared to a positive return of 11.7% in the comparable prior year period. Long positions had a positive performance attribution of 6.6% in Q2-21, while short positions and other had a negative performance attribution of 5.2%. Since inception in November 2004, through the end of Q221, the investment fund's gross return is approximately 91.3%, or 3.9% annualized. The investment funds had a net long notional exposure of 5% at the end of Q221, compared to a net short exposure of 19% at the end of Q121. Our investment in the funds was approximately $4.7 billion as of June 30, 2021. And now on to our energy segment. In Q221, our energy segment reported net sales of 1.8 billion compared to 675 million in the prior year period. Consolidated adjusted EBITDA was 102 million for Q221 compared to 109 million in Q220. The total throughput was approximately 217,000 barrels in Q221 compared to 156,000 barrels in Q220. The Q221 refining margin per throughput barrel was $6.72 compared to $10.43 in the prior year. While increased crack spreads and volumes contributed to the improvement in refining margins, higher RINS expenses offset much of the benefit. CVR's previously announced renewable diesel project is under review pending improved feedstock market pricing, while process design engineering for a pretreatment unit continues. CVR Partners reported Q221 adjusted EBITDA of $51 million compared to $39 million for Q220. Corn planting and prices are attractive and are driving increases in fertilizer prices and demand. Now, turning to our automotive segment. Q221 net sales and service revenues for Icon Automotive Group were $637 million, an increase of $50 million from the prior year period. Q221 adjusted EBITDA, which excludes the losses associated with closed and closing parts stores, was $25 million compared to a loss of $6 million in the prior year period. Icon Automotive continues to push forward with a multi-year transformational plan to restructure the operations and improve profitability. Service revenues increased due to the reduced impact of COVID-19 pandemic, and this was offset in part by store closures related to the transformation plan. which declined for Q221 when compared to the prior year period. Now turning to our food packaging segment. Q221 net sales increased by $2 million, or 2%, and adjusted EBITDA attributable to Icon Enterprises was $14 million for Q221, compared to $13 million for Q220. Net sales increased due to price and product mix and the favorable effects of foreign exchange. And now on to our metals segment. Q2 21 net sales increased by 119 million, and adjusted EBITDA increased by 15 million compared to the prior year period. Volumes and prices continue to be strong, driven by high demand from steel mills. And now on to our real estate segment. Q2 21 net operating revenues increased by 2 million compared to prior year. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was a loss of 2 million compared to earnings of 10 million in the prior year period. Revenue from our real estate operations for both Q2 2021 and Q2 2020 were substantially derived from sales of residential units and rental operations. Now turning to our home fashion segment. Q2 2021 net sales increased by $14 million compared to the comparable prior year period. Sales to hospitality customers recovered due to the reduced impact of COVID-19 pandemic. West Point's adjusted EBITDA was $1 million for both Q2 2021 and Q2 2020. Now turning to our pharma segment. We started to consolidate the results of Vivas beginning December 2020 within our new pharma segment. Q221 net operating revenues were 19 million and adjusted EBITDA was five million. Now I'll discuss our liquidity position. We maintain ample liquidity at the holding company and at each of our operating subsidiaries to take advantage of attractive opportunities. We ended Q221 cash, cash equivalents, our investment in the investment funds, and revolver availability, totaling approximately $7.5 billion. Our subsidiaries have approximately $645 million of cash and $579 million of undrawn credit facilities to enable them to take advantage of attractive opportunities. In summary, we continue to focus on building asset value and maintaining ample liquidity to enable us to capitalize on opportunities within and outside our existing operating segments. Thank you. Operator, can you please open up the call for any questions?
spk16: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder to ask the question, you need to press star then one on your telephone. To withdraw your question, press the pound key. Again, that's star one to ask the question. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A rosters. Our first question comes from the line of Dan Fannin with Jefferies. Your line is open.
spk05: Thank you. Good morning. My first question is just on the fund and the positioning and how you guys are thinking about the current investment backdrop. I believe your investment in the fund is $4.7 billion, as you stated, but I think if I heard correctly, $6.9 billion is the total in terms of available or cash. I just want to make sure the liquidity or kind of how it seems like there's more cash I guess, less investments in the fund, more conservatism based on, I think, some of the numbers I heard.
spk11: Thanks for the question, Dan. The actual $6.9 billion number includes cash at the holding company level, so the amount of investment in the funds has not changed. It's at 4.7, as you highlighted. You asked about positioning of the fund. In this current backdrop, we obviously are taking a look at the kind of valuations that we're parsing through. Clearly, we are trying to pick our spots The fund is positioned at a net short, sorry, net long of 5%. That's consisting of 24% net long in the equity book and about an 18% net short in the credit book. Hopefully that answers your question.
spk05: Yep, that is helpful. And on just the returns for the second quarter, the short position is driving the, I think, 5.2% of the traction and performance. But you also mentioned other returns. I guess as we think about just the positioning, is there, is there illiquid or other things that outside of just normal securities? Cause I don't think I recall you using the term other outside of just the short positioning. If there was something else that we should think about when that you guys are doing in the portfolio.
spk11: The other is actually quite de minimis. It's just expenses. I wouldn't, I wouldn't put much attribution to that.
spk05: Got it. Got it. Okay. And then just lastly is, you think across your, your businesses and the environment where you, you highlighted, you know, certain like the auto where you're seeing, you know, things improve, um, Is there portions of your business or as you look across that are still lagging, you know, pre-pandemic that, you know, are still waiting for kind of the more return to normalcy or are taking longer than others? If you could just kind of dissect a bit the various segments that are maybe, you know, kind of returning faster versus others that might still be, you know, lagging behind. Yeah.
spk11: Yeah, well, look, I think for the most part, we're seeing pretty good rebound in our portfolio companies in terms of pre-pandemic level performance. In fact, in the auto services business, we're seeing the business perform at a pre-pandemic level. But one of the things we do see across the portfolio still is supply chain lags. That combined with some degree of inflation and pressure that we see across the portfolio. I think those are all still pandemic-related. In fact, in some of our more international-related businesses, we're seeing some issues around shipping and containers, getting access to them and things like that. So the supply chain is still clogged up quite a bit, and that's a common thing that we're seeing. So hopefully when that clears up, we'll see even better performance. But for the most part, I think what we're seeing in our portfolio is a pretty good rebound to pre-pandemic levels.
spk04: Great, thanks for answering my questions.
spk16: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Bruce Monrad with Northeast Investors. Your line is open.
spk06: Hi, and thanks for hosting the call. I'd love to pick up on that, actually, on the cost question with regard to this case. And you mentioned price mix, FX all favorable, and that's great. So there must have been a cost issue because the overall 100% EBITDA was a little bit lower. So, you know, it seems like it's a little bit of a rerun of 2018. And I guess my question is on pricing, you know, are your customers benefiting from price protection or what's the outlook for catching up on the cost side, if I'm diagnosing it right, please?
spk11: Well, I think you have two things going on in this case. One is this case actually performed even better during the pandemic. For whatever reason, the shutdown in place environment created significantly better demand. So performance last year was quite good compared to most of the portfolio. But the other thing that you're seeing in this case is definitely some price pressure in terms of raw material costs and supply chain costs. The business is in the process of applying price increases and surcharges to offset that. Those are all in place and underway as we speak.
spk06: Could I just, sometimes I think in the past it has been an annual issue with customers. Are you saying, please, is that current? Is that, you know, we say in place, is that for now and, you know, 3Q, 4Q type things, or is it wait until the new year? Thank you.
spk22: This is David.
spk03: I think the short version is we're just seeing a typical lag between supplier price increases and our ability to share those price increases with our customers. Customers have generally been pretty open and aware that there are significant price increases out there in the market. So we are taking a look on a quarter-by-quarter basis at raising prices where it makes sense, respecting our customers. But there will be a time lag as our prices catch up to what the market inflation has been on our cost base. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. You're welcome.
spk16: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Chris Morales. with retail investor. Your line is open.
spk19: Yeah, hi. Thanks. Good morning. And thanks for the call, guys. So really two questions in and around the dividend. So can you just tell us how the dividend is funded through time? And then how do you want us to think about dividend sustainability? Is it economic sensitivities? Is it investment return sensitivities? Just give us a sense of kind of how you want us to think about that.
spk11: Well, we've got plenty of cash on the books, as you can imagine, so funding the dividend is not necessarily an issue for us whatsoever. We do like our current capital allocation policy. As you know, we just approved a $2 dividend for the quarter, which has been consistent with relatively past practices, and I think we intend on continuing that at least at this point in time, unless things change.
spk12: Okay, thank you.
spk16: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Roberts for Good with Riz Investments. Your line is open.
spk20: Yeah, concerning that dividend, Carl Icahn owns most of the stock in the company, and You give them the option of taking stock instead of cash, so I don't think you would be paying out as much as $2 for every share that you have out. Is Carl Icahn, in the past, and as far as you know, taking stock instead of cash on the dividend?
spk11: Well, Carl's Icon has been consistently taking stock in lieu of cash, with the exception of a particular quarter last year. So we, at this point in time, as indicated to date, that's been his practice. And we intend to believe that that will be the practice going forward, unless things change.
spk20: So his ownership of the company is being increased greatly today. every time there's one of these dividends paid out and the company is not paying out this tremendous dividend in cash. Is that a fair statement?
spk11: I think your statement, your question is whether or not he's taking dividends increases his ownership in the company. I think that's an accurate statement.
spk20: All right. And further, he made a statement on May 27th. He's been pretty bearish on the dollar statement. And he made a statement about cryptocurrency. And I was taken aback by that because at that time, the cryptocurrency was about $53,000 for the Bitcoin. And he said some bad things about the American dollar. And I hope he didn't buy any of it. He said he was going to put a billion dollars. Do you have any information about whether he's invested in... in these cryptocurrencies since May 27th or before that?
spk11: I think what Carl indicated on that call was that he is, much like we look at all kinds of different investment opportunities, cryptocurrency is a topical subject and one that we're evaluating, among others. At this point in time, I don't have any other comments other than that. We don't actually comment on any particular investment theses.
spk20: He's been pretty negative on the market last year and beginning of this year, and he's got a lot of good investments that he does buy in companies. Is he still basically – he basically runs the company anyway. Is he still basically negative? What percentage are you guys short in the market?
spk11: I think what we indicated is we're net long 5%. which is consistent of a 24% net long position on our equities and an 18% net short position on our credit books. So I think you could maybe overall call our position relatively neutral at this point in time.
spk20: Okay. I mean, the market is running, like, tremendously in a bull market, and he's always been a great investor, and he's always found great investments. But he's moved to Florida. And it's a big turnover in the company now. You have new people running the company, and some people are starting to say that Carl Icahn is getting on. And look at that dividend. I mean, what do you have to say about that dividend when a stock is trading at $58 and paying an $8 dividend? There aren't too many companies doing something like that.
spk11: Well, we definitely have a high dividend yield, and that's one of the factors that makes the stock attractive. So I think you're highlighting that fact.
spk20: Okay. What is our book value right now? That's the last question I'll ask. Thank you for taking my questions. I appreciate it. But what is the book value of our company now? It's so hard to figure out. I mean, Carl Icahn is a fighter for stockholders, and we have stock in several hundred companies, and we have a lot of trouble trying to figure out what's going on in this company. So what is the book value of the company?
spk11: The book value, and you'll see this today in the 10Q, is $3.7 billion.
spk20: Divided by the shares, how much is that coming out to per share?
spk10: Again, I think you can do the math.
spk20: Okay. All right. I appreciate it. Thank you very much.
spk16: Thank you. As a reminder, ladies and gentlemen, that's star one to ask the question. Our next question comes from the line of Andrew Bird with Post Advisory Group. The line is open.
spk14: Thank you. Hey, guys, just a couple of housekeeping questions. With respect to automotive, the EBITDA that you guys report, nice increase from a $6 million loss to a $25 million gain. But I think you said that excluded closed store loss. Can you quantify what the closed store loss was and was that all a non-cash loss or was any of that cash to close them?
spk22: So in terms of two questions, one is what do we think the actual loss for the closed store is and then how much of that was cash? I think when you take a look at our adjustments, this is a heavy transformation program, but
spk03: Effectively, the total cost to close the stores, pay the severance, and continue the transformation is approximately $67 million this year. We view those as one-time costs that obviously don't repeat once we finish the transformation. In terms of the cash, the cash is a little misleading simply because you have to record the expenses well in advance when you actually pay the cash balance. and write inventory down. So we'd expect the cash to continue over the course of the next two to three quarters, but to approximate the $67 million as we wrap things up.
spk14: Does that help? Yeah, the $67 million was year-to-date. Do you happen to have the comparable numbers to Q21 versus Q20? I believe you said that the amounts are coming down.
spk02: Yeah, so the comparable numbers for 2020 were approximately $44 million.
spk14: That's year-to-date or quarter?
spk03: It would be six months ended 2020.
spk14: Do you happen to have the 2Q numbers or follow up on that offline?
spk03: One second. 2020 2Q was 24 million.
spk14: And the same figure for this year? 2Q?
spk21: It would be 43. Okay.
spk11: These figures are in the adjusted EBITDA. They're in the adjusted EBITDA reconciliation in our package if you need any more. Oh, okay.
spk14: I'll go back and look at it. I didn't realize it was in there, so I apologize on that. And then the loss in real estate for EBITDA, given the relatively flat revenue numbers, what's driving that?
spk11: I think what you have in the real estate portfolio in particular is we have a triple net lease property in Atlanta. That was a single tenant lease, fully leased up until last year. We're in the process of turning that into a multi-tenant property this year. There were some delays as a result of COVID, but we're back on track in terms of getting core tenants in place. So there's some timing lag associated with that process, but we're in the process of repositioning that portfolio building.
spk14: Okay, great. And then lastly, with respect to investments, there's a question earlier on crypto. To the extent Carl does start getting involved in it one way or the other, when you guys report, will that end up being factored into the net equity or the net credit portion of how you're going to be reporting things, if you were to start getting along that? Or would it end up being a separate line altogether?
spk11: I think if we actually get into crypto, to your point, and have it as a significant investment, we'll actually consider identifying that as other, I imagine, at this point in time.
spk14: Okay. Fantastic. Thank you, guys.
spk16: Thank you. I'm showing no further questions in the queue. I would now like to turn the call back over to management for closing remarks.
spk11: Thank you, operator. And thanks, everyone, for your questions. We are looking forward to following up with you in our third quarter update coming up. Up until that time, we wish you have a happy morning and a good rest of the day. Thanks a lot.
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