The Greenbrier Companies, Inc.

Hello and welcome to the Greenbrier Company's first quarter of fiscal 2025 earnings conference call. Following today's presentation, we will conduct a question and answer session. Each analyst should limit themselves to one question with a follow-up if needed. Until that time, all lines will be in a listen-only mode. At the request of the Greenbrier Companies, this conference call is being recorded for instant replay purposes. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Justin Roberts, Vice President and Treasurer. Mr. Roberts, you may begin.

Thank you, Gary. Good afternoon, and welcome to our first quarter of 2025 conference call. Today, I'm joined by Lori Ticorius, Greenbrier CEO and President, Brian Comstock, Executive Vice President and President of the Americas, and Michael Donfris, Senior Vice President and CFO. Following our update on Greenbrier's Q1 performance and our outlook for the remainder of fiscal 25, we will open up the call for questions. Our earnings release and supplemental slide presentation can be found on the IR section of our website. Matters discussed on today's conference call include forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Throughout our discussion today, we will describe some of the important factors that could cause Greenbrier's actual results in 2025 and beyond to differ materially from those expressed in any forward-looking statement made by or on behalf of Greenbrier. Today, we will refer to recurring revenue throughout our comments. Recurring revenue is defined as leasing and fleet management revenue excluding the impact of syndication activity. With that, I'll hand the call over to Lori.

Thank you, Justin. And good afternoon, everyone. Happy New Year. As a new calendar year begins, our fiscal 2025 is well underway. Our strong performance in the first quarter builds on our accomplishments from the prior year. But our focus remains on generating more bottom-line results over a range of market conditions. In Q1, Greenberg generated EBITDA of $145 million, along with a robust aggregate gross margin of 19.8%. reflecting a 480 basis point year-over-year improvement. Over the last year, we achieved our highest aggregate gross margin since the peak years of the last decade, and today's market conditions are not as robust as that last peak, yet Greenberg is much stronger. More precisely, we're generating near-record earnings in a new railcar demand environment that is roughly half of the prior peak years. Since launching our Better Together strategy just two years ago, we've made significant progress in enhancing our manufacturing gross margin, which is a key contributor to our Q1 performance. Michael will provide more details on our financial performance for the quarter shortly. Our guidance for fiscal 2025 remains unchanged. Policy actions over the coming months by the incoming administration and Congress will help clarify the business environment in which we and our customers can expect to operate over the next few years. As Brian will discuss, the conversations we've been having with customers support a constructive demand outlook for the next few years. We at Greenbrier are currently on a multi-year journey to evolve our business and remain intent on executing our strategy regardless of market conditions. We're focused on increasing manufacturing productivity, limiting the impact of industry cyclicality on our results, and optimizing our business to unlock greater efficiencies. We continue to execute upon important strategic initiatives to ensure Greenbar's long-term prosperity. One of these initiatives is an organizational redesign that led to the combination of our manufacturing and maintenance services units into one reportable segment, Manufacturing. which operates alongside the renamed leasing and fleet management segment. Our new reporting convention aligns with our operating structure and allows us to function as a more thoughtful, holistic, and streamlined organization. This integrated approach situates us to maximize future opportunities. In our markets, the freight rail industry remains fundamentally healthy. In North America, rail traffic is projected to pick up as we move through 2025, and therefore railroad velocity will be under pressure, which benefits rail car demand. North American rail car fleet utilization is about 81%, with 318,000 units in storage. The actual surplus of rail cars is lower than reported, since many rail cars in storage are either candidates for replacement, out of regulatory compliance, or support commodities in secular decline, like coal. Fleet utilization is expected to remain generally steady, but we believe it will come down slightly during 2025 as North American railcar deliveries outpace retirements. Our European backlog remains healthy and our sales pipeline is strong as the commercial team continues to execute, including lease originations. As a reminder, The expansion into lease originations in Europe allows us to stabilize our production activity similar to what we do in North America and is integral to the long-term performance of our European business. Lastly, in Brazil, we're observing an increase in demand as customers finalize infrastructure investments and transition to purchasing rail cars. Greenberg is uniquely positioned to deliver strong performance across all market conditions and in every geography where we operate. I'm extremely optimistic about our future. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Brian, who will discuss our operating activities in greater detail.