Triton International Limited

Good morning and welcome to the Triton International Limited 4th Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by 0. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then 1 on your touchtone phone. To withdraw from the question queue, please press star then 2. Please note this event is being recorded. I would like to turn the conference over to Michael Pearl, CFO. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Anthony. Good morning, and thank you for joining us on today's call. We are here to discuss Triton's fourth quarter and full year 2022 results, which were reported this morning. Joining me on today's call from Triton is Brian Sondy, our CEO, and John O'Callaghan, our head of global marketing and operations. Before I turn the call over to Brian, I would like to note that our prepared remarks will follow along with the presentation that can be found in the investor section of our website under investor presentations. I'd like to direct you to slide two of that presentation and remind you that today's presentation includes forward-looking statements that reflects Triton's current view with respect to future events, financial performance, and industry conditions. These forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties. Triton has provided additional information in its reports on file with the SEC concerning factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in this presentation, and we encourage you to review these factors. In addition, reconciliations of non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measure are included in our earnings release and the presentation. I will now turn the call over to Brian.

Thanks, Michael. Welcome to Triton International's fourth quarter and full year 2022 earnings conference call. Before I start with our formal presentation, I would like to congratulate Michael on his promotion to Chief Financial Officer and welcome him to our quarterly calls. Congratulations, Michael. I'll now start with slide three of our presentation. Triton's strong results in the fourth quarter kept an outstanding year for the company. In the fourth quarter, we generated $2.76 of adjusted net income per share and achieved an annualized return on equity of 25.4%. For the full year of 2022, we generated $11.32 of adjusted earnings per share and achieved a return on equity of 28.4%. Our 2022 adjusted earnings per share were up more than 20% from 2021, which had been a record year for Triton. Our market environment slowed in 2022, following nearly two years of exceptional container demand. Trade volumes have retreated from the 2020-21 surge. Consumers are shifting spending back from goods to services, and the various headwinds facing the global economy are hitting trade as well. In addition, the logistical bottlenecks that impacted pandemic-era supply chains have eased, speeding container turn times and freeing container capacity. As a result, most of our customers are off-hiring containers, and our utilization is gradually decreasing from last year's record level. We expect our performance will remain strong despite the challenging environment. We have significant operational and financial advantages in our market. The large number of containers we purchased over the last few years are locked away on long-duration, high IRR leases. We have strengthened our overall lease portfolio The vast majority of our containers are on multi-year long-term leases. We have significantly increased the average remaining duration of our leases, and almost 60% of our containers are on lifecycle leases, which are structured to keep containers on higher until the end of their leasing lives. We have also locked in low-cost financing with long-term fixed-rate debt. We continue to use our strong cash flow to drive shareholder value. We shifted our investment focus from fleet growth in 2021 to share repurchases in 2022. We purchased over 9.1 million shares in 2022, representing nearly 14 percent of our outstanding shares at the beginning of the year, while also decreasing our leverage. Market conditions are currently challenging, but we expect our financial performance will remain strong. We expect our adjusted earnings per share will decrease from the fourth to the first quarter as negative seasonality adds pressure to the generally soft market conditions. In addition, we do not expect the recurring items, assuming the non-recurring items, which benefited the fourth quarter will reoccur. But we expect our utilization will remain high and expect our share repurchases will remain highly accretive. Overall, we expect our cash flow, profitability, and return on equity will remain strong. throughout 2023 and into the longer term. I'll now hand the call over to John O'Callaghan, our Global Head of Marketing and Operations.

John O' Thank you, Brian. Page four shows Triton operating metrics. In the lower left chart, you can see the monthly trend of our pickup and drop-off activity. Pickup volumes decelerated in the first half of 2022, though drop-offs remained low as shipping lines contended with the lingering effects of port congestion and other supply chain bottlenecks. We started to see drop-offs accelerate in the third quarter as our customers reacted to a muted peak season and an easing of logistical bottlenecks. This continued through the fourth quarter as the lines started to rebalance their fleets in response to declining trade volumes. The result of this increase in drop-off volumes is a gradual reduction in our utilization rate, as shown in the upper left chart. Nevertheless, utilization rate is high at 97.6%, reflecting the durable protection provided by our long-term and finance leases, which now make up over 88% of our lease portfolio, as weighted by net book value. A key part of our enhanced lease protection has been the increase in the percentage of our containers on lifecycle lease, as shown on the upper right. In the chart, you can see that nearly 60% of our containers are on lifecycle leases, which are structured to keep containers on hire through their full remaining leasing life, and so have very little utilization risk. The bubble chart on the lower right shows the volume of our new dry container transaction activity. The volume of new container leases has significantly decreased as a result of the market environment changes and our clients' increased emphasis on operational effectiveness. Page five illustrates the shipping market is normalizing following two years of exceptional conditions. In the upper left chart, you can see the spot freight rates for our customers have decreased steeply over the last few quarters in response to cooling trade activity and have returned to pre-pandemic levels on most trade lanes. In the upper right, you can see that new container prices have also normalized as container capacity is no longer in shortage and demand for new containers has eased. The chart on the lower right looks at an index of used container sale prices. Used prices have come down in concert with new container prices although we continue to generate solid disposal gains in the fourth quarter. Finally, on the lower left, you can see that port congestion has mostly dissipated, as reduced trade volumes and improved productivity have allowed ports to work through their vessel backlog. Page 6. Page 6 looks at the supply of new and used containers, as well as new container production volume. which have decreased in response to slower demand. The chart at the upper left shows the inventory of new containers awaiting deployment. After reaching historically low levels in 2021, factory inventory is now back around the long-term average as a percent of the total dry container fleet. You can see in the lower left that Triton's depot inventory of used containers has grown, reflecting the increased pace of off-hours. Relative to our fleet size, our depot inventory remains very low, and we expect it to remain well under control due to the durable enhancements we've made to our lease portfolio. Importantly, the vast majority of our depot stocks are located in key demand locations in Asia, and we expect the containers to go on hire quickly as the market enters the next upcycle. 2022 production orders, as shown by the graphs on the right, dropped by more than 50% year over year in response to our customers' shift from aggressively adding containers in 2021 back to fleet efficiency. As you can see in the lower right chart, production volumes dropped way below the replacement range as demand decreased through the fourth quarter of 2022. The market has a natural balance of new container production and we expect very limited production of new containers in the first half of 2023. We have talked in the past about the short order cycle for containers, which is just a few months, and the natural order of how container production, as well as the overall container fleet, adjusts quickly to changes in the global container supply and demand balance. I'll now hand you over to Michael Pearl, our CFO.

Thank you, John. On slide seven, we have presented our consolidated financial results. Adjusted net income for the fourth quarter was $160.7 million, or $2.76 per share, a decrease of 4.2% from the third quarter. For the full year of 2022, adjusted net income was $702.8 million, or $11.32 per share, an increase of 23.6% from 2021. This outstanding performance represents another record year of earnings that is built upon our impressive results from last year. In addition, we achieved an annualized return on equity of 25.4% in the fourth quarter and a return on equity of 28.4% for the full year. On slide eight, I will discuss the key drivers of our performance, focusing on the sequential changes from the third to the fourth quarter. Limited CapEx led to a 1.7% decrease in our average revenue earning assets in the fourth quarter. Average utilization for the quarter was down 70 basis points due to more challenging market conditions, but still remains very high and is supported by our well-structured, long-duration leases. Driven in part by an increase in storage costs, we saw operating expense increase by $7.7 million in the quarter. This increase was partially offset by an increase in revenue for repairs and handling costs that are rebuilt to our customers. Interest expense increased slightly in the quarter, as higher rates somewhat offset the decrease in our average debt balance. However, our effective interest rate remained low, as we continued to benefit from the high portion of our debt that is fixed at attractive levels. At year end, 88% of our debt was either fixed or swapped to fixed. Gain on sale and trading margin decreased 11% in the fourth quarter, but still remains at a high level, and we continue to see pricing well above our residual values. The fourth quarter included several unusual items that added 13 cents per share to our earnings. We recorded a $3 million benefit from the reversal of a credit charge taken earlier this year and the recovery from a default that occurred several years ago. We also had $4.8 million of gains from lease buyout transactions that benefited gain on sale. We do not expect these items to reoccur in the first quarter. As Brian mentioned earlier, we continue to use our strong cash flow to actively buy back shares, resulting in a continued decrease in our share count. Slide 9 demonstrates the meaningful increase in our leasing margin over the last several years and the durable enhancements we have made to help support this high level of profitability into the future. The chart on the left of the page shows this increase in leasing margin, which has been driven by several factors, including our elevated level of investment in high returning leases, attractive transactions for existing depot units, exceptional levels of utilization, and the impact from our significant refinancing activity. We have created a new level of durable profitability, and the chart on the right of the page show what we have done to help lock in this high level of leasing margin. The chart in the upper right shows the evolution of our leasing portfolio. The combination of new long-duration leases, along with attractive terms on renewals and depot pickups, have enabled us to extend our average lease duration to almost 80 months. And as of the end of the year, 88% of our units by book value were either on long-term or finance leases. The chart in the lower right illustrates the improvements we have made to our debt structure. We have locked in long-duration financing at low levels that will help keep the effective interest rate on our current fleet from meaningfully increasing over the next several years. I will now turn the call over to Brian.

Thanks, Michael. Slide 10 summarizes the cash flow power of our business. In 2022, we generated slightly over $1.6 billion of cash flow. We need to allocate a little more than half of this cash flow for replacement capital spending in order to maintain our fleet size as containers age out of service. This leaves us with a little over $700 million of steady state cash flow. We use roughly $160 million per year for our regular dividend. As a result, we have about $545 million of steady state cash flow after our substantial regular dividend. The next set of numbers shows a few things that we can do with this $545 million. and illustrates where we're able to create value across a wide range of market environments. If we focus on capital investment, like we did in 2021, we can self-fund the equity needed for nearly 20% asset growth while keeping our leverage ratio constant. Alternatively, if we focus on share repurchases, like we are now, we can repurchase about 13% of our shares at their current trading range. If we wanted instead to focus on dividends, we could pay well over $9 per share on top of our regular dividend, bringing the total annual dividend into the range of $12 per share. We've also included a table at the bottom of the slide that shows how we're able to use our strong cash flow to drive per share fleet growth almost regardless of market conditions, again, while holding our leverage ratio steady. Revenue-earning assets per share have increased from $134 per share at the end of 2020 to $199 per share at the end of 2022, an increase of almost 50% across two very different market environments. This strong growth in our assets per share is another key reason we expect our higher level of financial performance will be durable. Slide 11 looks at how Triton has created long-term value. Triton is a scale, cost, and capability leader in a fundamentally attractive market. And we have a long history of delivering solid growth, strong profitability, and above-market shareholder returns. The chart on the upper left looks at the long-term growth of our container fleet. We have grown the net book value of our fleet 8% annually over the last 17 years. The chart on the upper right looks at our long-term cash flow before capital spending. You can see how our cash flow has increased as we have grown our fleet. And you can see the stability of our cash flow even in very challenging years for the global economy. The chart on the lower left shows how we've used our cash flow to both reinvest in our business and regularly return cash to shareholders. At the time of TAO's IPO in 2005, TAL had an adjusted netbook value of around $12 per share. Our adjusted netbook value has increased steadily, recently at an accelerated pace, and is now almost $50 per share. We have also paid over $30 per share in dividends. And as you can see in the lower right, we have generated a 15% annual total shareholder return since our 2005 IPO. significantly outperforming the S&P 500. I'll talk about our outlook on slide 12. As you can see in the chart, we expect our adjusted earnings per share will decrease from the fourth quarter of 2022 to the first quarter of 2023. This reflects the combination of several factors. The first quarter is typically the slow season for dry containers. which adds pressure to the generally slow market conditions. In addition, the first quarter has two fewer days, and we charge our customers on a daily usage basis. We also do not expect the unusual items, which added 13 cents to the fourth quarter, will be repeated. We expect the mix of factors will be different after the first quarter and expect the pressure on our key operating metrics and profitability will ease. Seasonality typically improves as we move toward the summer, and we expect customer off-hires will slow due to this positive seasonality and as their excess container inventories shrink. We expect sale prices will stabilize after they return from elevated to normal ratios compared to new container prices, and we expect we'll continue to benefit from ongoing share repurchases. The chart also highlights the durable enhancements we've made to our business We expect our 2023 earnings per share to be in the range of two times our pre-pandemic level, despite the challenging market environment. I'll finish the presentation with slide 13. Triton has an exceptional franchise, and we delivered outstanding performance in 2022. Our market is currently challenging, but we are confident about our performance and optimistic about our opportunities. We have significant market advantages that have made durable enhancements to our business. We expect our profitability and return on equity will remain high. We are confident we will continue to build shareholder value quickly, even while the market remains slow. Entriton will be ready to support our customers and well positioned to capitalize on renewed fleet investment opportunities when market conditions inevitably inflect positively. We'll now open up the call for questions.

We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then 1 on your touch-tone phone. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your hands after pressing the keys. To withdraw from the question queue, please press star then 2. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. Our first question will come from Larry Solo with CJS Securities. You may now go ahead.

Great. Thank you so much. Good morning, everybody. I guess my first question, Brian, it's sort of just like a high-level question. You discussed things that seem to be normalizing, a lot less congestion. I'm curious just on the fleet size, the shipping container fleets. Do you feel like, you know, are they inflated versus historical? I'm just trying to get if you have any color or feel for that. Do they plan on, you know, do you feel like they'll remain higher than where we were just because of all this stuff that happened with the ports and maybe shippers don't want to risk that happening again? Just kind of getting a feel, your feel, if there is one, of directionally where the size of these fleets, you know, or what they are today and where they might be, you know, in a couple of years.

Yeah, sure. Thanks for your question, Larry. We look at what happened over the last couple of years. We saw very large new container production volumes in 2021, and it was large to accommodate both the surge in trade volumes as well as just a variety of pandemic-era bottlenecks like waiting times at the ports and a shortage of truckers. And when we look at the level of production in 2021, say, compared to trade growth, we estimate that there were something in the range of probably 5% to 10% too many containers in the fleets of our customers when market conditions slowed during the middle of 2022 and as the bottlenecks eased. And so that still is our estimate, that something in the range of the fleet has to normalize between 5% and 10% to bring container supply and demand back into balance. Fortunately, one of the great strengths of our business is that there's a short order cycle for containers, typically only a few months, and we've already seen new container production volumes fall significantly to the point now where the container fleet is shrinking month over month. And even though the economy outlook is tough, I think the outlook for trade growth is still somewhat positive, and that eats into that excess as well. And I think, as you maybe referred to in your question, we do expect customers to hang on to a little bit more container fleet, say, resiliency than they had before the pandemic when their focus was almost exclusively on efficiency. And so, You know, I think it really is a question of just how long it takes for, you know, the reduction in the container fleet through low production and ongoing sales. And then that coupled with, you know, hopefully some trade growth as, you know, inventories normalize and, you know, retailers and wholesalers start stocking the shelves again. And then, you know, just I think some extra containers in the fleet due to the focus of our customers on resiliency and perhaps some of the impacts of slow steaming due to the tighter IMO rules on emissions and and also just the cost savings that customers get from that. So I think those variety of things have to happen, and, you know, they'll happen, you know, we'll see when, but it's already underway.

Gotcha. And then in terms of just container purchases, or for you guys, it looks like you basically were close to your sort of maintenance level in 22. For your example, you repurchased almost 14% of your share, so it kind of matched your example there, but I'm just curious. You're spending, obviously, your trajectory in the back half of the year. You spent less than $200 million, I think, $50 million in Q4. And it sounds like maybe this year starts off slow, or I realize some of this is just replacement. So how should we kind of think about any gauge and what spending will be this year? Is it potentially below that maintenance level?

Yeah, our level of spending was around the replacement level in the first part of 2022-2022. You know, it fell below the replacement level towards the back half as the market really slowed down and our fleet size, you know, decreased a little bit during 2022, you know, especially in the second half. You know, right now we're investing at below our replacement level just because there's not, you know, much need for our customers for additional containers. You know, that said, we do try to anticipate the change in market dynamics and we try to invest ahead of that inflection. And so, you know, we do expect at some point here we're going to turn the taps back on for repurchases, both anticipating the market inflection and then obviously to serve it when it occurs. But in the meantime, we do remain quite focused on share repurchases. We think that's a great use of our capital and build shareholder value quickly for our shareholders. And so, again, for the moment, we're focusing on share repurchases, but that will change.

Great. If I could just click one more in. From Michael, first of all, congratulations and welcome. Just on the direct operating expenses line item, I think you kind of called this out a little bit. Directionally, I see why it went up. It went up a little bit more than I thought, but I guess perhaps most of that was due to this sort of repair handling costs where you guys get reimbursed for it. Was that higher than normal this quarter? And that kind of drove that direct expense number a little bit higher sequentially?

Yeah, there's sort of two parts in there. One is storage. So as we showed, utilization is down a little bit, so we do experience higher storage expense. And then with pickups and drop-offs from our customers, that does generate answerly fees. So some of that shows up in OPEX, but then there's also some offsets in the revenue line as well for that. Got it.

Okay, great. I appreciate that. Thanks, everybody.

Our next questions will come from Michael Brown with KBW. You may now go ahead.

Great. Hi. Good morning. How are you guys? Hey, Michael.

Good. Thank you. Great. So I was looking at your EPS range for 2023 and just wanted to see if you could put a little bit more meat on the bone to help us understand what's the difference between how you're thinking about the lower bound and the upper bound and And, you know, what would cause you to maybe deliver results closer to the, you know, upper bound versus the lower bound, which we think about there?

Yeah, so I think mainly it's just what happens to the market. And so, you know, I think if we were to be at the lower, you know, bound of expectations, that just means that, you know, the market has evolved a little bit slower than we expected, that that supply and demand normalization took more time than we'd hoped. And And perhaps that new container prices fell to ranges below where we had expected, which can push used container prices down. So in general, it just reflects probably a little more utilization pressure than we expect to see that perhaps we don't see any kind of positive seasonality as we move from the first to the second quarter for our utilization or sale results. I think that kind of tracks the lower bound. The lower bound is pretty well protected by the leasing margin and the strength of the lease portfolio. you know, the quickest thing that adjusts downwards is the gain on sale. And, you know, the gain on sale was quite high in 2020, even through the fourth quarter. You know, sale prices held up very well. And we continue to expect that to normalize down. But once, you know, as I pointed out in my repair remarks, you know, once we see the ratio of used prices and new prices, you know, get back into something of a normal range, you know, we do expect that reduction to, you know, to slow down. And, I guess perhaps the lower bound might also be defined if that normalization doesn't happen and sale prices go to be lower ratios than they typically are, which we don't expect. I'd say in the upper end of the bound is just the opposite of those things, that we see customers, their fleet stabilizing as we head towards the peak season. Perhaps we see an inventory restocking cycle in the U.S. that drives some trade volume. And, you know, we just see utilization, you know, stabilize, you know, better than we'd expected and maybe even start picking upward. You know, typically, when we do see container supply and demand back into balance, we can get our used equipment back on higher quickly. And so, really, it's just, you know, again, we've got a pretty good floor performance because of our lease portfolio. And again, I'd like to point out, as I did in the prepared remarks, that even that lower bound is something in the range of two times our pre-pandemic performance. And so, We do expect to hang on to a lot of the benefits of our recent investments and lease portfolio improvements. And then up from there, really just as the market improves.

Okay, great.

So, yeah, you've got clearly some very different scenarios to consider. Thanks for giving us all that guidance and color. Brian, what have been some of your early observations after China's reopening here? What are customers saying and what have you guys noticed in terms of how that has impacted containerized trade, if at all yet?

Yeah, so I think the main thing I'd like to point out that for us, you know, as a leasing company, you know, what we really focus on is the head haul trade. You know, that really is what drives the customer's need for, you know, for more equipment or perhaps if they have too much equipment. And so, you know, really what drives demand for our fleet is consumption in the U.S. and consumption in Europe, you know, as opposed to, you know, economic activity in China or consumption there. I mean, obviously there's a connection, you know, that there were certainly times in 2020 and 21 and maybe a little bit early in 22, you know, when, you know, retailers and wholesalers in the U.S. and Europe couldn't get everything they wanted. And so what was happening in China, you know, impacted trade volumes significantly. The sense I have now is that with most, certainly I think retailers and so on, being overstocked in the U.S. and in Europe, that we haven't seen a bump in trade volumes as China has reopened on the head-haul trades, which are, again, driven by consumption here.

Okay, great. Thank you for taking my questions. Thanks, Michael.

Our next question will come from Ken Hoekster with Bank of America. You may now go ahead.

Hey, team. This is Adam Ruszkowski on for Ken Hexter. Thanks for taking my question. So just first off, could you, maybe Brian, just run through what percentage of boxes will expire this year in 24, 25, just to get a sense of the exposure to some of those rolling off?

Yeah, sure. So I think both Michael and John O'Callaghan referred to the fact that something like 88% of our container fleet, as weighted by net book value, is locked in on longer-term leases. And so just naturally, there can't be too much that's expiring. What we tend to focus on when we think of expirations and sort of market risk and earnings risk are the portion of the fleet that's expiring that would have to be remarketed. We find even when market conditions are tough, we usually generate gains on selling our used containers. And so we typically don't look at that as providing too much exposure to challenges in any given year. And so we typically include, and it's in this presentation, a chart showing what percentage of our fleet is expiring, well, is already expired, and that is expiring over the next few years and each of those years for equipment that we have to release at the end of the current lease. And that's page 15 in the investor chart. What that shows is for our dry containers and reefers, something like a little under 2.5% of the fleet by CEU is already expired and needs to be remarketed when it comes back to us. And then an additional little bit over 5% will expire during the course of 2023. Again, containers that are expiring and will still be leasing life and need to be remarketed. So in total, something in the range of 7% to 8% of our fleet is expired. expiring off-lease this year or already expired and needs to be remarketed, that is a very low number for us historically. Probably the last time we went into slower periods in the market in 2015 or 2019, those numbers were probably two to three times higher. And it's one of the reasons why we look at going forward and feel we've got a very nice projection for profitability and returns, even if market conditions remain challenging for some time.

Got it. Thanks for that. And then maybe just on utilization, you know, how should we think about sort of a floor level for utilization given the high mix of lifecycle leases that you've built in here? Any thoughts around that?

Yeah. So, again, because of what you're talking about, the lifecycle leases and just what I was saying before, this very high percentage of containers locked away on multi-year leases, you know, we do think the floor of utilization, you know, is going to be high. You know, we've we include a lot of long-term statistics in our operating deck, but you can see that, you know, that's sort of, say, a low point for utilization, if you go back to some of the charts we've shown in previous years, you know, has been increasing, you know, from something we got down to maybe 90% floor utilization in the financial crisis, you know, perhaps 92, 93 in the industrial recession in 2015 and 16, you know, got down to maybe 95% during the trade war of 2019 and the COVID lockdowns in the first part of 20. And, you know, it's been an increasing slope. We're hopeful. you know, that we'll continue to see that increase and that we'll, you know, see our utilization bottom, you know, somewhere in the mid to upper 90s, you know, during this cycle. But again, we'll have to see how things progress. And, you know, obviously, if the cycle is somehow worse than prior cycles, that would offset some of the benefit of the improved lease portfolio. But overall, we're very confident that our performance, you know, our utilization, sort of our key, you know, leasing metrics will stay very strong because of the portfolio.

Got it. Thank you. And just the last follow-up, maybe just talk about, you know, day rates, where they are now versus, you know, a year ago and how you see that progressing. And then on the trading revenue side, you know, they were down. But maybe just give some color, you know, are liners looking to unload more boxes right now? And just kind of help me think through that.

Yeah, so maybe just when it comes to sort of market leasing rates, you know, we saw market leasing rates reach all-time record levels in 2021 and the very early days of 2022, just because box prices were very high, close to two times the average for box prices. And since, I'd say, summer of 2022, we haven't seen a lot of leasing activity. Customers, as I was saying, are generally overboxed. And where we do see activity, it's very sort of small shipping lines might have requirements on a location and day basis just because they ran out for whatever operational reasons in certain locations. But rates have come down. And so I think the best thing to look at is new container prices. And new container prices peaked at close to $4,000 in either late 21 or early 22. We estimate right now, we haven't bought containers for a while for the leasing fleet, but but we believe it's in the range of $2,150 or so, $2,200 for new container prices. That's up a little bit from where it was at a low point, perhaps in October, November. But that means lease rates, when the market tightens and we start doing transactions again, we'll be centered around wherever container prices happen to be at the time.

Got it. Thanks for taking my questions.

Our next question will come from Liam Burke with B. Reilly. You may now go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, Michael. Good morning, Brian. Good morning.

Brian, has there been any discussion? I know the liners or the container shippers are pretty strong in terms of balance sheets, so there's not a lot of fussing there. But is there any talk of any change in duration or rate on existing contracts?

Yeah, so maybe just as you point out, you know, one of the things that is very nice to point in the cycle is that, you know, in prior down cycles in the shipping industry, you know, there's always a lot of questions we get from investors. And obviously we look very carefully, too, on the credit condition of our customer base. And, you know, just the profitability, you know, and also the leveraging that's happened in the shipping industry has been extraordinary. You know, so, you know, we look at the credit of our customers as being in great shape, you know, despite the fact that they're heading into, you know, a more challenging period. And also just worthwhile noting for our customers, too, that when people talk about what's going on in the shipping cycle, you know, that the ship orders, you know, have a very different order cycle than containers, that we expect to see the vessel fleet continue to grow in 2023 and 24, you know, where we're already seeing the container fleet shrinking. And so, again, it's that kind of core difference in, you know, the cycle for our market, you know, relative to cycle for our customers, the shipping lines. You know, in terms of the focus on lease durations, we've actually found that, you know, over the last number of years, and we think it's going to continue, That there's a kind of a win-win, you know, thing we're seeing where customers are willing to keep containers on hire for long periods of time, primarily on lifecycle leases for used equipment. You know, we like that because it takes volatility out of our business and gets us extra revenue years. And the customers, you know, do it for several reasons, not, you know, just because we push for it. But, you know, we're able to give the customers discount on the per diem rates in return for extra years of duration. just because we think of the releasing activity and the renewals on an NPV basis. And then also we're able to give our customers much greater logistical flexibility, which can have real backhaul savings for them by giving our ability to sell containers all over the world, in particular in inland locations. And so we've just kind of seen this general migration where maybe in the past we had put a container on a long-term lease at the beginning and then several iterations or shorter-term leases, where now it really has become kind of a two-step model you know, an initial lease for new equipment that goes from in normal years, five to eight years, last year or 2021, you know, out to kind of 11, 12, 13 years. And then very often either the renewal, you know, or the pickup of used equipment is on to a lifecycle lease that in many cases can carry out well past year 15. Great. Thank you, Brian.

Michael, 12% of your debt is not fixed. How do you look at that in terms of capital allocation vis-a-vis the dividend and the buybacks?

I think most of our fixed and floating is just driven by our lease portfolio. We do try to hedge pretty much all of our long-term leases and finance leases to make sure that the the debt that's financing those containers is locked in as the revenues are locked in. So that's really how we, you know, manage that kind of fixed floating balance, which is why, you know, it's in that kind of upper 80% category, which is also, you know, generally aligned with, you know, what our lease portfolio looks like.

Right. But during the year, last year, you did reduce, I mean, your net debt was reduced 22 over 21. Is there any thought on the portion that is not fixed or hedged on reducing that, or are you going to maintain certain levels of debt for capital efficiency, and then just buy back stock or pay dividends?

Our leverage has been, I'd say, leverage has been pretty consistent. That's something, I think, as Brian mentioned, that we're able to use tremendous cash flow to not only increase or buybacks or buyback at a high level, but also de-lever a little bit throughout the year. So that's kind of one decision point. I think how much is fixed or floating is more driven by the characteristics of our lease portfolio, if that makes sense.

And when we think of leverage, we typically look at the ratio of our net debt compared to our revenue-earning assets and actually adjust it a little bit for preferred stock and for some customer prepayments. But generally speaking, we try to keep that ratio consistent in a relatively constant place. And so if assets are shrinking like they did toward the end of last year, usually we're paying down debt in addition to using cash flow to buy back stock. And if assets are growing, usually we're issuing new debt to finance at least a portion of that asset growth, again, maintaining constant leverage ratios. And as Michael said, we look at the amount of debt and the balance of fixed and floating as being somewhat disconnected with the amount of debt being targeted towards keeping our ratios constant and the fixed and floating mixed you know, really oriented around making sure that we're properly hedging our long-term lease portfolio.

Great. Thank you, Brian. Thank you, Michael.

Thanks, Leon.

This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Brian Sonday for any closing remarks.

I'd just like to thank everyone for your continued interest and support for Triton.

Thank you.

The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect. Thank you. you Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Good morning and welcome to the Triton International Limited Fourth Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal Conference Specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then 1 on your touchtone phone. To withdraw from the question queue, please press star then 2. Please note this event is being recorded. I'd like to turn the conference over to Michael Pearl, CFO. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Anthony. Good morning, and thank you for joining us on today's call. We are here to discuss Triton's fourth quarter and full year 2022 results, which were reported this morning. Joining me on today's call from Triton is Brian Sondy, our CEO, and John O'Callaghan, our head of global marketing and operations. Before I turn the call over to Brian, I would like to note that our prepared remarks will follow along with a presentation that can be found in the investor section of our website under investor presentations. I'd like to direct you to slide two of that presentation and remind you that today's presentation includes forward-looking statements that reflects Triton's current view with respect to future events, financial performance, and industry conditions. These forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties. Triton has provided additional information in its reports on file with the SEC concerning factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in this presentation, and we encourage you to review these factors. In addition, reconciliations of non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measure are included in our earnings release and the presentation. I will now turn the call over to Brian.

Thanks, Michael. Welcome to Triton International's fourth quarter and full year 2022 earnings conference call. Before I start with our formal presentation, I would like to congratulate Michael on his promotion to Chief Financial Officer and welcome him to our quarterly calls. Congratulations, Michael. I'll now start with slide three of our presentation. Triton's strong results in the fourth quarter kept an outstanding year for the company. In the fourth quarter, we generated $2.76 of adjusted income per share and achieved an annualized return on equity of 25.4%. For the full year of 2022, we generated $11.32 of adjusted earnings per share and achieved a return on equity of 28.4%. Our 2022 adjusted earnings per share were up more than 20% from 2021. which had been a record year for Triton. Our market environment slowed in 2022, following nearly two years of exceptional container demand. Trade volumes have retreated from the 2020-21 surge. Consumers are shifting spending back from goods to services, and the various headwinds facing the global economy are hitting trade as well. In addition, the logistical bottlenecks that impacted pandemic-era supply chains have eased. speeding container turn times, and freeing container capacity. As a result, most of our customers are off-hiring containers, and our utilization is gradually decreasing from last year's record level. We expect our performance will remain strong despite the challenging environment. We have significant operational and financial advantages in our market. The large number of containers we purchased over the last few years are locked away a long duration, high IRR leases. We have strengthened our overall lease portfolio. The vast majority of our containers are on multi-year long-term leases. We have significantly increased the average remaining duration of our leases, and almost 60% of our containers are on lifecycle leases, which are structured to keep containers on higher until the end of their leasing lives. We have also locked in low-cost financing with long-term fixed-rate debt. We continued to use our strong cash flow to drive shareholder value. We shifted our investment focus from fleet growth in 2021 to share repurchases in 2022. We purchased over 9.1 million shares in 2022, representing nearly 14% of our outstanding shares at the beginning of the year, while also decreasing our leverage. Market conditions are currently challenging. but we expect our financial performance will remain strong. We expect our adjusted earnings per share will decrease from the fourth to the first quarter as negative seasonality adds pressure to the generally soft market conditions. In addition, we do not expect the recurring items, assuming the non-recurring items, which benefited the fourth quarter will reoccur. But we expect our utilization will remain high and expect our share repurchases will remain highly accretive. Overall, We expect our cash flow, profitability, and return on equity will remain strong throughout 2023 and into the longer term. I'll now hand the call over to John O'Callaghan, our Global Head of Marketing and Operations.

John O' Thank you, Brian. Page four shows Triton operating metrics. In the lower left chart, you can see the monthly trend of our pickup and drop-off activity. Pickup volumes decelerated in the first half of 2022, though drop-offs remained low as shipping lines contended with the lingering effects of port congestion and other supply chain bottlenecks. We started to see drop-offs accelerate in the third quarter as our customers reacted to a muted peak season and an easing of logistical bottlenecks. This continued through the fourth quarter as the lines started to rebalance their fleets in response to declining trade volumes. The result of this increase in drop-off volumes is a gradual reduction in our utilization rate, as shown in the upper left chart. Nevertheless, utilization rates high at 97.6%, reflecting the durable protection provided by our long-term and finance leases, which now make up over 88% of our lease portfolio, as weighted by net book value. A key part of our enhanced lease protection has been the increase in the percentage of our containers on lifecycle lease, as shown on the upper right. In the chart, you can see that nearly 60% of our containers are on lifecycle leases, which are structured to keep containers on hire through their full remaining leasing life, and so have very little utilization risk. The bubble chart on the lower right shows the volume of our new dry container transaction activity. The volume of new container leases has significantly decreased as a result of the market environment changes and our clients' increased emphasis on operational effectiveness. Page five illustrates the shipping market is normalizing following two years of exceptional conditions. In the upper left chart, you can see the spot freight rates for our customers have decreased steeply over the last few quarters in response to cooling trade activity, and average returns to pre-pandemic levels on most trade lanes. In the upper right, you can see that new container prices have also normalized, as container capacity is no longer in shortage and demand for new containers has eased. The chart on the lower right looks at an index of used container sale prices. Use prices have come down in concert with new container prices, although we continue to generate solid disposal gains in the fourth quarter. Finally, on the lower left, you can see that port congestion has mostly dissipated, as reduced trade volumes and improved productivity have allowed ports to work through their vessel backlog. Page 6. Page 6 looks at the supply of new and used containers, as well as new container production volumes, which have decreased in response to slower demand. The chart at the upper left shows the inventory of new containers awaiting deployment. After reaching historically low levels in 2021, factory inventory is now back around the long-term average as a percent of the total dry container fleet. You can see in the lower left that Triton's depot inventory of used containers has grown reflecting the increased pace of off-hires. Relative to our fleet size, our depot inventory remains very low, and we expect it to remain well under control due to the durable enhancements we've made to our lease portfolio. Importantly, the vast majority of our depot stocks are located in key demand locations in Asia, and we expect the containers to go on hire quickly as the market enters the next upcycle. 2022 production orders, as shown by the graphs on the right, dropped by more than 50% year over year in response to our customers' shift from aggressively adding containers in 2021 back to fleet efficiency. As you can see in the lower right chart, production volumes dropped way below the replacement range as demand decreased through the fourth quarter of 2022. The market has a natural balance of new container production, and we expect very limited production of new containers in the first half of 2023. We have talked in the past about the short order cycle for containers, which is just a few months, and the natural order of how container production, as well as the overall container fleet, adjusts quickly to changes in the global container supply and demand balance. I'll now hand you over to Michael Pearl, our CFO.

Thank you, John. On slide seven, we have presented our consolidated financial results. Adjusted net income for the fourth quarter was $160.7 million, or $2.76 per share, a decrease of 4.2% from the third quarter. For the full year of 2022, adjusted net income was $702.8 million, or $11.32 per share, an increase of 23.6% from 2021. This outstanding performance represents another record year of earnings that is built upon our impressive results from last year. In addition, we achieved an annualized return on equity of 25.4% in the fourth quarter and a return on equity of 28.4% for the full year. On slide eight, I will discuss the key drivers of our performance, focusing on the sequential changes from the third to the fourth quarter. Limited CapEx led to a 1.7% decrease in our average revenue earning assets in the fourth quarter. Average utilization for the quarter was down 70 basis points due to more challenging market conditions, but still remains very high and is supported by our well-structured, long-duration leases. Driven in part by an increase in storage costs, we saw operating expense increase by $7.7 million in the quarter. This increase was partially offset by an increase in revenue for repairs and handling costs that are rebuilt to our customers. Interest expense increased slightly in the quarter, as higher rates somewhat offset the decrease in our average debt balance. However, our effective interest rate remained low, as we continued to benefit from the high portion of our debt that is fixed at attractive levels. At year end, 88% of our debt was either fixed or swapped to fixed. Gain on sale and trading margin decreased 11% in the fourth quarter, but still remains at a high level, and we continue to see pricing well above our residual values. The fourth quarter included several unusual items that added 13 cents per share to our earnings. We recorded a $3 million benefit from the reversal of a credit charge taken earlier this year and the recovery from a default that occurred several years ago. We also had $4.8 million of gains from lease buyout transactions that benefited gain on sale. We do not expect these items to reoccur in the first quarter. As Brian mentioned earlier, we continue to use our strong cash flow to actively buy back shares, resulting in a continued decrease in our share count. Slide 9 demonstrates the meaningful increase in our leasing margin over the last several years and the durable enhancements we have made to help support this high level of profitability into the future. The chart on the left of the page shows this increase in leasing margin, which has been driven by several factors, including our elevated level of investment in high returning leases, attractive transactions for existing depot units, exceptional levels of utilization, and the impact from our significant refinancing activity. We have created a new level of durable profitability, and the chart on the right of the page show what we have done to help lock in this high level of leasing margin. The chart in the upper right shows the evolution of our leasing portfolio. The combination of new long-duration leases, along with attractive terms on renewals and depot pickups, have enabled us to extend our average lease duration to almost 80 months. And as of the end of the year, 88% of our units by book value were either on long-term or finance leases. The chart in the lower right illustrates the improvements we have made to our debt structure. We have locked in long-duration financing at low levels that will help keep the effective interest rate on our current fleet from meaningfully increasing over the next several years. I will now turn the call over to Brian.

Thanks, Michael. Slide 10 summarizes the cash flow power of our business. In 2022, we generated slightly over $1.6 billion of cash flow. We need to allocate a little more than half of this cash flow for replacement capital spending in order to maintain our fleet size as containers age out of service. This leaves us with a little over $700 million of steady state cash flow. We use roughly $160 million per year for our regular dividend. As a result, we have about $545 million of steady state cash flow after our substantial regular dividend. The next set of numbers shows a few things that we can do with this $545 million. and illustrates where we're able to create value across a wide range of market environments. If we focus on capital investment, like we did in 2021, we can self-fund the equity needed for nearly 20% asset growth while keeping our leverage ratio constant. Alternatively, if we focus on share repurchases, like we are now, we can repurchase about 13% of our shares at their current trading range. If we wanted instead to focus on dividends, we could pay well over $9 per share on top of our regular dividend, bringing the total annual dividend into the range of $12 per share. We've also included a table at the bottom of the slide that shows how we're able to use our strong cash flow to drive per share fleet growth almost regardless of market conditions, again, while holding our leverage ratio steady. Revenue-earning assets per share have increased from $134 per share at the end of 2020 to $199 per share at the end of 2022, an increase of almost 50% across two very different market environments. This strong growth in our assets per share is another key reason we expect our higher level of financial performance will be durable. Slide 11 looks at how Triton has created long-term value. Triton is a scale, cost, and capability leader in a fundamentally attractive market. And we have a long history of delivering solid growth, strong profitability, and above market shareholder returns. The chart on the upper left looks at the long-term growth of our container fleet. We have grown the net book value of our fleet 8% annually over the last 17 years. The chart on the upper right looks at our long-term cash flow before capital spending. You can see how our cash flow has increased as we have grown our fleet. And you can see the stability of our cash flow even in very challenging years for the global economy. The chart on the lower left shows how we've used our cash flow to both reinvest in our business and regularly return cash to shareholders. At the time of TAO's IPO in 2005, TAL had an adjusted netbook value of around $12 per share. Our adjusted netbook value has increased steadily, recently at an accelerated pace, and is now almost $50 per share. We have also paid over $30 per share in dividends. And as you can see in the lower right, we have generated a 15% annual total shareholder return since our 2005 IPO. significantly outperforming the S&P 500. I'll talk about our outlook on slide 12. As you can see in the chart, we expect our adjusted earnings per share will decrease from the fourth quarter of 2022 to the first quarter of 2023. This reflects the combination of several factors. The first quarter is typically the slow season for dry containers. which adds pressure to the generally slow market conditions. In addition, the first quarter has two fewer days, and we charge our customers on a daily usage basis. We also do not expect the unusual items, which added 13 cents to the fourth quarter, will be repeated. We expect the mix of factors will be different after the first quarter and expect the pressure on our key operating metrics and profitability will ease. Seasonality typically improves as we move toward the summer, and we expect customer off-hires will slow due to this positive seasonality and as their excess container inventories shrink. We expect sale prices will stabilize after they return from elevated to normal ratios compared to new container prices, and we expect we'll continue to benefit from ongoing share repurchases. The chart also highlights the durable enhancements we've made to our business We expect our 2023 earnings per share to be in the range of two times our pre-pandemic level, despite the challenging market environment. I'll finish the presentation with slide 13. Triton has an exceptional franchise, and we delivered outstanding performance in 2022. Our market is currently challenging, but we are confident about our performance and optimistic about our opportunities. We have significant market advantages that have made durable enhancements to our business. We expect our profitability and return on equity will remain high. We are confident we will continue to build shareholder value quickly, even while the market remains slow. And Triton will be ready to support our customers and well positioned to capitalize on renewed fleet investment opportunities when market conditions inevitably inflect positively. We'll now open up the call for questions.

We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then 1 on your touch-tone phone. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your hands before pressing the keys. To withdraw from the question queue, please press star then 2. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. Our first question will come from Larry Solo with CJS Securities. You may now go ahead.

Great. Thank you so much. Good morning, everybody. I guess my first question, Brian, it's sort of just like a high-level question. You discussed things that seem to be normalizing, a lot less congestion. I'm curious just on the fleet size, the shipping container fleets. Do you feel like, you know, are they inflated versus historical? I'm just trying to get if you have any call or feel for that. Do they plan on, you know, do you feel like they'll remain higher than where we were just because of all this stuff that happened with the ports and maybe shippers don't want to risk that happening again? Just kind of getting a feel, your feel, if there is one, of directionally where the size of these fleets, you know, or what they are today and where they might be, you know, in a couple of years.

Yeah, sure. Thanks for your question, Larry. We look at what happened over the last couple of years. We saw very large new container production volumes in 2021, and it was large to accommodate both the surge in trade volumes as well as just a variety of pandemic-era bottlenecks like waiting times at the ports and a shortage of truckers. And when we look at the level of production in 2021, say, compared to trade growth, we estimate that there were something in the range of probably 5% to 10% too many containers in the fleets of our customers when market conditions slowed during the middle of 2022 and as the bottlenecks eased. And so that still is our estimate, that something in the range of the fleet has to normalize between 5% and 10% to bring container supply and demand back into balance. Fortunately, one of the great strengths of our business is that there's a short order cycle for containers, typically only a few months, and we've already seen new container production volumes fall significantly to the point now where the container fleet is shrinking month over month. And even though the economy outlook is tough, I think the outlook for trade growth is still somewhat positive. And that eats into that excess as well. And I think as you maybe referred to in your question, we do expect customers to hang on to a little bit more container fleet, say resiliency than they had before the pandemic when their focus was almost exclusively on efficiency. And so You know, I think it really is a question of just how long it takes for, you know, the reduction in the container fleet through low production and ongoing sales. And then that coupled with, you know, hopefully some trade growth as, you know, inventories normalize and, you know, retailers and wholesalers start stocking the shelves again. And then, you know, just I think some extra containers in the fleet due to the focus of our customers on resiliency and perhaps some of the impacts of slow steaming due to the tighter IMO rules on emissions and and also just the cost savings that customers get from that. So I think those variety of things have to happen, and they'll happen. We'll see when, but it's already underway.

Gotcha. And then in terms of just container purchases, or for you guys, it looks like you basically were close to your sort of maintenance level in 22. For your example, you repurchased almost 14% of your share, so it kind of matched your example there, but I'm just curious. You're spending, obviously, a trajectory in the back half of the year. You spent less than $200 million, I think, $50 million in Q4. And it sounds like maybe this year starts off slow, or I realize some of this is just replacement. So how should we kind of think about any gauge and what spending will be this year? Is it potentially below that maintenance level?

Yeah, our level of spending was around the replacement level in the first part of 2022. You know, it fell below the replacement level towards the back half as the market really slowed down and our fleet size, you know, decreased a little bit during 2022, you know, especially in the second half. You know, right now we're investing at below our replacement level just because there's not, you know, much need for our customers for additional containers. You know, that said, we do try to anticipate the change in market dynamics and we try to invest ahead of that inflection. And so, you know, we do expect at some point here we're going to turn the taps back on for repurchases, both anticipating the market inflection and then obviously to serve it when it occurs. But in the meantime, we do remain quite focused on share repurchases. We think that's a great use of our capital and build shareholder value quickly for our shareholders. And so, again, for the moment, we're focusing on share repurchases, but that will change.

Great. If I could just click one more in. From Michael, first of all, congratulations and welcome. Just on the direct operating expenses line item, I think you kind of called this out a little bit. Directionally, I see why it went up. It went up a little bit more than I thought, but I guess perhaps most of that was due to this sort of repair handling costs where you guys get reimbursed for it. Was that higher than normal this quarter? And that kind of drove that direct expense number a little bit higher sequentially?

Yeah, there's sort of two parts in there. One is storage. So as we showed, utilization is down a little bit, so we do experience higher storage expense. And then with pickups and drop-offs from our customers, that does generate answerly fees. So some of that shows up in OpEx, but then there's also some offsets in the revenue line as well for that. Got it.

Okay, great. I appreciate that. Thanks, everybody.

Our next questions will come from Michael Brown with KBW. You may now go ahead.

Great. Hi. Good morning. How are you guys? Hey, Michael. Good. Thank you.

Great. So I was looking at your EPS range for 2023 and just wanted to see if you could put a little bit more meat on the bone to help us understand what's the difference between how you're thinking about the lower bound and the upper bound and And, you know, what would cause you to maybe deliver results closer to the, you know, upper bound versus the lower bound, which we think about there?

Yeah, so I think mainly it's just what happens to the market. And so, you know, I think if we were to be at the lower, you know, bound of expectations, that just means that, you know, the market has evolved a little bit slower than we expected, that that supply and demand normalization took more time than we had hoped. And And perhaps that, you know, new container prices fell to ranges below where we had expected, which can push used container prices down. You know, so in general, it just reflects, you know, probably a little more, you know, utilization pressure than we expect to, you know, to see that, you know, perhaps we don't see, you know, any kind of positive seasonality as you move from the first to the second quarter, you know, for our utilization or sale results. I think that kind of tracks the lower bound. You know, the lower bound is pretty well protected by the, you know, leasing margin and the strength of the lease portfolio. you know, the quickest thing that adjusts downwards is the gain on sale. And, you know, the gain on sale was quite high in 2020, even through the fourth quarter. You know, sale prices held up very well. And we continue to expect that to normalize down. But once, you know, as I pointed out in my repair remarks, you know, once we see that the ratio of used prices and new prices, you know, get back into something of a normal range, you know, we do expect that reduction to, you know, to slow down. And, I guess perhaps the lower bound might also be defined if that normalization doesn't happen and sale prices go to be lower ratios than they typically are, which we don't expect. I'd say in the upper end of the bound is just the opposite of those things, that we see customers, their fleet stabilizing as we head towards the peak season. Perhaps we see an inventory restocking cycle in the U.S. that drives some trade volume. And, you know, we just see utilization, you know, stabilize, you know, better than we'd expected and maybe even start picking upward. You know, typically, when we do see container supply and demand back into balance, we can get our used equipment back on higher quickly. And so, really, it's just, you know, again, we've got a pretty good floor performance because of our lease portfolio. And again, I'd like to point out, as I did in the prepared remarks, that even that lower bound is something in the range of two times our pre-pandemic performance. And so, You know, we do expect to hang on to a lot of the benefits of our recent investments and lease portfolio improvements. And then, you know, up from there, really just as the market improves.

Okay, great.

So, yeah, you've got clearly some very different scenarios to consider. Thanks for giving us all that guidance and color. Brian, what have been some of your early observations after China's reopening here? What are customers saying and what have you guys noticed in terms of how that has impacted containerized trade, if at all yet?

Yeah, so I think the main thing I'd like to point out that for us, you know, as a leasing company, you know, what we really focus on is the head haul trade. You know, that really is what drives the customer's need for, you know, for more equipment or perhaps if they have too much equipment. And so, you know, really what drives demand for our fleet is consumption in the U.S. and consumption in Europe, you know, as opposed to, you know, economic activity in China or consumption there. I mean, obviously there's a connection, you know, that there were certainly times in 2020 and 21 and maybe a little bit early in 22, you know, when, you know, retailers and wholesalers in the U.S. and Europe couldn't get everything they wanted. And so what was happening in China, you know, impacted trade volumes significantly. The sense I have now is that with most – certainly I think retailers and so on being overstocked in the U.S. and in Europe, that we haven't seen a bump in trade volumes as China has reopened on the head haul trades, which are, again, driven by consumption here.

Okay, great. Thank you for taking my questions. Thanks, Michael.

Our next question will come from Ken Hoekster with Bank of America. You may now go ahead.

Hey, team. This is Adam Ruszkowski on for Ken Hexter. Thanks for taking my question. So just first off, could you, maybe Brian, just run through what percentage of boxes will expire this year in 24, 25, just to get a sense of the exposure to some of those rolling off?

Yeah, sure. So I think both Michael and John O'Callaghan referred to the fact that, you know, something like 88% of our container fleet, you know, as weighted by net book value, you know, is locked in on longer-term leases. And so, you know, just naturally there can't be, you know, too much that's expiring. What we tend to focus on when we think of expirations and sort of market risk and earnings risk are the portion of the fleet that's expiring that would have to be remarketed. We find even when market conditions are tough, we usually generate gains on you know, selling our used containers. And so we typically don't look at that as providing, you know, too much exposure to challenges in any given year. And so we typically include, and it's in this presentation, you know, a chart, you know, showing what percentage of our fleet is expiring, well, is already expired and that is expiring over the next few years and each of those years, you know, for equipment that we have to release at the end of the current lease. And that's page 15 in the investor chart. What that shows is for our dry containers and reefers, something like a little under 2.5% of the fleet by CEU is already expired and needs to be remarketed when it comes back to us. And then an additional little bit over 5% will expire during the course of 2023. Again, containers that are expiring and will still be leasing life and need to be remarketed. So in total, something in the range of 7% to 8% of our fleet is expiring off-lease this year or already expired and needs to be remarketed, you know, that is a very low number for us historically. You know, probably the last time we went into, you know, slower periods in the market in 2015 or 2019, those numbers were probably two to three times higher. And, you know, it's one of the reasons why we look at the, you know, going forward and feel we've got, you know, very nice, you know, projection for profitability and returns, even if market conditions remain challenging for some time.

Got it. Thanks for that. And then maybe just on utilization, you know, how should we think about sort of a floor level for utilization given the high mix of lifecycle leases that you've built in here? Any thoughts around that?

Yeah. So, again, because of what you're talking about, the lifecycle leases and just what I was saying before, this very high percentage of containers locked away on multi-year leases, you know, we do think the floor of utilization, you know, is going to be high. You know, we've we include a lot of long-term statistics in our, in our operating deck, but you can see that, you know, that's sort of a, say a low point for utilization. If you go back to some of the charts we've shown in previous years, you know, has been increasing, you know, from something we got down to maybe 90% floor utilization in the financial crisis, you know, perhaps 92, 93 in the industrial recession in 2015 and 16. And I got down to maybe 95% during the trade war of 2019 and the COVID lockdowns in the first part of 20. Uh, and, uh, you know, it's been an increasing slope. We're hopeful. you know, that we'll continue to see that increase and that we'll, you know, see our utilization bottom, you know, somewhere in the mid to upper 90s, you know, during this cycle. But again, we'll have to see how things progress. And, you know, obviously, if the cycle is somehow worse than prior cycles, that would offset some of the benefit of the improved lease portfolio. But overall, we're very confident that our performance, you know, our utilization, sort of our key, you know, leasing metrics will stay very strong because of the portfolio.

Got it. Thank you. And just the last follow up, maybe just talk about, you know, day rates, where they are now versus, you know, a year ago, and how you see that progressing. And then on the trading revenue side, you know, they were down, but maybe just give some color, you know, are liners looking to unload more boxes right now? And just kind of help me think through that.

Yeah, so maybe just when it comes to sort of market leasing rates, you know, we saw market leasing rates reach all-time record levels in 2021 and the very early days of 2022, just because box prices were very high, close to two times the average for box prices. And since, I'd say, summer of 2022, we haven't seen a lot of leasing activity. Customers, as I was saying, are generally overboxed. And where we do see activity, it's very sort of small shipping lines might have requirements on a location and day basis just because they ran out for whatever operational reasons in certain locations. But rates have come down. And so I think the best thing to look at is new container prices. And new container prices peaked at close to $4,000 in either late 21 or early 22. We estimate right now we haven't bought containers for a while for the leasing fleet, but but we believe it's in the range of $2,150 or so, $2,200 for new container prices. That's up a little bit from where it was at a low point, perhaps in October, November. But that means lease rates, when the market tightens and we start doing transactions again, we'll be centered around wherever container prices happen to be at the time.

Got it. Thanks for taking my questions.

Our next question will come from Liam Burke with B. Reilly. You may now go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, Michael. Good morning, Brian. Good morning.

Brian, has there been any discussion? I know the liners or the container shippers are pretty strong in terms of balance sheets, so there's not a lot of fussing there. But is there any talk of any change in duration or rate on existing contracts?

Yeah, so maybe just as you point out, you know, one of the things that is very nice to point in the cycle is that, you know, in prior down cycles in the shipping industry, you know, there's always a lot of questions we get from investors. And obviously we look very carefully, too, on the credit condition of our customer base. And, you know, just the profitability, you know, and also and deleveraging that's happened in the shipping industry has been extraordinary. You know, so, you know, we look at the credit of our customers as being in great shape, you know, despite the fact that they're heading into, you know, a more challenging period. And also just worthwhile noting for our customers, too, that when people talk about what's going on in the shipping cycle, that the ship orders have a very different order cycle than containers, that we expect to see the vessel fleet continue to grow in 2023 and 2024. We're already seeing the container fleet shrinking. And so, again, it's that kind of core difference in the cycle for our market relative to the cycle for our customers, the shipping lines. In terms of the focus on lease durations, we've actually found that over the last number of years, and we think it's going to continue, that there's a win-win thing we're seeing where customers are willing to keep containers on hire for long periods of time, primarily on lifecycle leases for used equipment. We like that because it takes volatility out of our business and gets us extra revenue years. And the customers do it for several reasons, not just because we push for it, but You know, we're able to give the customers discount on the per diem rates in return for extra years of duration just because we think of, you know, the releasing activity and the renewals on an NPV basis. And then also we're able to give our customers, you know, much greater logistical flexibility, which can have real backhaul savings for them by, you know, given our ability to sell containers all over the world, in particular in inland locations. And so we've just kind of seen this general migration, you know, where maybe in the past, You know, we had put a container on a long-term lease at the beginning and then several, you know, iterations of shorter-term leases, you know, where now it really has become kind of a two-step model. You know, an initial lease for new equipment that goes from in normal years, five to eight years, last year or 2021, you know, out to kind of 11, 12, 13 years. And then very often either the renewal, you know, or the pickup of used equipment is on to a lifecycle lease that in many cases can carry out well past year 15. Great. Thank you, Brian.

Michael, 12% of your debt is not fixed. How do you look at that in terms of capital allocation vis-a-vis the dividend and the buybacks?

I think most of our fixed and floating is just driven by our lease portfolio. We do try to hedge pretty much all of our long-term leases and finance leases to make sure that the the debt that's financing those containers is locked in as the revenues are locked in. So that's really how we, you know, manage that kind of fixed floating balance, which is why, you know, it's in that kind of upper 80% category, which is also, you know, generally aligned with, you know, what our lease portfolio looks like.

Right. But during the year, last year, you did reduce, I mean, your net debt was reduced 22 over 21. Is there any thought on the portion that is not fixed or hedged on reducing that, or are you going to maintain certain levels of debt for capital efficiency, and then just buy back stock or pay dividends?

Our leverage has been, I'd say, leverage has been pretty consistent. That's something, I think, as Brian mentioned, that we're able to use tremendous cash flow to not only increase or buybacks or buyback at a high level, but also de-lever a little bit throughout the year. So that's kind of one decision point. I think how much is fixed or floating is more driven by the characteristics of our lease portfolio, if that makes sense.

And when we think of leverage, we typically look at the ratio of our net debt compared to our revenue-earning assets and actually adjust it a little bit for preferred stock and for some customer prepayments. But generally speaking, we try to keep that ratio consistent in a relatively constant place. And so if assets are shrinking like they did toward the end of last year, usually we're paying down debt in addition to using cash flow to buy back stock. And if assets are growing, usually we're issuing new debt to finance at least a portion of that asset growth, again, maintaining constant leverage ratios. And as Michael said, we look at the amount of debt and the balance of fixed and floating as being somewhat disconnected with the amount of debt being targeted towards keeping our ratios constant and the fixed and floating mix you know, really oriented around making sure that we're properly hedging our long-term lease portfolio.

Great. Thank you, Brian. Thank you, Michael.

Thanks, Leon.

This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Brian Sonday for any closing remarks.

I'd just like to thank everyone for your continued interest and support for Triton.

Thank you.

The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.