World Kinect Corporation

Good evening everyone and welcome to WorldConnect's fourth quarter 2024 earnings conference call which will be presented alongside our live slide presentation. Today's presentation is also available via webcast on our investor relations website. I'm Braulio Medrano, Senior Director of FP&A and Investor Relations. With me on the call today is Michael Kasbar, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and and now I'd like to review our Safe Harbor Statement. Certain statements made today, including comments about our expectations regarding future plans and performance, are forward-looking statements that are subject to a range of uncertainties and risks that could cause actual results to materially differ. Factors that could cause results to materially differ can be found in our most recent form 10-K in other reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We assume no obligation to revise or publicly release the results of any revisions to these forward-looking statements in light of new information or future events. This presentation also includes certain non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures to their most directly comparable GAAP financial measures is included in our press release and can be found on our website. We will begin with several minutes of prepared remarks which will then be followed by a question and answer period. At this time, I would like to introduce our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Michael Kasbar.

Thank you, Breglio. Good evening, everyone, and thank you for taking the time to attend our call today. As I look back on 2024, I am pleased to report that as a result of our focus on efficient capital allocation, combined with our focus on driving operational efficiencies, we are making good progress towards our medium-term financial targets. Our efforts are clearly beginning to bear fruit, further evidenced by the strong cash flow generation in the fourth quarter and the full year and consistent with the cash flow target we shared at our investor day last March. This enabled us to repurchase $100 million of shares during the year, nearly double the amount repurchased in 2023. I will elaborate that this demonstrates our commitment to enhancing shareholder returns. Our aviation business delivered impressive results in the fourth quarter, capitalizing on favorable market conditions in both our commercial resale and business and general aviation activities, while our marine business performed in line with expectations given the current market environment. The land segment delivered solid results in the fourth quarter and its strongest quarterly operating margin for the year. We firmly believe this trend will continue over the course of 2025 as we make steady progress in consolidating our portfolio of activities and standardizing our North American liquid land operations onto a unified technology and operating platform, enabling the cost reduction and higher asset utilization necessary to further improve operating leverage. As I stated at our investor day last March, this initiative mirrors the formula we have followed in our aviation marine businesses over the years. We are confident it will drive greater scalability and financial and commercial impact in US land in 2025 and beyond. One of the key actions we took during the fourth quarter was the divestiture of our business in Brazil. As previously reported, this business had been a source of significant earnings volatility, was underperforming, and was increasingly disadvantaged by unfavorable local and macro economic trends. This move aligns with our strategy to streamline our land operations. We are committed to continuing this approach into 2025, shedding additional underperforming activities as necessary and reallocating capital to improve financial returns. Our acquisition pipeline is expanding across various sectors of our core business. These opportunities offer significant growth potential, but we will remain disciplined, investing only where it makes strategic sense, working to ensure that our investments enable or accelerate growth while leveraging and complementing our existing platform. The good news is that our strong cash flow and solid balance sheet provide us with ample financial resources to pursue and capitalize on the opportunities available in the market today. So, in closing, we have created positive momentum heading into 2025 by focusing on efficient, last half mile energy distribution solutions to aviation, marine, and land-based end users in markets that suit us. I look forward to sharing more details over the balance of the year. I'll now turn the call over to Ira for a financial review.

Thank you, Michael, and good evening, everyone. Unfortunately, I have a lot to say on this call being a year end covering the quarter in the full year. Before we begin, please note that our non-GAAP results reflect several adjustments this quarter to our GAAP results. Reconciliations are, as always, on our investor relations website and also in today's webcast presentation. There were several non-GAAP adjustments in the fourth quarter, which totaled $143 million or $138 million after tax. The largest of these non-GAAP adjustments relates to the sale of our operations in Brazil that Mike just referred to. As part of our ongoing efforts to sharpen our portfolio of business activities, we made a decision to sell this business during the fourth quarter, completing the sale in December. The recent underperformance and significant complexities associated with operating this business led us to explore an exit strategy, which we were able to execute on quickly. This decision supports our ongoing priority of driving improved performance in our land business by continuing to narrow our focus to areas with the greatest opportunities for growth and operational efficiencies. It is also aligned with our goal to achieve our medium-term targets, most specifically for our operating margin and free cash flow. This sale did result in a one-time non-cash pre-tax charge of approximately $111 million. However, the related balance sheet impact was minimal, as a significant portion of this charge, approximately $80 million, relates to cumulative unrealized foreign currency translation losses previously recorded within shareholder's equity. Additionally, our fourth quarter non-GAAP adjustments also included approximately $9 million of costs associated with exiting certain North American land business activities, which like Brazil, were underperforming, further contributing to further improvements in our broader land businesses' performance. Looking ahead, we see additional opportunities to further refine and improve our land portfolio, with growth coming from a combination of organic opportunities and strategic investments, but also from continued focus on shedding or restructuring underperforming business activities. This should continue to simplify and strengthen the land business narrative, enabling us to achieve our medium-term targets and drive increased shareholder value. Stay tuned for more updates over the next few quarters. The balance of the fourth quarter non-GAAP adjustments, approximately $22 million, principally related to an impairment of a minority equity investment in a non-corp business activity. Now let's turn to our fourth quarter and full-year operating results. And again, as a reminder, these results exclude the impact of all the non-GAAP adjustments I just reviewed. On a consolidated basis, our fourth quarter total volume was 4.5 billion gallons, down 1% -over-year, and our full-year volume of 17.7 billion was down approximately 2%. Consolidated adjusted gross profit declined 8% from last year's fourth quarter to $259 million, which is near the top of the guidance range we provided last quarter. The -over-year decline was primarily due to lower gross profit in aviation, impacted in part by the Avanote sale earlier last year, as well as marine and our land segment was effectively flat -over-year. Consolidated adjusted gross profit was $1.03 billion for the full year, down 7% from 2023. This is primarily driven by -over-year gross profit declines in our marine and land businesses of 9% and 14% respectively, and again, the sale of Avanote in aviation, partially offset by increased gross profit in our core aviation business activities. Now some additional details, segment by segment, for both the quarter and the full year 24 to help explain the -over-year movements. First aviation. In the fourth quarter, our aviation volume was 1.8 billion gallons, up 4% -over-year, principally driven by core aviation business activity. For the full year, aviation volume of 7.3 billion was down 1% -over-year, impacted by our decision to exit certain low-margin bulk fuel business during the fourth quarter of 2023. If you exclude the impact of exiting this particular activity, 2024 volume was up approximately 4% -over-year. In the fourth quarter, aviation gross profit was $120 million, a decrease of $11 million or 8% -over-year, and once again, this decrease is attributable to the sale of Avanote during the second quarter of 2024, as well as lower inventory-related profitability -over-year. This was all partially offset by growth in our core commercial resale activities and our business and general aviation activities. For the full year, aviation gross profit was $486 million, effectively flat -over-year. While we delivered growth in our core commercial resale business, this was generally offset by the impact of the Avanote sale. As we look to the first quarter, aviation results should experience a traditional seasonal decline from the fourth quarter, and we expect a -over-year decrease in gross profit, again principally related to the Avanote exit early last year. On to land. In the fourth quarter, land volumes decreased 5% -over-year, principally driven by decreases in our North American wholesale and retail business activities. Natural gas and power volumes represented 40% of our total volume in the fourth quarter, up from 37% in the fourth quarter of 2023. And for the full year, our overall land volume was $6.1 billion, that's down 3% -over-year. In the fourth quarter, land adjusted gross profit was $104 million, which was effectively flat compared to 2023. For the full year, land adjusted gross profit was $384 million, that was down 14% -over-year, primarily attributable to unfavorable market conditions in Brazil and the UK, lower profit contributions from our natural gas and power businesses as a result of lower market prices and volatility, and reduced profitability from our sustainability-related offerings. As we look to the first quarter, we expect land gross profit to be up -over-year, with more significant improvement in profitability expected as the year progresses. In the fourth quarter, marine volumes were down 4% -over-year, and they were down 2% -over-year for the full year 2024. Fourth quarter marine gross profit decreased approximately 22% -over-year, and for the full year marine gross profit was down 9% -over-year. The -over-year declines in gross profit were principally driven by lower bunker fuel prices and reduced market volatility. As we look to the first quarter, we expect marine gross profit to be down -over-year for effectively the same reasons, but as the year progresses, we should begin to see the marine -over-year comparisons normalize as market conditions and prices began softening in the second quarter of 2024. On a consolidated basis, as we look toward the first quarter, with the backdrop of the related segment gross profit comments I just shared, we expect consolidated gross profit to be in the range of $234 to $241 million. Now let's talk about expenses. Adjusted consolidated operating expenses were $197 million in the fourth quarter. That's down 5% -over-year and consistent with the guidance provided last quarter. For the full year, adjusted operating expenses were $773 million. That's down about 6% from $819 million in 2023. While our operating margin did not improve -over-year, actions already taken during 2024, including the sale of Brazil and exiting certain North American land business activities, have already improved our run rate operating margin as we have ticked off 2025. Speaking of 2025, for the first quarter, we are expecting adjusted operating expenses of $179 to $184 million, a further decline from the fourth quarter and a decline of 4% -over-year, impacted in part by discontinued business activities, but also our continued focus on driving operating efficiencies across the entire business. For the full year 2025, we are expecting another -over-year decline in adjusted operating expenses, similar to the decline experienced in 2024. Again, we remain focused on driving greater operating efficiencies in our overall business, which may include restructuring activities or exiting other underperforming non-core business activities, while driving improved efficiencies in our core activities, which are performing well. This focus, together with actions already taken, should enable us to achieve -over-year improvement in our operating margin in 2025, making good progress towards our medium-term 30% operating margin target. We generated $361 million of adjusted EBITDA in 2024. While we clearly have progress to make to achieve our medium-term EBITDA target shared last year's Investor Day, exiting underperforming business activities, driving broader operating efficiencies in our core businesses, and maintaining our solid cash flow profile and strong balance sheet, which should enable us to tap into a growing pipeline of strategic investment opportunities that Mike referred to, should provide us with growing momentum in support of this medium-term target. Interest expense was $22 million in the fourth quarter, down approximately 33% -over-year, and below the guidance provided last quarter. Full-year 2024 interest expense was approximately 20% down from 2023. For the first quarter of 2025, we expect interest expense to be in the range of $22 to $23 million. Our adjusted effective tax rate for the fourth quarter was 12%. This was positively impacted by a discrete tax benefit during the quarter, resulting in a full-year 2024 adjusted effective tax rate of just under 15%, a few percent lower than anticipated heading into the fourth quarter. It is clear that our 2024 tax rate will be difficult to replicate in 2025. So based upon what we know today, we expect our adjusted effective tax rate for the full year 2025 to be somewhere in the range of 22 to 25%. Rebounding from using cash in the third quarter, during the fourth quarter we actually generated operating cash flow of $120 million and free cash flow of $102 million, resulting in $260 million of operating cash flow and $192 million of free cash flow for the full year, well in line with our longer-term cash flow target. Over the past three years, we have now generated approximately $435 million of free cash flow, and we remain focused on continuing to drive strong cash flow results and improving shareholder returns. These strong cash flows have enabled us to continue returning value to our shareholders through buybacks and dividends. During the fourth quarter, we repurchased an additional $43 million of shares, increasing total full-year repurchases to $100 million or 3.6 million shares. For the full year, total capital allocated to share repurchases and dividends was $139 million, representing a 47% increase -over-year. And over the past three years, we have now returned $312 million to shareholders through buybacks and dividends, representing 72% of the free cash flow generated during this period, again demonstrating our continuing commitment to enhancing shareholder returns. In closing, I want to leave you with a few thoughts. Aviation delivered solid -over-year results driven by strong performance in our core commercial business, and the sale of Avanote earlier in the year enabled us to free up capital to reinvest in our core business activities. While our land segment experienced weakness in the first half of the year, land rebounded nicely in the second half, with a fourth quarter operating margin showing significant improvement from earlier in 2024. Additionally, we divested our Brazilian operations and exited certain land activities in North America as part of our continuing effort to sharpen our portfolio of business activities and simplify the land segment's story while also improving our overall returns. Marine was impacted by declining bunker fuel prices and market volatility, but continues to maintain an efficient operating model, providing opportunities for increased profitability and cash flow when market conditions improve. For the full year, again, we returned approximately $139 million to shareholders through repurchases and dividends. We repurchased more shares than we have historically repurchased on an annual basis during 2024, and we also increased our dividend by 21% during the year, evidence of our increased confidence in our cash flow generation and improving dynamics and returns in our broader business. And we remain dedicated to our medium-term goals, taking strategic actions to position the business for future growth while also driving improvements in operating efficiencies. In closing, I want to express my appreciation to our employees across the globe for their hard work and commitment to WorldConnect throughout the year. Their dedication to our suppliers, customers, and to each other is truly invaluable to us as we look to the future. Thank you, and I will now turn the call back to our operator, Latif, to open the Q&A session.

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star 1-1 on your telephone. To remove yourself from the queue, you may press star 1-1 again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from the line of Ken Huckster of B of A. Your line is open, Ken.

Great. Good afternoon, Ira and Michael. I guess maybe just taking into the Brazil sale and your certain North American businesses, maybe describe a little bit about what was shed, how you think about further refinement. You talked about maybe the potential to see what you can still do as you go through the businesses and maybe the scale of what was sold and what's on the block or what could be on the block as you move forward to continue to refine those ops.

Sure. Thanks for the question, Ken. Brazil was a relatively small part of the land business, but as we mentioned the last couple quarters, it had a fair amount of volatility associated with it and started generating losses to be honest. We talked about the Russian cargos and our inability to compete with local Brazilian competitors that were able to take advantage of things like that. It's just a higher risk environment to operate in, so we found the opportunity to get out relatively quickly. We got some cash out of that. It wasn't a massive amount of money and it doesn't really have much of an impact on, I mean literally the gross profit generated that business was close to zero and we of course had some expenses below that line. So that's the Brazilian piece. In the US, we had a business that had some components to it that weren't core. One example of that would be a heating oil business that wasn't performing very well and probably had just an overall inefficient structure, so we were able to restructure that business, get out of the heating oil piece of the puzzle, get some assets, reduce the number of employees needed to participate in that business. And that takes that particular activity instantly from losing a few million dollars a year to making several million dollars a year. So those combined moves are clearly accretive in 25 versus 24. What's left, the good news is we're getting there, right? We're starting to weed through just about all the pieces of the pie that really don't make long-term sense. There's probably one or two more. I think we're trying to narrow our focus inland to our core activities in North America, where we have growing capabilities from a platform perspective and scale, which we don't have in other parts of the world. So that's where we're focused on driving efficiencies. Brazil was one international piece of the pie. We still have some other activity outside of the US, and I think over the next several months we'll tell the rest of that story. And all of that helps move land in the direction that we talked about in investor day, which helps our overall consolidated story of things like our operating margin target and just overall returns, because there is a fair amount of capital employed in some of these businesses that we've now freed up. So all in line with what we've been talking about over the last several

quarters. So can I guess back to that, can we put a number on it in terms of gross revenue scale or it sounds like gross profit was nothing on Brazil, but on a scale of Brazil and the US components that were shed and maybe a dollar size of kind of just percentage of revenues you can look to shed going forward?

Revenue shedding is an immaterial number. Again, in Brazil the net revenue was literally zero. So we weren't generating any gross profit and we had -$7 million expenses, so very small. In the business in the US, it's also a very small amount of revenue. It was more shedding expenses than actual revenue. So there are rounding errors to be honest from your modeling perspective, but there are instant improvements because we're taking out expenses without giving up next to no revenue.

And you're saying there's maybe one or two other opportunities like that to pull out costs, outpacing revenue?

Yeah, we still have some opportunities. The other opportunities may involve taking out some revenue, but likely taking out an So, you know, net businesses that may not be generating much profitability that are weighing down our operating margins and our returns because they're not really making much of a contribution. Fewer of those left, but there's still a couple of opportunities like that that we're looking at.

And Ken, just following the comment last quarter, you know, the US is the focus, right? The largest energy market in the world, I'm still pretty sure of that. And then of course we've got our sustainability business, which, you know, natural gas and power. But, you know, the focus is really the US that's, you know, a big target for us and optimizing that. So that's the name of the game, you know, in the go-forward land portfolio. The sustainability business has got its ups and downs, but, you know, it's got a runway to it. Primary focus is, you know, US gasoline and diesel business. We operate the largest card-lock network in the US. So that's going to be, I think, a bit, you know, more clear and a simpler story, you know, to basically discuss on a go-forward basis. Wonderful.

Ira, if I could just follow up on one of the business lines on the metric, gross profit per metric ton seems really volatile lately, right? You know, you've gone down to $8.34, down 19% year over year, after being up 10% in the third quarter, down 13% in the second quarter. You know, maybe just delve into what's going on in marine in terms of, obviously, we know the volatility in the shipping lanes, but what's going on with your business?

The margin in marine is always heavily dependent on volatility and pricing. As pricing has softened, we naturally have a tendency to see margins come down. And I think the team has actually done a very good job, you know, glass half full, maintaining margins at higher than historical levels relative to the current price environment. But they're still down compared to where we were, you know, a year ago, right? We started seeing that softening in the second quarter of last year. So what I was hinting to earlier, as we get into the second and third quarters, the year over year comparisons should be somewhat similar pricing and, you know, volatility levels stay in these levels. But we've still been, through the first quarter, dealing with year over year comparisons to higher prices and higher volatility. So, you know, you haven't seen, you know, obviously, since these numbers are in dollars as opposed to pennies, you know, those moves tend to look a bit more meaningful, but they have been trading in a pretty tight band relative to the underlying commodity price.

Great. And last one for me, just on aviation, you showed some growth. Is that, you know, international air freight growth that it's tied to? Is there something domestic, increased contracts? Just trying to wonder, you know, a little bit different than what we're seeing economically, a little bit stronger at three and a half percent up year over year in the fourth quarter on the gallons. I know you've got Ebonode and everything out of there, but just wondering what's driving the volume side.

You hit on it in your first couple of words. Most of the improvement was actually overseas in Europe and Asia. Asia was always the slowest to come back over the last few years. So we saw some improvement there and Europe was pretty strong as well. So most of that was more and over outside of the U.S.

Is that tied to the minimums or is that just more consumer growth? Commercial, you know, commercial passenger growth principally. Great. Thank you very much. Appreciate the time. Thanks, Ken.

Thank you. Once again, to ask a question, press star 1-1 on your telephone. That's star 1-1. Our next question comes from the line of John Royale of JP Morgan. Please go ahead, John.

Hi, good evening. Thanks for taking my questions. So my first question is on returns to shareholders and the buyback is kind of the flywheel there. Are you comfortable in that 70 to 75% range of free cash flow payout this year? Can you do that level of returns and also preserve the dry powder that you might need for some of the acquisitions that Michael discussed in his opener?

So thanks for joining us again, John. Great question. Obviously, the 72% number is on the higher end of historical ranges for us. It was a year where we had solid cash flow, only made one small acquisition. So it enabled us to be a bit more aggressive in terms of the total capital that we were able to use for buybacks and dividends. I wouldn't guarantee that we will always spend 72%. I think in investor day, we said the longer term target was around 40. There will be years like 24 where we'll be able to do and want to do more than that. And there will be years where the number will be closer to 40. So I probably can't give you an answer much better than that, but kind of the stars were in alignment this year because of our cash flow and the fact that we saw prices come down. Our working capital actually came down during the year contributing to that cash flow production. So it just gave us more free powder, more dry powder to make those investments.

And acquisition values were where we thought it made sense. Right.

Right. And buybacks are easier to integrate than acquired companies. So that's another reason we did.

Understood. Thank you. And then maybe just to follow up on the WAN segment, can you break down a little bit just any of the components of the year over year gross profit growth in WAN that you expect in 1Q? Sounds like maybe some of the North America exits were actually loss making on the gross profit side. So maybe there's some of it is just from exiting those. But just trying to understand the high level drivers of the improvement in 1Q organically market driven and any impact from those exits.

Yeah, we don't expect expect substantial increase year over year. But but the improvements anticipate are in the core. I would say that would principally be our car lock and retail businesses in North America. That's where we expect a bit of improvement. Obviously, Brazil's out, but that's not really going to move the needle because that number was zero with the gross profit line. And, you know, expecting a little bit of improvement in on the NACA side of the equation as well on a year over year basis.

Thank you. Thank you. I would now like to turn the conference back to Michael Kasbach for closing remarks, sir.

OK, well, thanks very much for joining us. And, you know, thanks to the global team. You know, we've got we've got the best global team in the business with burning desire to serve our customers, suppliers and partners around the clock. And it's a pleasure to serve with you. So thanks, everybody. And look forward to talking to you next quarter. Bye bye for now.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.