Icahn Enterprises Q1 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
May 7, 2025

Key Takeaways

  • NAV decreased by $336 million from Q4 2024, driven by negative fund performance and the accrual for the quarterly distribution, only partly offset by gains in CVI and auto service.
  • Coffeyville refinery turnaround is complete and improved crack spreads are expected to boost cash flow, while ongoing RINs litigation may eliminate a $438 million liability and clarify future obligations.
  • Investment funds were down 8.4% in Q1 2025 due to healthcare investments but are modestly positive quarter-to-date when including CVI and UAN, and the holding company holds $1.3 billion in cash plus $0.9 billion at the funds for opportunistic deployment.
  • Energy segment consolidated EBITDA was negative $61 million in Q1 2025 versus $230 million in Q1 2024, hurt by the Coffeyville turnaround and unfavorable RINs valuations despite strong fertilizer performance.
  • Automotive segment sales fell 9% year-over-year and adjusted EBITDA was negative $6 million as investments in labor, inventory, and facility upgrades weighed on results, prompting closure of 24 underperforming stores to improve long-term profitability.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
Icahn Enterprises Q1 2025
00:00 / 00:00

Transcript Sections

Skip to Participants
Operator

Good morning, and welcome to the Icahn Enterprise LP First Quarter twenty twenty five Earnings Call with Andrew Tino, President and CEO Ted Papapostolu, Chief Financial Officer and Robert Flint, Chief Accounting Officer. I would now like to hand the call over to Robert Flint, who will read the opening statement. Please go ahead.

Robert Flint
Robert Flint
Chief Accounting Officer & Principal Accounting Officer at Icahn Enterprises

Thank you, operator. The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 provides a safe harbor for forward looking statements we make in this presentation, including statements regarding our future performance and plans for our businesses and potential acquisitions. Forward looking statements may be identified by words such as expects, anticipates, intends, plans, believes, seeks, estimates, will or words of similar meaning and include but are not limited to statements about the expected future business and financial performance of Icahn Enterprises LP and its subsidiaries. Actual events, results, and outcomes may differ materially from our expectations due to a variety of known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors that are discussed in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including economic, competitive, legal, and other factors. Accordingly, there is no assurance that our expectations will be realized.

Robert Flint
Robert Flint
Chief Accounting Officer & Principal Accounting Officer at Icahn Enterprises

We assume no obligation to update or revise any forward looking statements should circumstances change except as otherwise required by law. This presentation also includes certain non GAAP financial measures, including adjusted EBITDA. A reconciliation of such non GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures can be found in the back of this presentation. We also present indicative net asset value. Indicative net asset value includes, among other things, changes in the fair value of certain subsidiaries which are not included in our GAAP earnings.

Robert Flint
Robert Flint
Chief Accounting Officer & Principal Accounting Officer at Icahn Enterprises

All net income and EBITDA amounts we will discuss are attributable to Icahn Enterprises unless otherwise specified. I'll now turn it over to Andrew Tino, our Chief Executive Officer.

Andrew Teno
Andrew Teno
President, CEO & Director of Icahn Enterprises GP, Inc. at Icahn Enterprises

Thank you, Rob, and good morning, everyone. NAV decreased $336,000,000 from the fourth quarter of twenty twenty four, driven primarily by negative performance in the funds and the accrual for the distribution, which was partially offset by increases in CVI and auto service. CVI share price increased by 3%, which when combined with additional share purchases of $33,000,000 led to an increase of $80,000,000 from the fourth quarter. The improvement in crack spreads that we discussed last quarter has continued and now that Coffeyville's turnaround is complete, we look forward to getting back to business and generating cash flow. Regarding RINs, we remain hopeful that administration may lead to the resolution of our outstanding litigation regarding small refinery exemptions, which has the potential to remove the four thirty eight million dollars liability that was recorded as of 1Q twenty twenty five and potentially provide clarity to future years.

Andrew Teno
Andrew Teno
President, CEO & Director of Icahn Enterprises GP, Inc. at Icahn Enterprises

As a reminder, during the last Trump administration, Wynnewood received small refinery exemptions. The investment funds ended down approximately 8.4% for the quarter, primarily driven by our health care investments. Given the recent market volatility, we thought it would be helpful to provide an update as to performance through the end of last week. If you were to mark to market the funds and add in CVI and UAN, we would be modestly positive quarter to date. We ended the quarter with $1,300,000,000 of cash and cash equivalents at the holding company, an additional $900,000,000 of cash at the funds.

Andrew Teno
Andrew Teno
President, CEO & Director of Icahn Enterprises GP, Inc. at Icahn Enterprises

So as Carl likes to say, we have a significant war chest to take advantage of opportunities as they arise. Lastly, the board has maintained a quarterly distribution at $0.50 per depositary unit. Now turning to our investment segment. Despite the market volatility, we see considerable value creation potential in our portfolio. At AEP, we see new management closing its ROE gap, improving regulatory outcomes, solidifying its balance sheet through accretive asset sales, and benefiting from tremendous electricity load growth due to AI driven data center demand.

Andrew Teno
Andrew Teno
President, CEO & Director of Icahn Enterprises GP, Inc. at Icahn Enterprises

We think AI growth is real and electric utilities, particularly AEP, are an excellent way to benefit in the picks and shovels of AI. At SWICS, we see a gas utility that is closing its ROE gap to peers and separating the utility services business with significant growth opportunity. We see upside in both the gas utility and the services business. In particular, Century should see increasing growth trends as utility customers need to spend additional CapEx to improve and build out both the electrical grid and natural gas networks to support increasing power demands. At Caesars, we recently had two employees join the company's board of directors.

Andrew Teno
Andrew Teno
President, CEO & Director of Icahn Enterprises GP, Inc. at Icahn Enterprises

We think Caesars has an excellent management team with tremendous real estate value, a growing digital business that is deploying its greater than 15% free cash flow yield to repurchase shares and repay debt. In time, we would expect Caesars digital business to be unlocked from its current structure. The funds ended the quarter approximately 20% net long. Adjusting for our refining hedges, the fund was 35% net long. And now I will pass it on to Ted to cover our controlled businesses.

Ted Papapostolou
Ted Papapostolou
CFO, Director & Secretary of Icahn Enterprises G.P. Inc at Icahn Enterprises

Thank you, Andrew. I will start at our Energy segment. Energy segment consolidated EBITDA was negative $61,000,000 for Q1 twenty twenty five compared to $2.00 $3,000,000 in Q1 twenty twenty four. PVR's refining business was negatively impacted by the turnaround at the Coffeyville refinery and unfavorable mark to market RINs valuation, offset in part by positive performance in the fertilizer business due to continued higher prices and strong utilization. Turning to our Automotive segment.

Ted Papapostolou
Ted Papapostolou
CFO, Director & Secretary of Icahn Enterprises G.P. Inc at Icahn Enterprises

Our Automotive segment continues to underperform compared to prior year period. Sales were down 9% year over year. Excluding the wind down of the parts business, which is now complete, sales were down 6%. In order to give the business the resources it needs to succeed, we are investing in labor, inventory, equipment, facilities, marketing and adjusting our distribution footprint. We saw early signs of top line improvement as we have experienced positive trends in car count, tire volumes and revenue as we move through the quarter.

Ted Papapostolou
Ted Papapostolou
CFO, Director & Secretary of Icahn Enterprises G.P. Inc at Icahn Enterprises

Adjusted EBITDA in the quarter was negative $6,000,000 Profitability suffered as we work to get the labor hired, optimized and trained, the inventory in the right place at the right margin and upgrade the facilities and equipment earlier in the year so that we can benefit as the year progresses. We believe that while painful in the short term, these are the right investments to improve long term profitability. The store portfolio is also going through significant changes. We are closing money losing locations and growing in areas we have historically generated strong profitability. During the quarter, we closed 24 underperforming locations.

Ted Papapostolou
Ted Papapostolou
CFO, Director & Secretary of Icahn Enterprises G.P. Inc at Icahn Enterprises

We were awarded a contract to operate approximately 15 locations on military basis that allow us to grow in a capital light manner. We have been adding additional locations to our greenfield pipeline and our leasing efforts for the excess and available space continue to bear fruit as we have approximately 60 properties under LOI. We continue to believe that our auto segment will see increasing sales, profitability and cash flows over the coming quarters. Now turning to the other segments. Real estate's Q1 twenty twenty five adjusted EBITDA decreased by $1,000,000 compared to the prior year quarter.

Ted Papapostolou
Ted Papapostolou
CFO, Director & Secretary of Icahn Enterprises G.P. Inc at Icahn Enterprises

As a reminder, we have limited inventory at our legacy Country Club and expect to be sold out during 2027. We are expecting to see increased single family home sales from our newest Country Club, which has recently cleared the permitting process, and we expect to begin taking home sale reservations by the end of twenty twenty five. In addition, our resort property continues to perform at high levels. On our last call, we discussed a potential sale of certain properties, which was expected to be complete during Q1. This is now expected to close during this quarter.

Ted Papapostolou
Ted Papapostolou
CFO, Director & Secretary of Icahn Enterprises G.P. Inc at Icahn Enterprises

We are also exploring the sale of additional properties in our portfolio, which is successful could close later this year. In addition, we are actively seeking new opportunities that fit our investment strategy. Food Packaging's adjusted EBITDA decreased by $6,000,000 for Q1 twenty twenty five as compared to the prior year quarter. The decrease is primarily due to lower price, higher manufacturing inefficiencies and higher material costs. During the quarter, the business commenced a restructuring plan, which includes consolidating two North American facilities into one and adding a state of the art manufacturing line.

Ted Papapostolou
Ted Papapostolou
CFO, Director & Secretary of Icahn Enterprises G.P. Inc at Icahn Enterprises

We anticipate this plan will increase operational efficiency and drive margins while maintaining volumes and is expected to be completed during the second half of twenty twenty five. Home Fashion's adjusted EBITDA decreased by $1,000,000 as compared to the prior year quarter, mainly driven by product mix. Pharma's adjusted EBITDA for Q1 twenty twenty five came in lower by $3,000,000 as compared to the prior year quarter. The decrease is primarily due to higher R and D spend for the therapies in clinical development and increased sales and marketing expenses due to the recent global product launch of QCiva. And now turning to our liquidity.

Ted Papapostolou
Ted Papapostolou
CFO, Director & Secretary of Icahn Enterprises G.P. Inc at Icahn Enterprises

We maintain liquidity at the holding company and at each of our operating subsidiaries to take advantage of attractive opportunities. As of quarter end, the holding company had cash and investment in the funds of $3,800,000,000 and our subsidiaries had cash and revolver availability of $1,300,000,000 We continue to focus on building asset value and maintaining liquidity to enable us to capitalize on opportunities within and outside our existing operating segments. Thank you. Operator, can you please open up the call for questions?

Operator

Your first question comes from the line of Andrew Berg of Post Advisory Group. Please go ahead.

Andrew Berg
Managing Director at Post Advisory Group

Thanks, guys. Appreciate all the information. If we can just go back to the automotive segment for a second. Can you give us some idea with respect to the store closures? Right now, how many stores are four wall EBITDA negative?

Andrew Berg
Managing Director at Post Advisory Group

If possible, what the aggregate EBITDA loss is for those stores and the expected timing to get out of any of the money losing stores?

Andrew Teno
Andrew Teno
President, CEO & Director of Icahn Enterprises GP, Inc. at Icahn Enterprises

Hey, Andrew. So we're not going to talk about the aggregate amount of store closures just because it impacts the business and the employees. I would say that we have, there's a good amount of stores where they used to make significant money called back in 'twenty two or 'twenty three, which are currently money losing today. And those stores, think you'd, we're taking a hard look at what caused them to decline and how do we make them better. And then there's a whole host of other stores where profitability has suffered for some time and those will be closing.

Andrew Teno
Andrew Teno
President, CEO & Director of Icahn Enterprises GP, Inc. at Icahn Enterprises

So we will be closing them, the money losing stores that we want to close in relatively short order, we've been averaging something like eight a month. And I think it also depends on whether we own the location or whether they're leased. So if landlords are reasonable or if they feel like they can release the box at a attractive rate, we hope to get out of those pretty quickly and we'll exit. In other situations, we may just wait until the lease turns out.

Andrew Berg
Managing Director at Post Advisory Group

Okay. And the ones you're getting out of, are you getting stuck with any dark store lease expense or for the most part, when you're getting out of them, we're able to close and not have that liability as a tail?

Andrew Teno
Andrew Teno
President, CEO & Director of Icahn Enterprises GP, Inc. at Icahn Enterprises

Yeah, so some of them are actually opportunities. So we actually had one of our worst performing stores that was money losing in the box in an area that we thought would be a liability and turned out to be a bit of a bidding war and we sold it for $4,000,000 and it was on a real estate value, I think closer to 2,000,000. But on the OpCo, you would have seen it as a negative value. So there's a whole host of boxes, each one's different. Some, we'd expect if Pep Boys exits their box, we may actually lease it to one of the competitors if it's far enough away not to impact our own operations.

Andrew Teno
Andrew Teno
President, CEO & Director of Icahn Enterprises GP, Inc. at Icahn Enterprises

So I think a large part of the portfolio should not really be considered a liability. It's more of an opportunity to make much more money.

Andrew Berg
Managing Director at Post Advisory Group

Then, sorry, going back to the update you said, you're up, what did you say, a couple hundred million in indicative net asset value quarter to date?

Andrew Teno
Andrew Teno
President, CEO & Director of Icahn Enterprises GP, Inc. at Icahn Enterprises

I don't think we said that. I think if you were to look at our public portfolio, so everything in the funds and then the publicly marked investments, CVI and UAN, so we were modestly positive as of last Friday.

Andrew Berg
Managing Director at Post Advisory Group

Okay, perfect. Thank you.

Andrew Teno
Andrew Teno
President, CEO & Director of Icahn Enterprises GP, Inc. at Icahn Enterprises

You got

Operator

I will now turn the call back over to Andrew Tino, President and CEO, for closing remarks. Please go ahead.

Andrew Teno
Andrew Teno
President, CEO & Director of Icahn Enterprises GP, Inc. at Icahn Enterprises

All right. Well, thank you, everyone, for joining today's call. We'll speak to you in a few months.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.

Executives
    • Robert Flint
      Robert Flint
      Chief Accounting Officer & Principal Accounting Officer
    • Andrew Teno
      Andrew Teno
      President, CEO & Director of Icahn Enterprises GP, Inc.
    • Ted Papapostolou
      Ted Papapostolou
      CFO, Director & Secretary of Icahn Enterprises G.P. Inc
Analysts
    • Andrew Berg
      Managing Director at Post Advisory Group
Powered by Quartr