Willis Lease Finance Q4 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
March 10, 2026

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: Record financial performance: Q4 revenue of $193.6 million (+27% YoY) and full-year revenue of $730.2 million (+28%) produced record earnings before tax of $160.6 million and adjusted EBITDA of $459.1 million, underscoring strong cash generation.
  • Positive Sentiment: Portfolio strength and hidden value: Lease portfolio utilization averaged 85% (up from 83%) with total portfolio ~ $3 billion and a maintenance-adjusted market value estimated at roughly $700 million above book value, suggesting significant unrecognized asset value.
  • Positive Sentiment: Willis Aviation Capital ramps up: Two new funds (a $600 million Liberty Mutual partnership and a $1 billion+ Blackstone vehicle) are ready to deploy, enabling fee income, carried interest, off‑balance‑sheet growth and the ability to pursue larger transactions.
  • Negative Sentiment: Rising costs and impairments may pressure margins: G&A rose to $194.7 million (including higher share‑based comp), equipment write‑downs increased to $32.9 million, net finance costs rose to $135.1 million and total debt grew to $2.7 billion.
  • Positive Sentiment: Services and MRO progress support vertical integration: WASI, WERC US/UK and WASL expanded capabilities (including a core module restoration and full WASL C‑check/A320 certifications), driving intercompany revenue and faster turn times for engines and aircraft.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
Willis Lease Finance Q4 2025
00:00 / 00:00

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Operator

Good day, and welcome to the Willis Lease Finance Corporation fourth quarter 2025 earnings call. Today's call is being recorded. We would like to remind you that during this conference call, management will be making forward-looking statements, including statements regarding our expectations related to financial guidance, outlook for the company, and our expected investment and growth initiatives. Please note these forward-looking statements are based on current expectations and assumptions, which are subject to risks and uncertainties. These statements reflect WLFC's views only as of today. They should not be relied upon as representative of views as of any subsequent date, and WLFC undertakes no obligation to revise or publicly release the results of any revision to these forward-looking statements in light of new information or future events. These statements are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations.

Operator

For further discussion of the material risks and other important factors that could affect WLFC's financial results, please refer to its filings with the SEC, including, without limitation, WLFC's most recent quarterly report on Form 10-Q, annual report on Form 10-K, and other periodic reports, which are available on the investor relations section of WLFC's website at https://www.wlfc.global/investor-relations. At this time, I'd like to turn the call over to Austin Willis. Please go ahead.

Austin Willis
CEO at Willis Lease Finance Corporation

Thank you, operator, and thank you all for joining us today to discuss Willis Lease Finance Corporation's fourth quarter 2025 financial results. On our call today, I'm joined by Scott Flaherty, our Chief Financial Officer. I encourage you to view our accompanying presentation illustrating details from our prepared remarks. We finished the year with strong performance, delivering record revenues for the fourth quarter of $193.6 million, a 27% increase year-over-year.

Austin Willis
CEO at Willis Lease Finance Corporation

For the full year, we achieved record revenues of $730.2 million, a 28% increase, and record earnings before tax of $160.6 million, reflecting the growing demand for our products and services and the strength across the aviation market as our global airline partners continue to rely upon Willis's leasing and services solutions to keep their fleets operating reliably and cost effectively. In addition to the revenue numbers described above, I would like to highlight our adjusted EBITDA of $459 million. We felt that highlighting EBITDA while adjusting for selected items would give investors a look at the immense cash-generating capability of our enterprise.

Austin Willis
CEO at Willis Lease Finance Corporation

We saw strong utilization of our lease portfolio throughout the year, averaging 85%, up from 83% in 2024, while retaining an average lease rental factor in excess of 1% per month. Utilization is affected by engines that are in maintenance and engines that we keep off lease to support programs like ConstantThrust. Our consistent business performance and confidence in the strength of the aviation market has enabled WLFC to return capital to our shareholders. Accordingly, we recently declared a recurring dividend of $0.40 per share, reflecting our continued commitment to delivering long-term total returns to our shareholders. The aviation market has become engine-centric. Engines are a critical constraint to both new aircraft deliveries as well as maintaining an operational aircraft fleet.

Austin Willis
CEO at Willis Lease Finance Corporation

While there is some optimism about improvements in aircraft AOGs resulting from delays in engine repairs, there are still over 600 aircraft powered by GTF engines that remain grounded and new technical issues that have arisen around LEAP that threaten to require additional maintenance. The outlook for engine shop visits remains strong through the mid-2030s. While we expect to see shop visits taper for the CFM56 and V2500 engine types, this will be more than replaced by the shop visits for the GTF and LEAP engines, which represent a growing proportion of our portfolio and we feel will require more frequent and more expensive shop visits than previous generations, even after the teething issues have been resolved. We lease engines to airlines needing replacement power during shop visits. We sell spare parts to repair facilities overhauling engines.

Austin Willis
CEO at Willis Lease Finance Corporation

Finally, we repair engines ourselves, so the long-term demand environment for our business model looks robust. Willis Aviation Capital is our recently announced asset manager comprised of three key elements, discretionary fund management of joint ventures, and management of engines and aircraft for investors where WLFC has no equity interest. I'm pleased to say that we are ready to begin deploying capital into our discretionary funds. We established a $600 million fund with Liberty Mutual Investments, where we are minority investors and the general partner. This fund will provide financing for aircraft engines at attractive interest rates and advance rates. We have provided loan-like products on our balance sheet for some time, but this structure will enable us to be even more competitive.

Austin Willis
CEO at Willis Lease Finance Corporation

We are uniquely positioned to add value in that our leasing business gives us comfort in the asset should we need to repossess at any point. We established a separate fund with Blackstone Credit & Insurance for over $1 billion. This fund will invest in engines and aircraft similarly to Willis's proprietary investments. Willis will also be a minority investor and general partner in this fund as well. Both funds are funds of one. Our strategy is to deploy the capital alongside our joint ventures and our own balance sheet, then establish follow-on funds with additional limited partners. We earn a servicing fee from both funds as well as carried interest or promote that is payable based upon the fund's performance. We look forward to building upon our 2025 fee-related revenue of $17.2 million found in other revenue in our financials.

Austin Willis
CEO at Willis Lease Finance Corporation

These funds are not a shift in focus, but rather an expansion of our focus onto both on and off balance sheet aspects of managing assets. By establishing these funds, we can increase our return on equity through fee income and carried interest, pursue more transactions that otherwise would have been too large for us, pursue larger transactions with single parties where we can disperse concentration among more pockets of capital, grow our services businesses, namely parts, MRO, and consulting, which benefit from significant intercompany revenue, more quickly than we could strictly with on-balance sheet growth. Finally, we can offer a more broad spectrum of products to our customers. Many airlines taking delivery of large numbers of engines are looking to finance some and sell some to leaseback. With these funds, we can do both competitively. Our platform also provides unique value to the limited partners invested in the funds.

Austin Willis
CEO at Willis Lease Finance Corporation

As mentioned with Liberty Mutual, we are well-positioned to manage the collateral in the loans since it is the same collateral we lease out daily. With respect to the Blackstone fund, our services businesses will enable us to manage assets owned by these funds efficiently by getting them repaired quickly at our MROs and cost effectively with our used serviceable material and module exchanges. Our services businesses continue to provide a great deal of value to our overall platform. Of the 475 or so employees at WLFC, nearly 300 are in our services businesses. WASI, our parts business, continues to create value by monetizing our unserviceable engines at a premium to what they would otherwise be sold for. In the fourth quarter, 57% of WASI's sales were intercompany, supporting our two MROs.

Austin Willis
CEO at Willis Lease Finance Corporation

Our WERC US and WERC UK MROs had 15% and 31%, respectively, of their revenues from intercompany. The material and the MROs help us keep our book values and turn times down for our engines as well as our customers. I'm proud to say that WERC US recently performed its first core module performance restoration, replacing both LLPs as well as airfoils. When the engine tested, it achieved approximately 51.7 degrees of EGT margin at high thrust, a testament to the quality of the product we are producing. While this event alone is not significant, it is a big step towards becoming a more comprehensive maintenance provider. Similarly, we entered into a very novel materials agreement with CFM that was disclosed in a recent press release.

Austin Willis
CEO at Willis Lease Finance Corporation

We worked closely with CFM throughout 2025 on this initiative, and I'm proud to say that we helped design a structure that we expect will facilitate the repair of CFM56 engines in order to keep the fleet flying. We expect this to be a structure to help drive further business to and for our MROs. WASL, our airframe maintenance facility in the U.K., is now fully up and running and certified to perform all C-checks on 737NG and up to 6Y checks on A320ceo aircraft. We have performed 12 maintenance checks in 2025 and have good line of sight on business for the next 12 months. The airframe maintenance is going to become increasingly important as our aircraft leasing portfolio grows. Equally important is the support WASL can provide for aircraft teardowns, which we expect to track with fleet retirements in the future.

Austin Willis
CEO at Willis Lease Finance Corporation

In the European market, we see robust demand for maintenance checks in the winter season. During the summer season, we focus more on supporting leasing companies and airlines for maintenance and aircraft disassembly, where we also buy or lease out engines as they are removed from the disassembled airframes. We elected to no longer pursue our sustainable aviation fuel project. This was a very difficult decision, but we decided that ultimately our right to win in this space wasn't as strong as we feel is necessary to support the type of investment that is required. We hope another party can carry it forward because it is a strong project, and we feel that decarbonizing aviation is critical for ensuring the long-term viability of commercial air travel. Finally, I'd like to welcome David Hooke to our team, who will run M&A for us.

Austin Willis
CEO at Willis Lease Finance Corporation

David is a reformed investment banker from Bank of America and a long-time pilot in the Marine Corps. He brings a wealth of knowledge and perspective, and we are fortunate to have him. Similarly, Brian Hole, who was the President of WLFC from 2016 until 2025, has moved to head up Willis Aviation Capital, and he has hired Steve Bridgland, a well-respected industry veteran, to act as the Head of Investor Relations and Capital Markets for Willis Aviation Capital. Thanks to you three gentlemen, and thank you to the Willis team for delivering another great year of performance. With that, I'll hand it over to Scott Flaherty.

Scott Flaherty
CFO at Willis Lease Finance Corporation

Thank you, Austin, and good morning all. 2025 was another record year for Willis Lease. Revenues of $730.2 million, up 28.3% from 2024, and record earnings before tax, or EBT, of $160.6 million for the year. Adjusted EBITDA, a new metric we are reporting highlighting the strength of the cash flow of the Willis enterprise, was $459.1 million, up 16.6% from $393.7 million in the prior year. Walking through the P&L, record revenues driven by core lease rent revenues of $291.6 million and interest revenues of $14.1 million. Growth in these line items reflects our increased total portfolio size of $3 billion at year-end 2025.

Scott Flaherty
CFO at Willis Lease Finance Corporation

Our total own portfolio is presented on our balance sheet as equipment held for operating lease, maintenance rights, notes receivable, and investment in sales-type leases. In 2025, the company purchased equipment, including capitalized shop visit costs totaling $524.6 million. This growth was partially offset on the balance sheet by $215.6 million of equipment book value sales, $106.3 million of lease portfolio asset depreciation, $41.5 million of asset transfers into held for sale, $32.9 million of impairment write-downs, and $23.1 million of payments received against our outstanding notes receivable and sales-type leases. Maintenance reserve revenues for the year were $232 million, up $18.1 million or 8.4% from 2024.

Scott Flaherty
CFO at Willis Lease Finance Corporation

As you peel back the numbers, you can see that $44.5 million of these maintenance reserve revenues were long-term maintenance reserves associated with engines coming off long-term lease, up from $39.4 million in the prior year. In 2025, we had 19 assets come off long-term lease compared to 20 assets in 2024. $187.5 million of our maintenance reserve revenues were short-term maintenance reserves, compared to $174.5 million in 2024. This continued strong cash flow is representative of the demand for our portfolio, the number of engines on short-term lease conditions, and the success of our program offerings. Spare parts and equipment sales to third parties of $95.5 million in 2025, compared to $27.1 million in 2024.

Scott Flaherty
CFO at Willis Lease Finance Corporation

The $68.4 million increase in sales was driven by $37.7 million of spare parts sales, up $11.6 million or 44.4% from the prior year. Gross margin on these spare parts sales were 2% for the year, but more importantly, provided the Willis platform and our customers access to high-demand used serviceable material to keep fleets flying. $57.8 million of these sales related to equipment sales, primarily to our joint venture partner, Willis Mitsui, compared to $1 million of similar sales in 2024. We recognize gross revenues on equipment sales when the asset has not been on lease in our portfolio. Margin on the equipment sales was $2.1 million or 3.6%.

Scott Flaherty
CFO at Willis Lease Finance Corporation

Gain on sale of lease equipment, a net revenue metric, was $54 million in 2025 and was associated with $269.7 million of gross equipment sales, representing an effective 20% margin on such sales. This compares to a gain of $45.1 million in 2024, where we saw similar healthy margins in excess of 20%. Our trading activities are an important part of Willis's efforts to recycle the portfolio, keeping it relevant to our customer base. Maintenance services revenue, which represents fleet management, engine and aircraft storage and repair services, and revenues related to management of fixed-base operator services, was marginally up in 2025 to $25.5 million as compared to $24.2 million in 2024.

Scott Flaherty
CFO at Willis Lease Finance Corporation

The 5.5% growth in maintenance services was driven by a $5.3 million increase in aircraft maintenance services and partially offset by a decline of $4.5 million related to the sale of our fleet management business in the second quarter of 2025. Gross margins in maintenance services were -9.5% as we are still in the build-out stages of our fixed-base operator services. Furthermore, these sales exclude the intercompany sales which are eliminated in consolidation. We believe that our maintenance service offering provide a differentiated solution to our customers and create incremental lease opportunities for our business. Other revenue increased by $8.1 million or 89% to $17.2 million from $9.1 million in 2024.

Scott Flaherty
CFO at Willis Lease Finance Corporation

Other revenue primarily is driven by management fees and has grown alongside the growth of our Willis Mitsui & Co. joint venture portfolio. We would expect our fund initiatives as well as the continued growth of our Willis Mitsui & Co. joint venture and our management of engines for third parties to fuel this growth on a go-forward basis. On the expense side of the equation, depreciation for 2025 was up $19.1 million to $111.6 million as we increased the portfolio size, but also as we placed new assets on lease for the first time, which starts their depreciation cycle. Write-down of equipment was $32.9 million for the year as compared to $11.2 million in 2024. As we go through our annual impairment process, we obtain appraisals on all of our engines and aircraft assets.

Scott Flaherty
CFO at Willis Lease Finance Corporation

When looking at our year-end 2025, maintenance-adjusted market value of our portfolio, which includes our equipment held for operating lease, maintenance rights, and financial assets in the aggregate representing our portfolio and comparing this value to the book value of our portfolio net of any on-balance sheet maintenance reserves, we see an unrecognized market value in excess of our balance sheet book value of approximately $700 million. This excess value excludes any potential future end-of-lease payments or other contractual return conditions, which adds even more value to the portfolio. G&A was $194.7 million in 2025 compared to $146.8 million in 2024. G&A as a percentage of total revenue remained relatively flat year-over-year.

Scott Flaherty
CFO at Willis Lease Finance Corporation

Increases in the overall G&A spend were related to a $23.7 million increase in personnel costs, which included a $15.3 million increase in share-based compensation expense and a $4.2 million increase in wages. Of the $15.3 million increase in share-based comp, $5.3 million related to the acceleration of vesting of shares associated with the departure of our former General Counsel. The remainder of increased share-based compensation costs was associated with the appreciation of our share price and the effect of such appreciation on older stock-based compensation awards. To a lesser extent, there was also the effect of share-based compensation awards associated with new hires. In 2025, the company modified its share-based compensation program to reflect significant appreciation in the price of the company's public equity.

Scott Flaherty
CFO at Willis Lease Finance Corporation

These changes phase in over time as historical awards which expense over multiple years as they vest flow through the P&L. Also, starting in 2026, the company has modified its cash incentive compensation plan, incorporating caps which will further reduce cash compensation expense. $12.6 million of the increase in G&A was related to increased consultant fees, primarily associated with our sustainable aviation fuel project. The company made the recent decision to cease its investment in this effort, as mentioned by Austin in his earlier remarks. Lastly, $4.7 million of the increase relates to higher legal fees, primarily associated with finance initiatives as well as startup costs of the company's new partnerships on the fund side of the business.

Scott Flaherty
CFO at Willis Lease Finance Corporation

Technical expense, which is predominantly unplanned maintenance and is expensed rather than capitalized, was $31.4 million for the year, up $9.1 million from the prior year. The increased level of technical expense is in line with the growth of the portfolio, the number of engines on short-term lease conditions, and the usage of the portfolio. Net finance costs were $135.1 million in 2025 compared to $104.8 million in 2024. The increase in costs were related to an increase in indebtedness as total debt obligations increased from $2.264 billion at year-end 2024 to $2.7 billion at year-end 2025.

Scott Flaherty
CFO at Willis Lease Finance Corporation

$4.7 million increase in year-over-year interest expense on our warehouse facility as this facility was not in place until May 2024 and therefore only had half a year of interest expense and related fees. $17.8 million of incremental expense associated with our WEST VIII notes, which did not close until June 2025. $6.2 million of less derivative receipts as certain swap positions matured in 2024 and 2025. The increase in interest expense were partially offset by increasing interest income associated with the increased restricted cash on our ABS financings and savings on our fully paid off WEST IV ABS notes and partially paid off WEST VII ABS notes.

Scott Flaherty
CFO at Willis Lease Finance Corporation

In 2025, the company recognized $43 million gain associated with the sale of our wholly owned subsidiary, Bridgend Asset Management Limited, or BAML, to our joint venture, Willis Mitsui & Co., for $45 million. BAML, now doing business as Willis Mitsui & Co. Asset Management Limited, continues to provide services to the Willis platform on an arm's-length market pricing basis. The company also picked up $13.4 million in earnings from our 50% ownership interests in our Willis Mitsui & Co. and CASC Willis joint ventures, which was up 62% from $8.2 million in 2024. Income from joint ventures was primarily driven by growth in our Willis Mitsui & Co. joint venture. Income tax expense was $46.8 million for the year, up $2.8 million or 6.4% from the prior year.

Scott Flaherty
CFO at Willis Lease Finance Corporation

The company's effective tax rate for the year was 29.2%, which differed from the 21% federal statutory rate, predominantly due to Section 162(m) add-backs, as well as certain discrete tax effects associated with the sale of our BAML business. The company's actual cash tax payment in 2025 was $3.4 million, as we benefit from significant depreciation tax shields associated with our leasing portfolio. The company produced $108.1 million of net income attributable to common shareholders, factoring GAAP taxes and the cost of our preferred equity, which was up 3.5% from our $104.4 million in 2024. Diluted weighted average income per share was $15.39 in 2025 compared to $15.34 in 2024.

Scott Flaherty
CFO at Willis Lease Finance Corporation

Adjusted EBITDA, a metric we have included in our new financial disclosures, speaks to the normalized cash flow generation of the Willis enterprise. Our adjusted EBITDA makes adjustments to our net income attributable to common shareholders for income tax expense, interest expense, preferred stock dividends and costs, depreciation and amortization expense, stock-based compensation expense, the write-down of equipment, acquisition financing and divestitures related expenses, and other discrete gains and expenses, including the one-time gain on the sale of our BAML business and our sustainable aviation fuel project related expenses incurred in 2024 and 2025. The adjusted EBITDA for 2025 was $459.1 million, up 16.6% from $393.7 million in 2024. Cash flow from operations was $283.2 million in 2025, in line with 2024.

Scott Flaherty
CFO at Willis Lease Finance Corporation

On the financing and capital structure side of the business, the company completed a series of capital market and strategic transactions, many in the fourth quarter, to support the growth of our on and off-balance sheet businesses. 2025 included approximately $3.4 billion of capital and strategic activity for Willis and our affiliated businesses, including three JOLCO transactions, raising approximately $60 million of capital between March and April, $596 million of ABS financings through our WEST VIII transaction in June.

Scott Flaherty
CFO at Willis Lease Finance Corporation

A first-time $750 million revolving credit facility in our Willis Mitsui & Co. joint venture in October, $392.9 million of ABS financing through our WEST IX transaction in December, a $600 million partnership with Liberty Mutual Investments to support our fund business focused on loan and loan-like assets in December, and a $1 billion+ partnership with Blackstone Credit & Insurance to also support our fund business focused on operating lease assets, and also in December. We continually look to diversify our sources of funding and minimize our overall cost of capital and have been successful accessing numerous markets over the years. In 2025, we returned $8.7 million of capital to our shareholders in the form of common dividends.

Scott Flaherty
CFO at Willis Lease Finance Corporation

In November 2025, we paid our sixth consecutive quarterly dividend at an increased rate of $0.40 per share. Subsequent to year-end, we declared and then paid in February our seventh consecutive regular quarterly dividend, which was at the higher $0.40 per share rate. Our recurring dividend provides shareholders with a moderate current cash yield on their investment while not degrading the strong cash flow of our business. With respect to leverage, as defined as total debt obligations, net of cash and restricted cash to equity, inclusive of preferred stock, our leverage ticked lower over the year by over a half turn to 2.97x at year-end 2025 from the 3.48x at year-end 2024. This level of leverage provides the company with flexibility to make opportunistic purchases and investments. With that, I hand the call back to Austin.

Austin Willis
CEO at Willis Lease Finance Corporation

Thank you, Scott.

Austin Willis
CEO at Willis Lease Finance Corporation

Putting it all together, 2025 was a terrific year from a performance perspective. More importantly, we laid the groundwork for our long-term strategy using Willis Aviation Capital to accelerate growth in both assets under management as well as through our services businesses. Thank you all for joining us today. With that, I'll hand it back to the operator for Q&A.

Operator

Thank you. If you would like to ask a question at this time, you may do so by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. If you're using a speakerphone, please make sure your mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. A voice prompt on your phone line will indicate when your line is open, and we ask that you state your name when posing your question. Once agai, nstar one for questions. We'll pause for just a moment. We'll take our first question from Zack Buckley with Buckley Capital.

Zack Buckley
Managing Partner at Buckley Capital

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question. Can you talk a little bit about your plans for seeding the Blackstone portfolio? How much of your own engines do you think you might end up selling into that entity?

Austin Willis
CEO at Willis Lease Finance Corporation

Hey, Zack. Good to hear from you. We're not going to disclose specific amounts, but I will say that we do have a small seed portfolio that we intend to move over into both Blackstone and Liberty Mutual. But the lion's share of the assets that we expect to populate in these funds will be from origination in the marketplace.

Zack Buckley
Managing Partner at Buckley Capital

Got it. The assets that you would be seeding those funds with, would there be a gain on sale associated with those, I'm assuming, if they're trading below fair market value?

Austin Willis
CEO at Willis Lease Finance Corporation

Yeah. I mean, I'd say it's consistent with other asset sales you've seen in the marketplace generally.

Zack Buckley
Managing Partner at Buckley Capital

Got it. You're not going to give a sort of direction or specificity around what percentage of the portfolio you might be selling into that.

Scott Flaherty
CFO at Willis Lease Finance Corporation

Sure. Hey, Zack, it's Scott. No, we're not going to give an exact number. As Austin said, there's materiality to the portfolio. As I mentioned in my earlier comments about the value of the portfolio when we looked at the maintenance-adjusted market values and the premium to the book values, we would expect to see to continue to see gains on the movement of those assets.

Zack Buckley
Managing Partner at Buckley Capital

Got it. That's helpful. I guess maybe just to follow up on that, for the engines that you will be buying for those portfolios, can you maybe talk about your competitive advantages in sort of sourcing those engines and buying, you know, at below market prices?

Austin Willis
CEO at Willis Lease Finance Corporation

Sure. It's consistent with our business model generally. You know, we've got a good relationship with the OEMs, and we do have an order book with CFMI for LEAP engines. That's one source. Another source is buying from other leasing companies where we think we've got a value add on the power plant side. That's a lot of that is aircraft for engine strategy. Lastly is programs. You know, we've been very successful at originating high volume, low price assets for programs because we're adding more value than simply the dollars that we're spending to acquire the asset. It's really helping them defer maintenance long term. Those are some key areas for us, and we expect to continue originating through those pathways.

Zack Buckley
Managing Partner at Buckley Capital

Got it. Thanks so much. That's all for me.

Austin Willis
CEO at Willis Lease Finance Corporation

You bet. Thanks.

Operator

Thank you. We'll take our next question from Will Waller with M3F.

Will Waller
Portfolio Manager at M3F

As it relates to Willis Aviation Capital and the Blackstone investment, you mentioned the $1 billion number. I'm curious if you can utilize the access that you guys have had to the asset-backed securities market to then lever that. You guys are probably pretty unique in that you have a much lower cost of funds, given the success you've had and the history you've had in the asset-backed securities market. Just curious if that $1 billion could then be leveraged, kind of as you've done with your own capital in the past or how you're looking at that.

Scott Flaherty
CFO at Willis Lease Finance Corporation

Sure. Thanks for the question. I think one thing to note is when we talk about $1 billion+, we're talking about $1 billion+ of metal. And therefore the fund or the equity dollars themselves will be less than $1 billion, and that $1 billion+ does contemplate the leverage on those assets. Yes, you know, we are a regular issuer into the ABS market, so I wouldn't be surprised if ultimately debt financing was structured in a way that was not dissimilar from what you've seen historically.

Will Waller
Portfolio Manager at M3F

Okay, great. On the appraised value number, your common equity is about $662 million. You mentioned the appraised value in excess of what you carry them on the books at, of your equipment, is about $700 million. You then also mentioned the maintenance dynamic. Would that be reflected in the maintenance reserve liability related to long-term leases where you haven't had those engines come back off lease, or you'd add that in as well?

Scott Flaherty
CFO at Willis Lease Finance Corporation

Sure. What I talked about was the $700 million, and that was looking at the disparity in the maintenance adjusted market value, the exercise that we go through every year on our entire portfolio, and the book value of our assets adjusted for the maintenance reserves, right? Ultimately, those maintenance reserves will come back into the value of the assets. What I said on top of that, and I did not quantify, was that we do have engines that are on long-term lease conditions that maybe are not paying a maintenance reserve, have an end of lease component, or have a contractual return condition to come back following a full shop visit. That would all be incremental value above and beyond the $700 million dollar disparity.

Will Waller
Portfolio Manager at M3F

Okay, great. Your order book, there's nothing being factored into that for the order book. The order book, if you have, say, prices for options to acquire LEAP engines, at below current market value prices, that wouldn't be included in that $700 million as well, correct?

Scott Flaherty
CFO at Willis Lease Finance Corporation

Correct.

Will Waller
Portfolio Manager at M3F

Okay, great. Then as it relates to your long-term maintenance revenue, that number was down, you know, in the fourth quarter. I realize it's lumpy given you only account for that as you actually get the, you know, as you get the engines back in your possession. I see that maintenance reserve liability increased by about $13.3 million from the third quarter of 2025 to the fourth quarter of 2025. Would it be safe to assume that, you know, had you gotten those back, your earnings would have almost been double what you reported, correct?

Scott Flaherty
CFO at Willis Lease Finance Corporation

Sure. I think you're highlighting a good point, right? The long-term maintenance reserve component is lumpy. We had in the fourth quarter of 2024, you know, approaching $15 million. In the fourth quarter of 2025, we had approximately $5 million. When you look for the full year, we had in 2025 almost $45 million compared to $39 million or approaching $40 million in 2024. That is lumpy over time. Consistently we see growth as the portfolio builds. I think that is something, you know, if you're thinking about modeling, you really have to normalize over time.

Austin Willis
CEO at Willis Lease Finance Corporation

Yeah. To reiterate what Scott's saying, if you look at the annualized numbers for 2024 and 2025, the percentage or the proportion of long-term relative to short-term is pretty consistent.

Will Waller
Portfolio Manager at M3F

Okay, great. Just one or two more quick ones. We saw an 8-K that you repurchased some shares during the fourth quarter. What are your views on share repurchases? You know, given it looks like you'll be going more towards an asset-light model where I'm guessing capital, you know, the need for all the cash and the capital that you're generating may not be as significant going forward. How are you looking at repurchases?

Austin Willis
CEO at Willis Lease Finance Corporation

I'll first challenge the asset-light terminology. I think I know it sounds a bit tongue-in-cheek, but I would probably call us asset-medium. You know, we've been the beneficiaries of owning assets on balance sheet for 40-plus years, and I think we've shown that we're good at it, and it serves us quite well. We're gonna continue to grow to the extent that we can with respect to leverage. I do think you're right, there is an opportunity to you know to deploy the existing capital in Blackstone and Liberty Mutual and potentially not deploy as much on balance sheet. That's not necessarily the strategy for us now. We're really pursuing growth on all fronts.

Will Waller
Portfolio Manager at M3F

Okay. Lastly, the engines that you guys wrote down related to Russia, we've seen most companies like AerCap and Air Lease, you know, recapture a lot of that value in the form of insurance claims. Do you still have any sort of insurance claims pending on that? Surprised we haven't seen anything. Just kind of curious as to an update on that.

Austin Willis
CEO at Willis Lease Finance Corporation

Yeah, we do, and for that reason, I can't go into too much detail. I think if you look at some of the judgments that we've seen, both in Europe and in the U.S., we feel pretty confident in what the recovery is gonna look like. I'll kind of leave it there.

Will Waller
Portfolio Manager at M3F

Okay, great. Thanks a lot. I really appreciate it.

Austin Willis
CEO at Willis Lease Finance Corporation

Thank you. I appreciate the good questions.

Operator

Thank you. That will conclude our question and answer session. At this time, I'd like to turn the call back over to Austin Willis for any additional or closing remarks.

Austin Willis
CEO at Willis Lease Finance Corporation

Only to say thank you for joining us today, and thank you for being shareholders. 2025 was a great year, and we look forward to 2026.

Operator

Thank you. That will conclude today's call. We appreciate your participation.

Analysts
    • Austin Willis
      CEO at Willis Lease Finance Corporation
    • Scott Flaherty
      CFO at Willis Lease Finance Corporation
    • Will Waller
      Portfolio Manager at M3F
    • Zack Buckley
      Managing Partner at Buckley Capital
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