GATX - Earnings Call - Q1 2025

Executive Summary

• Q1 2025 EPS of $2.15 and revenue of $421.6M beat S&P Global consensus ($2.09 EPS; $417.1M revenue); strength was driven by robust asset remarketing ($33.4M) and continued outperformance in Engine Leasing, partly offset by higher interest and maintenance expense. Consensus: EPS 2.0867*; Revenue $417.1M* (3 estimates each). Actual: EPS 2.15; Revenue $421.6M.
• Rail North America (RANA) fundamentals held firm: utilization 99.2%, Lease Price Index (LPI) +24.5% with 61-month average terms; renewal success 85.1%. Management highlighted balanced supply/demand, disciplined OEM production, and resilient secondary-market valuations.
• Guidance maintained: FY25 EPS $8.30–$8.70 unchanged; management reiterated outlook despite tariff/macro uncertainty; investment volume still targeted at ~$1.4B; remarketing income view $100–$110M reaffirmed.
• Catalysts: sustained supply-led pricing in RANA, continued Engine Leasing strength (RRPF pipeline “among the strongest”), and robust secondary market; watch macro/tariff overhang (particularly Europe), elevated tank-car compliance costs, and interest expense trajectory.

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

• What Went Well

  • High-quality beat: Q1 EPS $2.15 vs $2.09* consensus and revenue $421.6M vs $417.1M*; margin profile supported by remarketing and engine JV contributions.
  • RANA KPI strength: utilization 99.2%, LPI +24.5%, renewal success 85.1%, 61-month average renewals; “we continued to experience solid demand for our assets globally” — CEO Lyons.
  • Engine Leasing outperformance: segment profit $38.6M vs $25.7M LY, driven by RRPF and more owned engines; management called demand for spare engines “outstanding”.

• What Went Wrong

  • Higher interest and maintenance expense offset higher lease revenue at RANA; interest expense rose to $94.9M (vs $77.8M LY) and maintenance to $103.5M (vs $91.4M LY).
  • Rail International profit dipped YoY ($25.7M vs $28.8M) on higher interest and FX; GRE utilization eased to 95.1% (vs 96.1% prior quarter).
  • Macro/tariff uncertainty constrained willingness to raise guidance; management noted Europe as the region with the most uncertainty, and intermodal remains pressured in GRE.

Transcript

Speaker 6

Thank you for standing by. My name is Kate, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the GATX 2025 first-quarter earnings call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star one again. Thank you. I would now like to turn the call over to Shari Hellerman, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Speaker 4

Thank you, Kate. Good morning, and thank you for joining GATX's 2025 first-quarter earnings call. I'm joined today by Bob Lyons, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Paul Titterton, Executive Vice President and President of Rail North America. Tom Ellman, our Chief Financial Officer, was called away on a family matter and will not be joining our call this morning. As a reminder, some of the information you'll hear during our discussion today will consist of forward-looking statements. Actual results or trends could differ materially from those statements or forecasts. For more information, please refer to the risk factors included in our earnings release and those discussed in GATX's Form 10-K for 2024 and our other filings with the SEC. GATX assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances.

Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that our annual shareholders' meeting is scheduled on Friday, April 25th, at 9:00 A.M. Central Time and will be held in a virtual-only meeting format. I will provide a quick overview of our 2025 first-quarter results, and then I'll turn it over to Bob for additional commentary on the current market environment. After that, we'll open the call up for questions. Earlier today, GATX reported 2025 first-quarter net income of $78.6 million, or $2.15 per diluted share. This compares to 2024 first-quarter net income of $74.3 million, or $2.03 per diluted share. The 2024 first-quarter results included a net positive impact of $0.6 million, or $0.02 per diluted share, from tax adjustments and other items. These items are detailed in the supplemental information section of our earnings release. Our first-quarter results were in line with our expectations coming into the year.

In North America, supply and demand dynamics for railcars continued to remain in balance, and demand for our existing fleet was solid. GATX Rail North America's fleet utilization remained high at 99.2% at quarter end, and the renewal success rate was strong at 85.1%. We continue to achieve renewal lease rate increases while extending terms. The renewal rate change of GATX's lease price index was 24.5%, and the average renewal term was 61 months. Additionally, we continue to successfully place new railcars from our committed supply agreement with a diverse customer base. We've placed over 5,700 railcars from our 2022 Trinity supply agreement. Our earliest available scheduled delivery under this supply agreement is in the first quarter of 2026. In addition to those ordered from our committed supply agreement, we also found attractive investment opportunities to acquire railcars in the secondary market.

Total investment volume in North America during the quarter was over $227 million. We also continue to capitalize on a robust secondary market by selectively selling railcars, thereby optimizing our portfolio and generating over $30 million in asset remarketing income in the quarter. On the maintenance front, first-quarter net maintenance expense was higher compared to a year ago, driven by higher TANG compliance activity, which we expected and have discussed previously. The flow of cars into the shops to meet the required regulatory compliance will continue as the year progresses, consistent with what we outlined at the beginning of the year. Within Rail International, the European railcar leasing market remained stable, evidenced by GATX Rail Europe's fleet utilization of 95.1% at quarter end. GATX Rail India's fleet utilization remained very high at 99.6%.

We continue to experience success in pushing up renewal lease rates for most car types, reflecting continued demand for Rail International's assets. Investment volume was over $62 million during the first quarter, as we continue to expand and diversify our fleets in Europe and India. Turning to engine leasing, our RRPF, our joint venture with Rolls-Royce, and our wholly owned engine portfolio both performed well and produced strong first-quarter financial results, reflective of robust demand for aircraft spare engines globally. At this time, we continue to expect full-year earnings to be in the range of $8.30-$8.70 per diluted share, excluding any impacts from tax adjustments or other items. With that quick overview, I will now turn the call over to Bob.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Shari, and thank you all for joining the call this morning. Appreciate the time. As I talked with Tom Ellman last night about his schedule for today, I volunteered to sit in as de facto CFO in his absence. It also occurred to me that, while I spent 14 years in that role previously, Tom is far better at that job than I ever was. You're stuck with me today for finance-related questions. Happy to have Paul here with me to talk about anything you might want to discuss in the North American rail market. With the uncertainty around the impact of tariffs in North America and abroad, along with the general uncertainty in economic conditions, I thought I'd open with some brief comments on those topics and hopefully address a number of your questions upfront.

First of all, the impact of the recent tariff announcements has to date had very little impact on our business and financial results, I think reflective of what Shari already outlined this morning. That's not surprising, given that our installed base of assets around the globe is generally on long-term lease with strong customers, and we enter each year with a pretty predictable level of cash flow from our lease portfolio. On a longer-term basis, however, we're an economically driven company, and a sustained pareback in economic growth as a result of tariffs or global tensions could affect GATX at some point. We certainly aren't seeing that today, but it's not outside the realm of possibility. Talking about each of our markets separately, we'll start with Rail North America.

Here, our customers continue to need the railcars that they have in their fleets today, and you see that through the really high renewal success rate that we had and also the LPI at 24.5%. In short, our customers continue to need the cars that they have in their current fleet. Additionally, the supply and demand across the North American rail new car market remains largely imbalanced. We're seeing the railcar builders being very disciplined about their production plans. On a direct basis, as it relates to tariffs, we do source railcars out of Mexico. However, previously enacted exemptions for cross-border movement of cars remain in place, so there's no direct impact on the cost at this point. General inflationary factors remain in play, and that could continue to drive upward pressure on new car costs.

As we've noted before, as the cost of the new car rises, there's a residual benefit to those who own large fleets of existing cars like GATX. That said, on the direct impacts, the broader risk of tariffs in North America, as it is globally, is more indirect. For example, economic conditions. Obviously, we can't dictate economic conditions, but we're prepared for any scenario. Another would be commodity flows. If there are certain commodities that either benefit or are hurt by tariffs, we could see that impact in demand for certain car types. It's really difficult to predict which car types, so I'm not even going to try. I will remind people that we have an incredibly diverse fleet. We have over 800 customers, and we serve and move over 600 different types of commodities in our cars. That provides a lot of flexibility.

Interest rate movements are also hard to predict these days, but we have a really strong balance sheet and an investment-grade rating, and we have a lot of funding flexibility. To summarize in North America, the direct impact of the tariffs is limited and not impactful in the near term, while the longer-term risks are indirect and certainly more difficult to assess right now. As many of you know, at GATX, we've seen pretty much every environment imaginable through our history, and we're fundamentally wired for and prepared for challenging situations should they occur. To the extent there are changes in market fundamentals, we'll obviously share that with you when we see it, as we always do. GATX Rail North America is a nimble organization, and we will adjust if needed. In fact, in times of uncertainty, we often see some of our most attractive investment opportunities.

In Europe, we're seeing stable demand for the largest portions of our fleet, and you saw that in their utilization numbers as well. As for the direct impact of tariffs, we source cars and components largely within Europe, so there are no direct impacts from tariffs today of note. Similar to North America, the longer-term impacts are indirect, and they potentially are meaningful, also very difficult to quantify. The economic environment in Europe was already pretty tepid, and that was before the developments over the course of the last month. Germany is a very important market, the largest market we serve, not only for the automotive trade, but also Germany serves as the EU's base for global chemical trade, and the economy is predicated and predicted to slow as global tensions rise. We will have to navigate that.

Similar to Rail North America, GATX Rail Europe is a great franchise, very strong, diverse fleet, and high-quality customers across a range of end markets. I'm highly confident our experienced team there will adapt and adjust as needed. In India, similar to Europe, there's a closed-loop system with railcars and most components being sourced in-country, so the direct impacts are muted. We also have the benefit in India of the fact that the overall infrastructure development needs remain so strong that tariffs or global turmoil, even over a medium term, will be unlikely to alter the long-term outlook for infrastructure investment. Turning to engine leasing, demand for spare engines currently remains very high, and the need for spares is robust. In fact, our investment pipeline at RRPF, that's our joint venture investment with Rolls-Royce, that pipeline is among the strongest across GATX.

That said, a slowdown in global air travel, if it occurred over a protracted period, could temper demand for engines. We're always prepared for that scenario, and the team at RRPF and at Rolls is always prepared for that scenario, especially given that past macro shocks to travel, like 9/11, the pandemic, or the war in Ukraine, they happened really quickly, and they had a significant negative impact on travel and engine demand. However, what those situations also showed is that global air travel is extremely resilient, as is the demand for the underlying assets and our engines. They are a great store of value through cycles. At TriFleet, our tank container leasing business, the dynamics are a bit more nuanced. The hard asset itself, the tank container, that asset moves freely across global markets and does not attract any tariff risk as long as the assets continue to move.

The products within the tanks, particularly chemicals, could attract tariffs depending on their origin and destination. For example, chemicals moving between China and the U.S. would be subject to tariffs, and you could see some demand on the impact for our assets. At present, we've not seen that. We have not seen a material impact on demand. Obviously, that's something we and others in the industry are watching pretty closely. I'll summarize and close my comments by stating that, once again, our focus, as always at GATX, is on the long term. Our assets hold value through cycles. Our customers are strong, sophisticated, and resilient, and the assets we provide to them serve a critical function. As evidenced by the fact that we reiterated our full-year guidance today, we remain confident in our results for 2025.

Like most companies, we'll remain on alert for signs of more direct impacts on demand fundamentals as a result of tariffs. I'd certainly prefer a more stable environment. I think most corporations would. It appears we're entering a period of greater macroeconomic volatility. Historically, GATX has not only managed well through uncertain times, but we've thrived by finding unique investment opportunities. We'll strive to do the same as we navigate this market. With that, we'll open it up for questions.

Speaker 6

At this time, I would like to remind everyone, in order to ask a question, press star then the number one on your telephone keypad. We will pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Bascome Majors with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

Speaker 0

Thank you for the candid discussion on the concern and uncertainty around the second and third-order impacts of tariffs. Is this an environment where you feel like you would have raised guidance if it were not for that uncertainty and the unpredictability of it in the back half of the year?

Speaker 3

Bascome, thanks for the question. Ordinarily, GATX does not really adjust earnings in the first quarter. We only provide annual guidance, as you know. It is a little difficult for us to kind of assess the full year one quarter out of the gate. We tend to be a little bit more deliberate. When we have raised guidance in the past or changed guidance in the past, it has usually been at the mid-year point. Even this, forget tariffs, forget the macroeconomic volatility, the uncertainty. I think if we look back in history, the first quarter, we usually reiterate. That is what we are comfortable doing today. The first quarter absolutely played out the way we thought it would, and our expectations remain right in that $830-$870 range. There was nothing that occurred during the quarter that would materially alter our thoughts around that.

Speaker 0

Thank you for that. We have certainly seen that mid-year pattern over many years, and I appreciate you reminding us. Higher level, you guys and particularly Paul at the REF conference a few weeks ago have really articulated maybe the uniqueness of this cycle for railcar leasing in your businesses and that you have really had a tremendous amount of growth in your core markets without help from really railroad volumes, mostly from supply-side inflation, be it steel prices, components, labor that is driving up the cost of new cars and replacement costs of many of the decades-old assets you own, but also a mix of reduction discipline and perhaps constraints on the railcar OE side in North America.

I mean, if anything, the glass-half full take here from our perspective would be that new railcar production is getting more, not less constrained in this environment, and certainly some of those inflationary factors are ticking back up after ticking down for the better part of a couple of years from the pandemic peak. How do you feel about the supply-side thesis today? Is it really just we have to balance some of the demand destruction potential, even though demand really hasn't been a driver of this upcycle in railcar leasing?

Speaker 5

Vascom, this is Paul speaking, and thanks for the question. It's a very good question. Yeah, what I would say is we continue to believe in what we've been calling the supply-led market thesis and the self-correcting market thesis, which is basically to say, exactly as you described, that it is relative to history, expensive to build, and expensive to finance new railcars, and that has been a constraint on new car production. If you look at the ARCI numbers for the last couple of quarters, we're on an annualized run rate of around 20,000 cars of orders per year, which is well below the replacement rate, well below what we've seen in history. As you correctly note, that is supportive of our business when we have a large and diverse installed fleet of railcars. That thesis continues to hold.

Just to add to that, I would say we talked about the self-correcting market, as we've described it, which is to say, since there isn't an overhang of idle cars in the market, in any one of our markets, when we see a little bit of weakness, we tend to see scrapping pick up, which again is supported by a fairly high scrap price right now, and the market corrects back into balance fairly quickly, which is as compared to, say, the Great Recession when that did not occur. Yeah, overall, the thesis that we've articulated that this is a supportive market for our core installed fleet really continues to be the case.

Speaker 3

Bascome, I'd add to that too that when we provided our guidance at the beginning of the year, I'd have to look back at my specific comments, but I believe I indicated that our forecast, our expectations, are certainly not predicated on carload growth. To be clear, we would welcome that, but we're not dependent on it. We came into the year expecting very muted carload growth. Other factors at play are very much beneficial to GATX in this market.

Speaker 0

Lastly, and then I'll pass it on. When you think about the sort of demand risk that you highlighted and the uncertainty that that entails in a lot of your markets, do you feel more risk and uncertainty and variability in, say, aerospace versus North American Rail or Europe and India Rail? I just want to understand maybe directionally, if you could rank order where you feel visibility is more uncertain versus more certain. Thank you.

Speaker 3

Sure. I would say if I had to kind of rank order all the markets we're in or the regions of the world that we're in, probably the one right now with the most uncertainty would be on the rail side in Europe just because of the different factors at play there. We already were coming into the year with pretty minimal GDP growth in Europe. Again, we have a large base of installed assets in that market, highly predictable cash flow coming into the year. If there's a little bit more stress in that market, it's not really going to change our overall outlook.

Speaker 0

Thank you.

Speaker 6

Your next question comes from the line of Bascome Majors with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Morning. Thanks for taking my questions. First, could you just provide more color on the macro volatility that you mentioned and how it might specifically impact the North America railcar segment and geographically, if you could get into that as well? I know you touched on it a little bit earlier, but are there any comments from customers that you could pass along sort of intra-quarter or here into April that we could take away? Thanks.

Speaker 3

Sure. I'll start there, and Paul can fill in too if he wants to add. From a commercial perspective, I think the volatility and the uncertainty of the markets where we see that manifest itself is in our customers' longer-term growth plans. The more difficult it is for them to predict three to five years out, the more difficult it is for them to size their fleets accordingly and consider growth opportunities in their railcar fleets. If we see anything, it's maybe longer decision periods or some uncertainty among our customers. The flip side of that, as I mentioned at the open, is the installed base, the cars they have in their fleet today, with an 80+% renewal success rate and roughly 25% LPI, it's pretty clear they're holding on to what they have and committing on those long-term. That's a very good sign.

From a pure intermediate standpoint in terms of fleet growth, it's a little bit tougher, and that's maybe where we see some hesitancy in terms of committing.

Speaker 5

Yeah. I'll just add, I think echoing everything Bob said and just adding that to some degree, as what customers say and what they do, our customers in North America certainly talk about uncertainty. As Bob said, when you look at our renewal success and our pricing, they're holding on to the assets that they have. I think that speaks to the fact that uncertainty cuts both ways. Our customers do not want to let go of the assets that they have, even if they feel that uncertainty, because they're not necessarily saying, "We definitely need to shrink our fleets." In fact, quite the opposite. I think they're saying, "We do need to hold on to the assets that we have today.

Speaker 1

Thanks. Just as a quick follow-up there, in North America, are customers buying into the notion that manufacturing could come back sort of to the U.S., Mexico, Canada, the reshoring theme? Is that a consideration for customers? I know you mentioned not letting go of their fleet, but is there a consideration that customers could actually increase the fleet over time given those nearshoring trends?

Speaker 5

It's a great question to which I'm going to give an unsatisfying answer, I'm afraid. We have a very large customer base, as Bob said, over 800 customers in North America, and we get a wide range of comments from them on that. I will say we have some customers that buy that thesis and say that they're going to lean into that thesis. We have others who don't. It really varies widely from customer to customer, from segment to segment. I will say to the customers that have commented that they do buy that thesis, it's very much with a long-term bent. It's not something that's going to affect us one way or the other in the immediate term.

Speaker 3

Yeah. To follow on Paul's point, we renew roughly 20,000 cars in a given year. That's a lot of at-bats with that 800-plus customers that we have in North America. We survey them and talk to them all the time. If there was a clear direction we could pull from that, we'd share it with you. As Paul said, it's kind of getting 800 different opinions at this point in time.

Speaker 1

No, it makes sense. Appreciate that. Also, thanks for the tariff comments earlier in the opening remark. I just wanted to clarify if you are seeing new railcar prices currently going higher already, given the tariffs on steel inputs, and then how much are you able to pass through to customers if that is the case or if that will become the case? Thank you.

Speaker 5

Sure. Yeah. What I would say is the general—and I'm going to talk, by the way, about the general level of new car prices as opposed to the prices GATX specifically pays because obviously our contracts with the builders are confidential—the general level of new car prices right now, we do see at relatively high levels. I would say for some freight car types, we're seeing them pretty close to record highs. For tank cars, not as close to record highs, but certainly close. For context, when we look at both hot-rolled coil steel and plate steel, we're seeing input prices that are certainly at 12-month highs and are quite high relative to history. You are definitely seeing the general level of new car prices quite high these days.

In terms of the ability to pass that on to customers, what I would say is most of the pricing events in our fleet are in our existing fleet. The relationship between the new car price and the price on the existing fleet is very indirect. It absolutely has an effect because, of course, for some of our customers, the alternative to renewing our cars is procuring a new car. There is certainly a relationship there, but it is indirect. In terms of the relationship between the new cars we are buying and the price we are getting, what I will say is we continue to earn reasonable returns on our new car deployments. I would say those returns maybe are a little bit compressed relative to where they have been, but they are still in the acceptable range.

Speaker 3

Yeah. I think it's fair to say renewing cars in this market, obviously at 80+% renewal success rate, we're doing very well on that front. New car placements, it's more competitive. It's definitely more challenging in the fact that you have other lessors and the builders all pursuing a limited pool of new car opportunities. The pricing is a little bit more aggressive on that front.

Speaker 1

Got it. Lastly for me, just on the secondary market, valuations, have they gone higher on the back of those new car commentary? What are the expectations for the remainder of this year for remarketing income? Is it still down year over year just to bake in some conservatism, or is that still the expectation? Thanks.

Speaker 5

We actually did not necessarily—we forecast or we budgeted a very, very modest decrease in remarketing income, but essentially we budgeted a year that was going to be a lot like last year from a remarketing standpoint. We budgeted as though this was going to be a good remarketing year, and we continue to have that view. Valuations in the secondary market have held up nicely. Whether that is a direct result of the fact that new car pricing is high is difficult to say, but that very likely has something to do with it. In general, we are still seeing a good number of participants in the market. The breadth and the depth of the market is good. We get good responses to the packages we put into the market.

Overall, at this point, I would say we continue to see a very supportive secondary market within North America.

Speaker 3

Yeah. In 2024, we had roughly $120 million of remarketing income. We came into the year and said we thought that number would be between $100 million and $110 million this year. Still feel very good about that. That is a very, very healthy remarketing year for us. Optimistic about that.

Speaker 1

Thanks. Appreciate the time.

Speaker 6

Your next question comes from the line of Brendan McCarthy with Satori. Please go ahead.

Speaker 2

Great. Good morning, everybody. Thanks for taking my questions here. Just wanted to start off looking at the engine leasing business. Looks like a really strong quarter here. I wanted to tie that into your CapEx guidance. I think you were looking for about $1.4 billion heading into 2025. Just curious if kind of the macro uncertainty gives you pause on that front, I guess both from a railcar perspective and also from the spare aircraft engine perspective.

Speaker 3

Yeah. For direct investments in engines coming into 2025, our forecast was similar to 2024, which it was right around $250 million for direct investment in engines. Still expect to be somewhere in that range. It could move around a little bit depending on Rolls-Royce's sales activity as well. On top of that, I would add that we expected Rolls-Royce and Partners Finance, our joint venture activity, those investments do not show up directly in our cash flows. It is all through the JV. They were anticipating a really strong year of north of $800 million. As I mentioned in my opening comments, that pipeline is really strong. I think we will be there or above at the JV level. Really good year of investment activity.

One nuance about that business, even in uncertain times, if air travel declines and it happens over a protracted period, oftentimes you see airlines look for liquidity. Sale lease-back opportunities with airlines actually increase during more challenging times. I'm sure our team at Rolls-Royce and Partners Finance will be on the lookout for that. Overall investment and volume for the year, you hit the number on the head. We expected coming in to be at $1.4 billion. We did just under $300 million in the first quarter totally across GATX. Still expect to be in that same level, that same $1.4 billion. At Rail North America, we were in the $800 million range for 2025 on our expectation. Still see that occurring. May come off. I mean, part of that's depending on secondary markets, so it could come off a little bit.

Anything up in that $800 million range is a really, by historical standards, a really strong year for North American Rail.

Speaker 2

Great. That's helpful. I appreciate the color. I appreciate the color. Maybe just from a demand perspective, you mentioned if we see a pullback in international travel, that could impact the business. Can you tie that into maybe how the—or I guess maybe can you discuss how that ties into the contractual mandated maintenance schedule of these assets? I think it's every three to five years or so. There's mandated maintenance.

Speaker 3

Are we talking about it on the engine side of the business?

Speaker 2

Correct. Yes.

Speaker 3

Yeah. We do not see any significant change in the maintenance profile or expectations for maintenance activity within the engine leasing side, whether directly owned or at RRPF. No significant change there.

Speaker 2

Okay. Okay. Switching gears, just wanted to talk about the balance sheet. I know you maintain a very strong balance sheet investment grade ratings, and I saw recourse leverage tick down in the first quarter. Are you comfortable with where interest expense is now? I guess what interest rate environment is really baked into the guidance for this year?

Speaker 3

We're right in the zip code of what we baked in for the year. Maybe no significant pickup or degradation from where rates are today versus what we thought coming into the year. Total interest and depreciation last year was just over $500 million. We expected that number to go up meaningfully in 2025 in the magnitude of $40 million. We're still on course for that. We did anticipate interest rate increase in 2025. Nothing in the first quarter would change our estimate of where we're going to end on a full year basis. Overall balance sheet, yes, still in very, very strong condition. Leverage is at a very good spot. Our investment grade rating is extremely important to GATX. We're mindful of that all the time. It gives us great flexibility in funding.

We're going to keep leverage kind of right near where we're at today.

Speaker 2

Great. One more question for me. Just wanted to take a look at Rail Europe. I think I saw that there was a pretty sizable amount of railcars coming up for renewal in 2025. Can you touch on the renewal success rate there and maybe how that ties into the outlook for Rail International?

Speaker 3

Yeah. The lease terms in Europe are always shorter than they are in North America. So where we turn maybe a fifth or so of our fleet in a given year in North America, it's about a third that turns every year in Rail Europe. That's typical of that market. It's just historically, and that's industry-wide. That's not unique to GATX Rail Europe. It's a two to three-year lease market. Nothing out of the ordinary there. Our renewal success rate was pretty high, other than I would say we continue to see significant challenges in the intermodal market. We've talked about that on prior calls. Our utilization in the intermodal fleet is lower, certainly lower than where we'd like it. It's going to take a while to come back. That is putting some undue pressure on overall utilization at GATX Rail Europe.

We expected that coming into the year.

Speaker 2

Got it. That makes sense. Thanks, everybody.

Speaker 3

Thank you.

Speaker 6

Your next question comes from the line of Justin Bergner with Gavelli Sun. Please go ahead.

Speaker 0

Good morning, Bob. Good morning, Paul. Good morning, Shari.

Speaker 5

Good morning.

Speaker 4

Good morning.

Speaker 3

Justin, how are you?

Speaker 0

Good, thanks. The same for you guys. To start, are sequential lease rates still trending flat, kind of on a spot basis?

Speaker 3

Actually, this quarter, they were down slightly from where they were in the fourth quarter. Again, nothing that we didn't anticipate coming into the year, but on a sequential basis, down a little bit.

Speaker 0

Okay. Gotcha. It seems like you were pretty bullish on the secondary market in the comments in your press release and the comments to start the call. Would you say that your view of the secondary market has strengthened from three months ago, or is it about the same?

Speaker 3

I would say it's very much the same. What we expected coming into the year, we didn't expect the macro volatility that's gone on, kind of whether it be tariffs globally, what have you, interest rates moving pretty sharply from week to week. That we did not anticipate coming into the year. I would say the fact that the secondary market has held up, has continued to be as strong as it is, and the pipeline looks as good as it is, I think it speaks volumes about the quality of the underlying assets.

Speaker 5

Yeah. I'll just add too. There is capital that wants to invest in these assets. Because the new car market looks to be a pretty small market this year, that capital, if it wants to invest, is going to flow into the secondary market. That's one of the reasons for our confidence in the continued strength.

Speaker 0

Okay. That makes sense. Just some quick cleanup questions. Your cash balance ending the quarter was higher than normal. Is that just money that you're getting prepared for investment needs later in the year?

Speaker 3

Yeah. Certainly higher than normal. We did one bond offering during the first quarter as we were looking out over the course of the year. The bond market was fairly unpredictable during the first quarter. We're always looking long-term on our funding needs. We saw a relatively quiet period for over a course of a couple of weeks. We took that opportunity to do an $800 million issuance in advance of when I think historically we would have done so. The demand was great. We did both 10s and 30s at a very good coupon and essentially pre-funded a pretty significant portion of our financing needs for 2025.

Speaker 0

Okay. Lastly, within the RRPF joint venture, I mean, the equity income was high. Was there an unusually high amount of secondary sales and gains on secondary sales in the joint venture this quarter?

Speaker 3

No. We came into the year expecting our total income at the RRPF joint venture to be up $20 million-$30 million versus where we were in 2024 within engine leasing total, excuse me, not just within the RRPF. Baked into that was the expectation that the income mix at RRPF would be about 65% operating income and about 35% remarketing income. That is almost exactly what it was in the first quarter.

Speaker 0

Oh, okay. It was only 35% or so remarketing income in the first quarter.

Speaker 3

Yes.

Speaker 0

That's good to know. All right. Thank you for taking all my questions.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Justin.

Speaker 6

Your next question comes from the line of Bascome Majors with Susquehanna. Please go ahead.

Speaker 2

Thanks for taking my follow-up. Justin just asked about the sequential lease rate trend. I think you said down a little bit. Is there any delineation between tank cars and freight cars in that? Maybe historically, you've kind of talked about your long-term lease rate expectations and whether cars, types, by the way you define them, percentages that are above or below, just any update on how you look at the lease rate attractiveness in a historical context over a little longer term. Thank you.

Speaker 3

Sure. No significant delineation between tank and freight in the first quarter in terms of the change in the sequential rates. Overall lease rates, I would say in the first quarter, by and large, came in as we expected. No significant deviation from the forecast we had in place. The LPI came in very consistent with what we thought. I would say on a historical basis, we are continuing to see lease rates at very, very attractive levels. Paul can comment more on that.

Speaker 5

Yeah. Relative to our model, we have a long-run expectation for every car type in our fleet. In general, across the fleet, rates remain elevated relative to our long-term expectations. Obviously, we're constantly refining and revising our model on a regular cadence to reflect additional data gathered. Yes, rates continue to be strong relative to our view of long-run levels.

Speaker 2

Thank you.

Speaker 3

Thank you.

Speaker 6

I will now turn the call back to Shari Hellerman for closing remarks.

Speaker 1

I'd like to thank everyone for their participation on the call this morning. Please contact me with any follow-up questions. Thank you.

Speaker 6

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's call. You can now disconnect. Thank you and have a great day.