Trinity Industries - Earnings Call - Q2 2025

Executive Summary

• Q2 2025 results missed Street on both revenue and EPS as lower external deliveries in Rail Products weighed on consolidated performance; revenue was $506.2M and GAAP diluted EPS from continuing operations was $0.19, with FLRD +18.3% and utilization 96.8%. Against S&P Global consensus, revenue and EPS were below expectations (rev $583.5M*, EPS $0.28*) while prior quarter Q1 also missed and Q4 2024 had beaten [Values retrieved from S&P Global]. Actuals: Q4 2024 revenue $629.4M and EPS $0.39; Q1 2025 $585.4M and $0.29; Q2 2025 $506.2M and $0.19.
• Management maintained FY25 EPS guidance at $1.40–$1.60 and industry deliveries at 28K–33K, trimmed net lease fleet investment to $250M–$350M, and raised gains-on-sale guidance to $50M–$60M, signaling stronger second-half execution as deliveries and secondary-market activity ramp.
• Leasing remained the bright spot: segment revenue up YoY, renewal rates +17.9% above expiring, FLRD in double-digits for 13 consecutive quarters, with renewal success at 89% driving resilient cash flows and pricing power.
• Near-term stock narrative: visible second-half improvement (deliveries, gains) and durable leasing unit economics vs consensus misses and margin compression in manufacturing; catalysts include backlog build, order recovery, and clarity on tax/tariff policy (including purchased tax credits that lowered the Q2 tax rate).

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

What Went Well

• Leasing strength: utilization 96.8%, FLRD +18.3%, renewal success 89%; “Our second quarter results underscore the solid performance of our leasing business and Trinity’s strong ability to generate substantial cash flow.” — CEO Jean Savage.
• Order momentum: 2,310 orders vs 1,815 deliveries, book-to-bill 1.3x, indicating sequential demand recovery; backlog ~$2.0B at quarter-end.
• Capital allocation and liquidity: $792M committed liquidity; $31M buybacks in Q2 (YTD $90M returned) supporting flexibility and shareholder returns.

What Went Wrong

• Manufacturing volume/margins: Rail Products revenue fell to $293.5M, operating margin 3.0% on lower deliveries (1,815 units) and workforce reduction costs; consolidated revenue dropped 40% YoY to $506.2M.
• Gains-on-sale lower in Q2 vs prior-year comp (Leasing gains $7.8M vs $22.7M), contributing to lower segment margins YoY; maintenance/compliance costs elevated.
• Miss vs Street: Q2 revenue and EPS below consensus (rev $583.5M*, EPS $0.28*), driven by slower delivery pace and timing of gains; management reaffirmed second-half weighting [Values retrieved from S&P Global].

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good morning and welcome to the Trinity Industries Q2 2025 earnings call. All participants will be in listen only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's remarks, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your touchtone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Leigh Anne Mann, Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Leigh Mann (VP, Investor Relations)

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us for the company's second quarter 2025 financial results conference call. Our prepared remarks will include comments from Jean Savage, Trinity Industries' Chief Executive Officer and President, and Eric Marchetto, the company's Chief Financial Officer. We will hold a Q&A session following the prepared remarks from our leaders. During the call today, we will reference certain non-GAAP financial metrics. The reconciliations of the non-GAAP metrics to comparable GAAP measures are provided in the appendix of the quarterly investor slides, which are accessible on our Investor Relations website at www.trin.net. These slides are under the Events and Presentations portion of the website, along with the second quarter earnings conference call event link. A replay of today's call will be available after 10:30 A.M. Eastern Time through midnight on August 7th, 2025.

Replay information is available under the Events and Presentations page on our Investor Relations website. It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to Jean.

Jean Savage (CEO and President)

Thank you. Leigh Anne, good morning everyone. Our second quarter results underscored the solid performance of our leasing business and Trinity strong ability to generate substantial cash flow. The North American railcar fleet remains in balance with ongoing improvements in pricing. Although customers have delayed their capital expenditure plans and new railcar decisions due to evolving trade and tax circumstances, they continue to retain their current railcars. Additionally, we are starting to see a recovery in new railcar demand as sequential order volumes improve, and we generated a book-to-bill ratio of 1.3x. As detailed in our prepared remarks today, we expect an increase in deliveries from second quarter levels and continued improvement across the business in the second half of the year. Before discussing our quarterly results, I would like to provide a brief market overview.

Inquiry levels remain healthy, and these inquiries are translating into increased order activity, albeit at a slower rate than initially anticipated. We are encouraged by a sequential pickup in orders in the second quarter, both for Trinity and for the broader industry. The industry fleet has experienced a modest contraction considering lower year-to-date deliveries for 2025, coupled with ongoing fleet attrition through scrapping. Given current production levels and improving order environment, the industry is on pace for full year industry deliveries in the range of 28,000-33,000 within the existing railcar market. Carloads have improved in the second quarter, primarily driven by strength in the energy and agriculture markets. Railcars in storage have picked up slightly, consistent with normal seasonal trends. We continue to monitor recent tax legislation and ongoing trade developments and remain generally optimistic about their impact on our business.

I will now highlight segment performance for the quarter. The railcar leasing and services segment, which includes leasing, maintenance, digital and logistics services. Our leasing business continues to perform exceptionally well. Segment revenues have increased both sequentially and year over year, primarily due to higher lease rates, reflecting our strategic efforts to reprice the fleet. The maintenance business has benefited from favorable pricing and a positive mix, contributing to a 21% year-over-year increase in quarterly maintenance services revenue. The future lease rate differential or FLRD stands at an impressive 18.3% for the quarter, marking 13 consecutive quarters in double digits during which 63% of our fleet has been successfully repriced.

Renewal rates in the quarter were 17.9% above expiring rates and our renewal success rate was 89%, demonstrating our ability to continually drive lease rates while sustaining a high fleet utilization of 96.8% during the second quarter, indicating a well-balanced fleet. During the quarter, we completed $29 million in lease fleet portfolio sales with gains of $8 million. We remain active in the secondary market as both a buyer and a seller and anticipate this trend will continue in the second half of the year. The cost of revenues in the segment increased by 13.7% year-over-year, primarily due to higher maintenance and compliance expenses for the lease fleet as well as a change in the mix of external repairs and our maintenance services business.

Turning to the rail products segment, which includes our manufacturing and parts businesses, second quarter results were in line with our expectations due to lower order volumes in preceding quarters. We adjusted production to match the pace of customers' delayed decisions, delivering 1,815 railcars in the quarter. This resulted in a segment operating margin of 3%, which is inclusive of costs associated with workforce reductions. We are encouraged by sequential improvement in orders in the quarter. We received orders for 2,310 railcars and achieved a book-to-bill ratio above one times for the first time in 10 quarters. We believe this positive order momentum will continue, supported by inquiry levels consistent with replacement level demand, favorable tax policies, and increased trade certainty expected in the near future. We are well positioned to respond to further market improvement as the year progresses.

I would like to commend our Rail Products Group for their strategic initiatives over recent years, including optimizing manufacturing operations, investing in automation, and lowering the business break-even point. Your hard work is evident in this low order volume environment. We are maintaining our full year operating margin guidance in the 5%-6% range for the segment. This outlook is underpinned by our expectations of stronger deliveries in the latter part of the year, better fixed cost absorption, a streamlined workforce, and continued efficiencies through automation. As we enter the second half of the year, we remain confident in our ability to deliver strong performance across our business. We will continue our efforts to reprice a lease fleet and capitalize on favorable conditions in the secondary market. We anticipate an increased pace of quarterly deliveries benefiting both revenues and margins.

Additionally, we expect our backlog to increase as pent up demand translates into orders, driving momentum through the latter half of the year and into 2026. I'll now turn the call over to Eric to talk through financial results as well as our updated guidance for 2025.

Eric Marchetto (CFO)

Thank you, Jean, and good morning, everyone. I will begin by discussing our second quarter financial statements, starting with the income statement. Revenues of $506 million and GAAP EPS of $0.19 in the second quarter are consistent with our expectations given a slower delivery pace in the second quarter. As Jean mentioned, lease portfolio sales proceeds were $29 million in the quarter. Our effective tax rate in the quarter was 15.8%. In the quarter, we purchased $40 million in transferable tax credits at a discount, which benefited our quarterly tax rate. These credits were used to offset the company's federal tax liability. For 2024, we have incurred approximately $8 million of severance expense year-to-date, split between Rail Products Group and Corporate. We are expecting full year severance expenses of $15 million, with remaining severance costs to be incurred in the Rail Products Group.

Given the workforce reductions as well as lower incentive-based compensation, we expect to realize about $50 million in savings across the enterprise in 2025. Net gains on lease portfolio sales are $14 million year to date, $8 million of which was in the second quarter. As I said last quarter, we expect gains on sales to be weighted to the second half of 2025. Moving to the cash flow statement, our business continues to demonstrate its cash generation potential. Year to date, cash flow from continued operations is $142 million. As we go forward, we expect the effects of recent legislation to benefit our cash from operations year to date. Our net lease fleet investment is $233 million. We remain active in the secondary market both as a buyer and a seller.

Secondary market purchases have allowed us to improve the yield on our fleet while also growing our lease fleet. Our full yield guidance for net lease fleet investment reflects higher originations and consistent secondary market adds, offset by significantly higher secondary market railcar sales in the second half of the year. In keeping with our capital allocation framework, we increased share repurchase activity to $31 million in the quarter. Year to date, we have returned $90 million to shareholders through dividends paid and share repurchases. Finally, our year to date investment in operating and administrative capital expenditures is $18 million. Our balance sheet positioning remains strong, providing us with significant flexibility. With $792 million in liquidity through our cash reserves, revolver, and warehouse availability, we are well positioned for a variety of market conditions. Our loan to value of 69.4% on our wholly owned fleet aligns with our target range.

In the second quarter, we successfully refinanced and upsized our TRL 2023 notes, further optimizing our debt portfolio and positioning our balance sheet for continued value creation. As we look ahead the remainder of 2025, we're maintaining our industry delivery forecast to a range of 28,000-33,000 railcars. While railcar orders have recovered more slowly than anticipated, we remain confident that demand will further materialize with some demand shifting into 2026. Based on customer conversations and market insights, we are adjusting our net lease fleet guidance to a range of $250 million-$350 million with approximately 35% of our 2025 deliveries expected to be added to our lease fleet. This slight reduction in fleet investment is due to lower originations and continued utilization of a robust secondary market. We anticipate gains on lease fleet portfolio sales for the full year to be between $50 million and $60 million.

Our operating and administrative capital expenditures guidance remains steady at $45 million-$55 million. Finally, we are maintaining our full year 2025 EPS guidance at a range of $1.40-$1.60. This projection indicates a significantly stronger performance in the second half of the year, which aligns with our expectations. Included in the annual guidance is severance expense of approximately $0.14 per share. Additionally, we are maintaining our segment margin guidance with an improved performance in the rail products segment expected in the latter half of the year, primarily driven by higher deliveries partially offset by severance expenses. The resilience of our business is on full display this year against a backdrop of low industrial growth and macroeconomic uncertainty. Anchored by our leasing business, we have seen improved performance in our fleet.

In the manufacturing segment, our people have responded to changing customer demand and positioned Trinity to perform in a period of lower demand. As we move forward, we are poised to realize additional operating leverage across our platform. Operator, we are now ready to take our first question.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. To ask a question, you may press Star then one on your touch tone phone. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press Star then two. At this time, we'll pause momentarily to assemble our roster. Our first question comes from Bascome Majors from Susquehanna. Please go ahead.

Bascome Majors (Equity Research Analyst)

Thanks for taking our questions here. Congratulations on getting production aligned with orders, and it's encouraging to hear that you continue to think that goes up from here. Can you talk a little bit about the production plans for the second half and how the build rate should probably trend versus where you were in the quarter, and ultimately are you aligning that to where orders are now or where you think they're going as the economy improves?Thank you.

Jean Savage (CEO and President)

Thank you and good morning, Bascome. I want to start out by talking a little bit about the cycle. Remember we told you that we were working to optimize our product to be able to perform through a cycle at the bottom of the cycle. We wanted them to at least be break even, and when you were in the mid to upper part, they would be accretive to our overall earnings. We're saying that we believe second quarter was the bottom of that cycle. We are proud of what the products group was able to do in delivering the 3% margin. We did have lower deliveries in the second quarter, and that was mainly due to resetting the line to the pace of production that we're expecting for the second half of the year.

You heard us say that we're still expecting margins to be 5%-6% for the products group, which means we're expecting volume to increase for the second half of the year for those deliveries. That aligns real well with the level of inquiry levels we're seeing and the positive customer sentiment that's starting to come through.

Bascome Majors (Equity Research Analyst)

Regarding the cadence of deliveries and margins, do you expect it to be fairly stable through the next two quarters, or will there be some lumpiness as you continue to build in the new configuration?

Jean Savage (CEO and President)

We expect it to improve through the year.

Bascome Majors (Equity Research Analyst)

Margins and deliveries, or was that a margin comment?

Eric Marchetto (CFO)

Thank you, that's both.

Jean Savage (CEO and President)

You're welcome.

Bascome Majors (Equity Research Analyst)

Can we go to taxes? You talked about purchasing some federal tax credits to reduce the tax rate. My understanding was as a leasing company, the cash tax burden is pretty light to start with. You've gotten this big, beautiful bill, full expensing, which I'm guessing is improving that framework for you. Can you talk a little bit about tax management, why that made sense for Trinity? Ultimately, do you have a run rate estimate of the cash tax saving from the full expensing deduction versus where you were before?

Eric Marchetto (CFO)

Yeah, Bascome, great question. Picking up on that. The tax credits we purchased were $40 million of tax credits and they related to the 2024 tax year, which is when you had a much lower bonus depreciation rate. You also had limitations on interest expense deductibility, section 163J. Last year we were expecting to be a cash taxpayer. Now with the new tax bill, you're right in that with the full bonus depreciation and the fix on 163J that will significantly reduce our tax burden and improve our cash flow from operations, which I mentioned in the script. You're definitely seeing that. The other thing I would say on the tax bill is the bigger piece of it is not only what it does to us, but what it does to market demand.

What I mean by that is when you think about underwriting investment decisions, you didn't have clarity on the tax bill, you didn't have clarity on regulatory reform, and we haven't had clarity on tariffs. Now we have clarity on the tax bill and we're gaining more clarity on the regulatory environment and, you know, businesses being able to do deals. With the flurry of announcements on tariffs, while it's not clear yet, I think it's safe to say we're not going to have a lot of more 90 day extensions and we're getting clarity. That will help businesses underwrite investment decisions. It won't happen tomorrow, but it will. You've got more clarity and that will help as well.

Overall, it's one of the reasons for our optimism in terms of where we think we are in the cycle is you are getting more clarity on these things that businesses can underwrite. Best decision decisions.

Bascome Majors (Equity Research Analyst)

Thank you for that. Also, tying it back into the sentiment and the fundamental customer responses, we could see that come through in the next year. Just one last one from me and I'll pass it on. You have an Investor Day target for margins for next year. I mean if we start where we are this year, you're a little below.What you promised then, but not massively, what 5%-6% versus 7%-9%. Ultimately, it seems that the big delta is build rates and absorption. I think you promised, or sorry, sort of had an outlook tied to 40,000 annual railcar deliveries on average and we're tracking 30,000-ish, give or take right now for the industry. How do you level set sort of the 9%-11% margin expectation from the Investor Day for next year? Looking out with kind of where we are today and maybe some improvement from that, but maybe not all the way back into that 40,000+ range?

Jean Savage (CEO and President)

Good question, Bascome. You're right, we did set out the 40,000 a year on average for the deliveries. The uncertainty that came into this year dropped that drastically, about a 30% drop year-over-year. With that, the volume has been the biggest impact that we've seen on our products margins. When you look at recovery from that, as we see the volume go up, you will see the recovery in those margins. I think it'll be quicker this time. I'm saying that because of all the hard work that the products group has done over the last few years. They've worked on their efficiencies, their changeovers, the automation, supply chain, all of that work, although it won't come back overnight, will come back quicker than what you've seen in the past as we see the volume recovery. When we get back to the 40,000, you'll see it.

We think they're deferring orders right now depending on where they feel comfortable with the certainty in the macroeconomics and the tariffs is when we'll start seeing that volume get closer to the 40 for the industry.

Bascome Majors (Equity Research Analyst)

Thank you both.

Jean Savage (CEO and President)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Andrzej Tomczyk from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Andrzej Tomczyk (Analyst)

Good morning everybody. Thanks for taking my questions. Maybe just one quick one to follow up on Bascome's earlier question on the margins for the full year, the 5%-6% in manufacturing. Should we expect, and I know you said improvement through the year, but should we expect to be below the low end of the range in the third quarter and ramp more into the fourth quarter, or would you expect to be within that range through the second half? Just to clarify there.

Jean Savage (CEO and President)

We don't give quarterly guidance, Andre. Sorry about that, but we are saying our full year guidance should be in the 5%-6% range. You would have all four quarters going into that to get to the full year. We do expect to see volumes improve through the year. Hopefully that helps a little bit with you, and the business improves through the year.

Andrzej Tomczyk (Analyst)

That makes sense. I guess putting those pieces together, does the delivery picture in the back half then look more like that first quarter level, or should we be thinking more between the two quarters? I'm just trying to get a sense for the full year, the full year deliveries relative to the total industry delivery guidance. I think you said 28,00-33,000. If we come in at 28,000 and you guys maintain your market share that you did last year at 41%, that would assume roughly 11,500 deliveries for you this year. I'm just curious if you can comment on the relative back half deliveries, if that's looking closer to the first quarter or if we should expect to ramp more into the fourth quarter. Any additional color there would be super helpful. Thank you.

Jean Savage (CEO and President)

Sure. You hit the key points. We do expect the industry deliveries to be between 28,000 and 33,000. We expect to be within our normal range of market share, which would be between that 30% and 40%. You can back into the numbers there. As I say, the business improves through the year, which means the biggest improvement we'll see is based off volume.

Andrzej Tomczyk (Analyst)

Understood, thank you. Maybe just switching to leasing, could you speak a little bit more to the current competitive environment and what you're seeing in terms of the secondary market perspective and lease rates? I know you said it. You should expect that to kick up into the second half, but any additional commentary into the quarter relative to the beginning of the year would be helpful as well. Thank you.

Jean Savage (CEO and President)

The market is still very tight and imbalanced, and that's always great for a lease lead. We're seeing good FLRD. We're seeing that our renewal rate and success was 89% in the quarter. That's the highest that we've seen for a while in that aspect. I think all the metrics that we're looking at are positive overall for the lease lead. We don't see anything that's going to change that. As you can see from the build deliveries, they're not outpacing the demand or the order. Those are all good data points to say we expect leasing to continue to be strong. We've only repriced 63% of our fleet, so we still have quite a bit left there to reprice over the next few years. All those indicators are positive in our viewpoint.

Eric Marchetto (CFO)

Yeah. And Adrzej on the secondary market, I'll just add that we see the market as still very good and it stands to reason with lower build rates, leasing companies, really, you're going to get your growth through the secondary market. We're seeing that. You may have caught in our comments on the guidance, we did increase our gains on sale from $40 million-$50 million to $50 million-$60 million for the year. That's just a testament to how we see the secondary market.

Andrzej Tomczyk (Analyst)

That makes sense. Maybe just two sort of higher level questions. One for me to close out, the first one, is it on the tariff situation? I'm just curious, is it too simplistic to think higher steel prices could limit customer demand for new cars in the near term? Does that sort of speak to the delayed decision making that you guys were talking about earlier? Just trying to think through that longer term. If you could share any thoughts on the recent news on the potential transcontinental rail merge, you know, if that were ultimately to go through, how do you see that impacting the leasing and manufacturing business or the industry overall? Thanks for the time, everybody.

Jean Savage (CEO and President)

Thank you. Higher steel pricing does mean that the car is going to be. Costs are going to be higher. Also, as you look at higher steel prices, that means scrap prices typically are higher too, which leads people to attrition. The first half of this year, 20,000 cars, just over 20,000 cars were scrapped. The scrapping was higher than the delivery. We saw a little bit of a contraction in the overall fleet. At some point, that contraction is going to lead to having to order new cars. That's what we're saying. We're seeing sentiment start to change there, and that's with the steel prices already in effect.

For us, as far as the merger, when you look at it from what we know right now, the interchange process does cause inefficiencies between the railroads, and anything you can do to fix or improve those inefficiencies should help our customers overall and lead to better modal share. If you look at what the synergies that have been called out for this merger are, two thirds of those are in revenue synergies from identified opportunities to grow volume. They're talking about converting truck to rail, capturing transcontinental shipments, and then penetrating deeper into international markets. All of those are good for us in the long term with modal share shift. That's what we know right now. We'll keep watching to see if anything new comes out, but we think this could be good overall for the industry.

Andrzej Tomczyk (Analyst)

Thank you, Jean and Eric, appreciate it.

Eric Marchetto (CFO)

Thank you.

Jean Savage (CEO and President)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

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

Jean Savage (CEO and President)

Thank you for joining us today. Trinity's second quarter results highlight the strength of our leasing business and the resilience of our franchise. We're encouraged by our ability to perform in a challenging delivery environment and are optimistic about the improving order volumes. This positive trend paves the way for enhanced operating environment and improved financial performance in the second half of 2025.

Operator (participant)

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