FreightCar America, Inc. (RAIL) Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Welcome to the Freight Car America First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participant lines are in a listen-only mode. For those of you participating on the conference call, there will be an opportunity for your questions at the end of today's prepared comments. Please note, this conference is being recorded. An audio replay of the conference call will be available on the company's website within a few hours after this call. I would now like to turn the call over to Chris Oden with Riverend Investor Relations. Over to you, Chris.

Thank you and welcome. Joining me today are Nick Randall, President and Chief Executive Officer, Mike Reardon, Chief Financial Officer, and Matt Ton, Chief Commercial Officer. I'd like to remind everyone that statements made during the conference call relating to the company's expected future performance, future business prospects, or future events or plans may include forward-looking statements, as defined under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Participants are directed to Freight Car America's Form 10-K for description of certain business risks, some of which may be outside of the control of the company, that may cause actual results to materially differ from those expressed in the forward-looking statements. we expressly disclaim any duty to provide updates to our forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information future events or otherwise during today's call there will also be a discussion of some items that do not conform to U.S. generally accepted accounting principles or gap reconciliation of these non-gap measures to their most directly comparable gap measures are included in the earnings release issued yesterday afternoon our earnings release for the first quarter of 2026 is posted on the company's website at freightcaramerica.com along with the 8K, which was filed at market close yesterday. With that, I will now turn the call over to Nick for a few opening remarks.

Thank you, Chris. Good morning, everyone, and thank you all for joining us today. Our first quarter results were in line with expectations and remained consistent with the operating cadence we expect for 2026. At the same time, our commercial differentiation and expanding aftermarket business, which grew 86% year-over-year continues to distinguish FreightCar America and reinforces the resilience of our business model across market cycles our ability to serve specialized customer needs through not only new car builds but also retrofits conversions and our expanding aftermarket platform all play a key role in growing our addressable revenue opportunities and allowing us to fulfill a broader set of customer programs. In short, FreightCar America is a truly diversified rail car platform and that remains central to our strategy. Supported by our manufacturing expertise and strong productivity improvements, we realized one of the highest gross margin quarters in over a decade with 17% gross margin in the quarter. This represents an expansion of 190 basis points year over year what is especially encouraging is that we achieve this performance on lower you plan utilization highlighting the operational agility and variable cost structure of the business commercial activity was also encouraging in the quarter with significantly improved pipeline activity amongst key accounts and solid order intake including demand for our conversion and retrofit work we increased our backlog by 19 million sequentially, and together with the expected contribution from retrofit and aftermarket activity, we continue to expect performance to be weighted towards the back half of the year. Internally, as we have scaled our manufacturing footprint, we have been on a continuous improvement journey focused on enhancing productivity and strengthening execution across our manufacturing operations. During that time, we have successfully established four fully operational production lines and have taken a relentless approach in driving efficient manufacturing practices. We are extremely pleased with our progress to date, noting that we have increased productivity by approximately 50% over the last 24 months. In addition, we remain agile and are able to remain flexible as needed, giving us additional operating capability as demand evolves. together these actions and capabilities provide additional support to drive consistent margin performance over the long term at the same time programs like true track are helping reinforce accountability real-time build visibility and quality throughout the production process driving greater consistency reducing rework and strengthening production discipline across our operations we also remain focused on the continued expansion of our aftermarket platform an important part of our strategy to build a broader and more balanced rail business over time we are excited with the progress we have seen so far with our recent acquisition which represents an important step in expanding our aftermarket capabilities we remain disciplined in how we invest behind that strategy with a focus on selective adjacent opportunities that strengthen our position in core rail markets expand our capabilities and support attractive long-term returns overall we remain mindful of the current new build environment where industry order activity has remained relatively consistent with last year's levels Importantly, that dynamic continues to point to underlying pent-up demand as fleets age and deferred replacement needs build over time. As those fleets reach retirement age, customers are increasingly likely to place orders closer to the required delivering timing, which tends to favor more agile manufacturers by creating a shorter lead time environment. TradeCar America is well positioned in that regard. With our improved productivity, stronger operating discipline, and a flexible manufacturing model with scalable capacity, we are well equipped to respond efficiently and capitalize on opportunities as replacement demand returns over time. With that, I'll turn it over to Matt to discuss the market environment in more detail.

Thanks Nick and good morning everyone. I'll start with a brief update on the market and our commercial activity during the quarter. Industry conditions for new railcar builds remain relatively consistent with the prior year with expected annual deliveries tied to replacement demand. This dynamic reflects underlying demand as fleets continue to age and replacement needs build over time. Order activity during the quarter was also consistent with this environment with industry orders totaling 5,654 units compared to 5,085 units in the prior year period. Railroad service metrics continue to trend positively across the industry. Key indicators, like reductions in dwell time and increased velocity, speak to improved rail service, customer confidence in rail operations, and support long-term rail demand. Through the first quarter, U.S. car load traffic was up over 4% year-over-year, with 13 of the 20 car load segments showing growth. Grain and chemical car loads posted the strongest growth, which has also been reflected in our pipeline for new covered hopper cars. Overall, first quarter car loadings, excluding coal, were the highest since 2015 and indicate that despite softness in some sectors, underlying rail demand remains resilient. During the quarter, we saw strong commercial activity, including growth of our sales pipeline across our broad product portfolio of new build and conversion railcars. Further, we continue to see increasing interest in our aftermarket business as customers look to extend the useful lives of their aging railcar fleets through scheduled maintenance activity. Backlog at the end of the quarter totaled 2,058 units valued at approximately 156 million with a diversified mix across new builds, conversions, and retrofit programs that support a balanced revenue profile. Importantly, we are beginning to see customers who are evaluating new car orders moving forward with purchase decisions. In those instances, our flexible manufacturing footprint and ability to pivot quickly positions us well to meet customer-specific delivery timing requirements. From a market share perspective, we estimate our addressable share of industry new rail cars, including, excluding tank cars, was approximately 17% for the quarter, which is in line with our typical market share. Importantly, this metric does not include our work outside of new rail cars, including rail car conversions, retrofits, and rebodies, which further diversifies our revenue base and expands our participation across the broader rail car market. Looking ahead, as Nick mentioned, we remain on track to begin shipments under our tank car retrofit program in the second half of the year, with initial activity expected in the third quarter and more meaningful contribution in the fourth quarter. Overall, while near-term market conditions remain measured, we are encouraged by the level of commercial activity, the strength of our pipeline, and the continued diversification of our backlog. With that, I'll turn the call over to Mike to walk through the financials in more detail.

Thanks, Matt, and good morning, everyone. I'd like to begin with a few first quarter highlights. Revenue for the quarter was 64.3 million dollars compared to 96.3 million in the first quarter of 2025. The year-over-year decline primarily reflects lower rail car deliveries with 577 units delivered in the quarter for 710 units in the prior year period. As noted, this was largely driven by underlying demand and expected timing. While production timing impacted first quarter deliveries, we were encouraged by the momentum in our aftermarket business, where sales grew 86 percent compared to the prior year period. This growth reflects the progress we are making in expanding our presence in the aftermarket, driving further diversification to our business over time. Gross profit for the quarter was $10.8 million compared to $14.4 million in the prior year period. Gross margin was 16.8 percent, up 190 basis points from 14.9 percent last year. The improvement in margin was driven primarily by a more favorable product mix that expands beyond new rail cars, as well as the productivity gains and operational efficiencies across our manufacturing operations that Nick mentioned earlier. Importantly, we deliver this margin improvement despite lower production volumes, underscoring the benefits of our mix, productivity, and cost discipline. This improvement reflects the progress we've made in strengthening execution, improving throughput, and driving a more disciplined operating model. Selling general and administrative expenses as a percentage of revenue increased to 17.7% from 10.9% in the prior year period, primarily reflecting lower revenue in the quarter, rather than a meaningful increase in absolute SG&A expense. On the bottom line, we reported net income of $41.6 million, or $1.15 per share, compared to $50.4 million, or $1.52 per share, in the prior year period. Results for the quarter include a $49.1 million non-cash gain related to the remeasurement of our warrant liability. Excluding non-cash items, adjusted net loss was $0.5 million or $0.04 per share compared to adjusted net income of $1.6 million or $0.05 per share in the first quarter of 2025. This change primarily reflects lower volumes in the quarter. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $3.2 million representing a margin of 4.9% compared to $6.4 million and a margin of 6.7% in the prior year period. The year-over-year decline in adjusted EBITDA was primarily driven by lower deliveries, consistent with the expected quarterly cadence, partially offset by the margin improvements mentioned earlier. We continued to execute a disciplined and measured capital allocation strategy, balancing targeted investment in the business with a continued focus on liquidity and financial flexibility. From a balance sheet perspective, we further reduced debt in the quarter and ended with $52.8 million in cash and cash equivalents. Capital expenditures for the first quarter totaled $147,000. Moving forward, we continue to expect 2026 capital spending of $7 to $10 million, including approximately $4 to $5 million of maintenance spending, as well as targeted investments to complete our previously announced tank car manufacturing initiatives. The productivity improvements we have made, together with our flexible manufacturing footprint and existing production lines gives us the capacity to support higher production levels as demand improves without significant additional capital investment. Because that capacity is already in place within our current footprint, we can scale production as needed while continuing to direct capital towards opportunities that strengthen the business over the long term, including expanding our aftermarket platform and pursuing selective opportunities that enhance the stability and durability of our revenue and cash flow profile. Overall, first quarter results were in line with our expectations and reflect the planned production cadence for the year. We're reaffirming our full year 2026 guidance and our expectations for a stronger second half remain intact, supported by backlog visibility, scheduled program activity, aftermarket momentum, and continued productivity improvements.

We'll now open the line for questions and answers.

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment, please, while we poll for questions. Our first question comes from Mark Reichman with Noble Capital Markets. Please state your question.

Thank you. So if I look at rail car sales revenue divided by rail cars delivered, it was about a little under $92,000 for the first quarter. you know that number drifted down through throughout 2025 and and also the same was true really for the backlog value per real car so i was just wondering could you talk a little bit about the product mix changes throughout the year would you expect that number to get above 100 000 hi mark this is mike yeah you're you're right you know in the back half of 25 we we talked about mix shifted more towards conversions and rebody opportunities we had the same thing in q1

it was a heavier conversion quarter and i would expect as we move into the back half to see that number go go above 100 000 as the mix will shift back towards new car activity in the second half of the year does that answer your question mark it does the second quarter would you would you expect an improvement from the first quarter in that regard as well from a average selling price we should see that go up from where we were in Q1 as well and then built throughout the year yeah okay and then just my next question is

the I think you know you kind of expectations were for a much stronger second half, but with rail deliveries at 577 in the first quarter, it seems like there might be a little catching up to do to get within guidance. Could you maybe just talk a little bit about the cadence of rail car deliveries, and do you think your net rail orders received, I mean, I think it was 709 in the first quarter, that that's going to fuel strength, you know, into the second half of the year?

Mark, I'll start answering that question then. It's really an order pipeline question. I'm going to phrase it in and then that will drive the delivery cadence in the second half. So we've, this time last year, we talked about how improving our agility in manufacturing, which is effectively shortening our lead time and improving our response time, would favor people in a in a market where the number of orders being placed is is lower than the replacement average so that's what we're seeing again we're able to know we drove a lot of productivity improvements and we've shortened our or improved our velocity shortened our dwell time in the manufacturing plant which allows us to keep capacity open and the near term for customers as they place it and then what we get is visibility into the full pipeline of our commercial opportunities so we've got a you know an increase in the pipeline activity those customers talking to us about orders in the 2026 timeframe and our ability to fulfill those orders still within the 2026 timeframe so we're able to have more insights then then we do talk about pure booked orders on the pipeline activity the type of product what the product is waiting for to become a live order etc So that's where, yes, it is going to be weighted towards the second half. We said that last year, and it was. We're committing to that will be the same this year. With a lot of the work we did both in our scalable manufacturing and our ability to, you know, ramp up from, you know, what we did in Q1 to a significantly higher numbers without introducing risks is going to be key to our success in that as well. But the order activity I'll pass on to Matt. You can talk a bit more about that. But, yes, it is heavy-weighted to the second half. We knew that going in, and we've designed our plan around that. And we're still confident we can deliver on that.

Yeah, I'll just add that we've been adept at being able to convert orders with very short lead times, customers that have been on the sidelines now moving into the order stage, and our ability with our efficient footprint has allowed us to convert those orders very quickly and deliver. So that's been executed multiple times within the quarter. And just to comment on the pipeline, the pipeline is continuing to grow. It's been quite active in the latter part of the first quarter and into Q2. I won't speak to order activity in the quarter. We'll save that for the next earnings call.

But overall, we have high level of confidence in the strength of the pipeline for 2026 and even pipeline activity that is into 27 and beyond that's great that's very helpful thank you very much thanks mom our next question comes from aaron reed with north coast research please state your question thank you yeah a little bit of a follow-on to that call for a comment on the lower deliveries i was one of you to shuttle a little light around Were deliveries impacted at all by preparing for the tank car deliveries in the back half of this year? Because you're not going to be operating on that fifth line, but that fourth line. So did that have any impact on that as well?

No, Aaron, quite the opposite. We've historically talked about we have a fifth line on the roof, and we can open that fifth line pretty quickly as in under 90 days. but with our productivity improvements what we're finding is we're raising the capacity on those first four lines in our ability to convert more cars on those four in a more productive manner and what that means is our installed capacity on those first four is increasing quite significantly compared to what we originally intended with those productivities and velocity improvements so yes we will more than likely do the conversions as you mentioned some tank car conversions on the footprint we have possibly not even needing the fit line for that it's it's a it's available to our you should we need it but I would rather sweat the assets as much as possible before we commit to a expanded capacity so so in short short no the the volume wasn't impacted negatively because of some preparation work the preparation work has gone to plan we've got the certification as required but but that hasn't impeded our freight car business or our freight car capacity I will simply respond into customer demand profiles during the quarter okay great and then the follow-up question of that is you know last year I think overall deliveries across the industry around 30,000 do you have any more insights about what you might expect for the total number of deliveries for the remainder of 26 and have you gotten any indication now that a little further along what 27 might look like I'm gonna I'm gonna try it I'm not gonna try and do it course a year today plus a bit more video in four years because it's just easy to do the math that way so yeah so typically when we look at deliveries deliveries are gonna lag behind order activity so we look at the order activity for 2025 which would suggest that the deliveries in 2026 are going to be somewhere between 25 to 30,000 give a wide range there given that some still convert in 2026 so that would be a kind of consistent but then I'd expect the orders in 2026 to be about that range or slightly higher as they start receiving orders in the back end of 26 that go into 2027 so there's a lag time traditionally if you look in the rail industry that lag time between order placement and delivery has been as far as 18 months or longer typically now certainly with our agile manufacturing platform that timing from order placement to delivery can be as short as 9 to 12 weeks in some cases so what we're seeing is a compression of that order cycle from order placement to delivery and we've structurally aligned our sort of our operations and supply chain and support engineer roles so that we are very agile in that process which allows us to capitalize on that short and lead time that the mark and then the customers are beginning to look for super helpful and then I guess I'm going to take one last question on is when you look at the total overall number of deliveries throughout the year in your overall market share even as the industry is kind of seeing you know deliveries fall a little bit you're continuing to take market share have you seen any of the competitors take any competitive pricing action to combat the you know the market share you're taking or is it pretty much the same as it was before I'm going to answer at a very high level and then I'll try and get some more specific you know I think in a free market economy competitors always respond in some way whether it be pricing or value proposition or some other way so I would expect that to always be true with a with with a general income that's in the in a rail space but really what that means for us is we are very conscious that we have to earn the right to win our work and earn the right to win our market share and we take that very serious in the building it's we've never said we're going to be the the lowest cost producer but we will be the most valuable producer and we'll look at making sure that we deliver exactly what our customers want and what they need and enhance our value proposition that way we truly believe in our products we truly believe in our services and we truly believe in our relationships that we build and when we combine all that together we win work on our own rights now competitors will can can judge that and respond to that how they see fit we keep an eye on it but uh you know we've we've grown both in actual number unit count and in market share as you said and we fully expect to sustain those gains in fact build upon it and as the market deliveries respond back to the normal sort of 30 to 40 thousand units here we truly expect you to protect that market share gain through that growth cycle as well.

Super helpful. Thank you. Thanks, Aaron.

Our next question comes from Brendan McCarty with Sidoti. Please state your question.

Great. Good morning, everybody. Thanks for taking my questions here. I just wanted to start off on the Q1 gross margin, see if we could dissect that a little bit more. How much of that was structural in nature, or was that more so driven by higher retrofit deliveries in the quarter.

Hey, Brendan, this is Mike. I would call the majority of that structural. We didn't have any retrofits, but as alluded to, with the average selling price being down, because we had more conversions, you'll naturally see the gross margin up. As we've kind of mentioned, typically the bottom line gross profit on a per unit basis is relatively similar between conversions and new cars, but you have a lower price tag on a conversion, so you see the margin a little higher.

Got it. That makes sense. That makes sense. Yeah, I meant to say conversions actually, because I think the retrofits are more back half-weighted in the year. Is that correct?

Yeah.

Okay. Got it. And on that point, you know, with the retrofits in the back half of the year, but I think you mentioned you're still expecting to see the average sales price kind of step up throughout the year. Can you kind of, you know, differentiate that between the two? Yeah, just in terms of the delivery cadence?

Sure. So I think we've mentioned that the retrofit program we have is a two-year program. It kicks off in Q3 for us and really starts going in Q4. Probably about a quarter of that total order will take place in calendar year 26 with the balance going through 2027. So, the retrofits will have a lower impact on ASP this year compared to next year where the bulk of them are taking place.

Okay, that makes sense. That's helpful. And then last question for me just on the guidance affirmation. Are you – I guess how confident are you that you can really hit the midpoint there? and how much of that is really backed by, you know, I guess are you banking on a recovery in industry order flow in the back half of the year and really capitalizing on those short lead times? I guess what's really underpinning the confidence there?

So, yeah, I'll walk through that first and then Matt can probably put some color around some of the order activities. So the first question is, so yes, the year is back half loaded. We know that. We planned around that. That back half isn't really requiring the industry to get back to normal. You know, we've always planned on that, you know, if the industry or the total order quantity is somewhere around, you know, 25 to 30,000, similar to what it was last year, then that's what our guidance is based on. So if there's a sooner than expected return to normal replacement levels, then that would probably support a stronger result. But the assumptions we've got in that is based on less about industry dynamics, which are good to look at. But obviously, we really base ours on our relationships and our insights with our actual customers and the orders they're actually working through and the projects that those orders are going to go be delivered for so we really be able to base it on you know the the facts of the I guess the the order pipeline and gestation process and be able to risk adjust from that so what was the industry level is a background that helps us just sort of set the main scene when we look at our guidance and our forecasts are really looking at our our own pipeline with a lot more detail and be able to risk assess against the orders and the projects we're working on and what may or may not influence accelerating or deferring any of those projects so it's it's it's it's not always fully reflective you know last year you know we grew market share and we last and we grew unit count even though the order industry counts went down significantly quite a lot so it's kind of a rinse and repeat for us this year a similar dynamics still a lot to do clearly but you know I our confidence that we're not just mapping it simply to a here's what the industry does so therefore here's what we do we truly believe we have to earn the right for every order and we and we work on it on an order-by-order

basis with our customers and our projects Matt just a couple of comments Brendan so the back-to-back years of order activity is average 23,000 units we're scrapping more cars than that are being ordered you know when you talk when we have conversations with customers about their needs we're getting to a to an inflection point where we can't keep this low level of order activity and high level of car scrapping and not start replacing rail cars and I think you've heard us speak in the past about an impending demand push as we approach the end of the end of the decade and customers are starting to get I would I won't say more serious but certainly focused on their their demand for rail car needs now this is what we refer to as a high quality pipeline so we're seeing much more activity in terms of permitting funding for rail car build. So when we talk about how the outlook is for the remainder of the year, it's based upon good order activity that we've seen so far in the quarter, but I think there's also solid, high-quality pipeline activity that gives us high confidence in meeting our guidance.

Makes sense. I appreciate the detail there. That's all from me.

Our next question comes from Mark Reichman with Noble Capital Markets.

Please state your question. thank you well just a follow-up so you can imagine i mean 577 deliveries in the first quarter the guidance is between 4 000 and 4 500 so you know that that does certainly you know people are going to be a little skeptical about meeting that guidance but on the other hand you had that abl facility and that gave you a lot more uh product you know production flexibility and so we can't really see what's going on behind the scenes, but do you have some deliveries kind of already in the bag that you know are going to get delivered in that third and fourth quarters?

I guess what I'm asking is kind of your recent flexibility in terms of being able to produce and deliver, is that part of what's kind of behind the lumpiness in the delivery schedule this year? so I'll I'll try and there's a couple of questions wrapped up in that one so I'll try to break them down and then Matt and Mike can add some colors so first of all on the no if you just look at our guidance just the the entry level as you know as you said it's just over 3,450 or so still to do at the end of Q1 to ship in the year that would say on a level loaded basis call it 1200 units a year sorry a quarter or about 90 something units a week that is well within our capacity we've demonstrated much higher shipment profiles than that before so I don't think there's a capacity concern or ability to flex we drove the productivity improvements so that we can handle a lot of those delivery commitments in a sometimes in a single shift as opposed to double shift so we've got a lot of improvements that have baked into that so I don't think we have a charisma capacity perspective we can flex our volume and throughput very high the second bit you talked about is timing where we may build cars ahead of schedule so we may do a build sequence in a prior quarter but then you have been finished goods or on the ABL or some of the mechanical financial mechanics that then gets the revenue recognition in the later quarter we do sometimes do that there's not a lot of that in Q1 but you'll see some of those in in in Q2 builds that will ship in Q3 and Q4 that's normal for us as we smooth out that process so those those things do happen and will happen but they are allow us to buffer supply chain variability and maintain consistent output so that usually works better for us and then from a from a pipeline perspective there is a higher customer demand in the second half than there was in the division the first half percent in the first quarter and I you know there's only so much of pre-build ahead of time you can do because then you're gonna pay the storage fees and movement fees and a whole bunch of things so without flexible manufacturing we are we're able to deliver when our customers need them rather than having the customer make compromises on shipment timing and storage etc so that's where you know your role of these things together between our scalable manufacturing our operational excellence our true track and our deep relationships with our customers we're able to flex our delivery times so that our customers don't have to make compromises and that allows us to have another edge as to why we are a supplier

of choice for most of our customers that's great that's a very helpful detail Nick thank you that was the last question for today and it concludes the teleconference call. You may now disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation and have a great day.