Operator
Thank you for standing by, and welcome to World Connect Corporation's first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone. To remove yourself from the queue, you may press star 11 again. I would now like to hand the call over to Braulio Medrano, Senior Director of FP&A and Investor Relations.
Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to World Connect's first quarter 2026 earnings conference call, which will be presented alongside our live slide presentation. Today's presentation is also available via webcast on our Investor Relations website. I'm Braulio Medrano, Senior Director of FP&A and Investor Relations. With me on the call today is Ira Burns, Chief Executive Officer, Mike Zahada, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, and John Rao, President. And now I'd like to review our Safe Harbor Statement. Certain statements made today, including comments about our expectations regarding future plans and performance, are forward-looking statements that are subject to a range of uncertainties and risks that could cause actual results to materially differ. Factors that could cause results to materially differ can be found in our most recent Form 10-K in other reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We assume no obligation to revise or publicly release the results of any revisions to these forward-looking statements in light of new information or future events. This presentation also includes certain non-GAAP financial measures, A reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures to their most directly comparable GAAP financial measures is included in our press release and can be found on our website. We will begin with several minutes of prepared remarks, which will then be followed by a question-and-answer period. At this time, I would like to introduce our Chief Executive Officer, Ira Byrne.
Thank you very much, Baroglio, and good afternoon, everyone.
I want to start by saying how proud I am of our team. Despite a far more volatile and unpredictable environment than anyone could have expected, we delivered a strong start to 2026, driven by strong execution and the continued benefits of our focused portfolio strategy. As conditions shifted rapidly following the escalation of the conflict in the Middle East, driving sharp price movements and heightened uncertainty across global energy markets, our teams remained focused, disciplined, and deeply engaged with our customers and suppliers. They navigated real-world complexity, managing rapid price changes, logistical challenges, and tightening conditions while maintaining a clear and consistent focus on safely and efficiently serving our customers. That combination of execution, professionalism, and focus is a defining strength of our organization and one that continues to set us apart importantly what you're seeing in these results is not just resilience in a volatile operating environment but evidence of the successful execution of our portfolio optimization strategy as we've discussed our exits from non-core and lower margin activities particularly within land have enhanced our financial flexibility and increased our ability to focus on investing in areas where we see more predictable durable and attractive returns we announced today that world fuel will serve as our unified corporate and commercial brand for substantially all internal and external purposes this is the logical next step in our repositioning efforts and reflects our strategic clarity and conviction in our approach to value creation our customers around the world already know us as world fuel and this brand clearly reflects who we are today a trusted provider of transportation fuels and complementary services just as importantly this return to our roots reflects the progress we've made simplifying the business and allowing our teams to fully focus on the core activities that benefit from scale generate solid returns and offer meaningful opportunities for long-term growth as noted in our earnings release world Connect will remain as our corporate legal name, and our ticker symbol will remain as WKC. With that, I'd like to provide an overview of each of our core operating segments before passing things over to Mike to walk through the financials for the quarter. Marine results were consistent with what we have long communicated. When prices rise materially and volatility increases, this business performs exceptionally well. It has happened before, and well, it just happened again. It is important to note that this was not simply a quarter in which markets did the work for us. Performance was driven by teams executing under pressure, actively managing pricing, credit exposure, and operational risk in real time while continuing to support customers despite challenging market conditions. We consider this a remarkable outcome, and I want to recognize our entire Marine team for their accomplishments in the first quarter. Aviation also exceeded expectations this quarter, as higher prices and increased volatility expanded opportunities in our core commercial business, while also driving increased government-related activities. The integration of the universal trip support services business is well underway, and we We are pleased with both its performance and how effectively the teams are coming together. Land core activities perform largely in line with expectations, with strong card lock and retail results offset by modest softness in our natural gas business. As I mentioned earlier, we have made significant progress with our portfolio exits and expect the vast majority of that work to be completed by the end of the second quarter. Excluding these exit activities, LAND delivered an operating margin significantly above the prior year, reflecting continued momentum and the benefits of our portfolio optimization efforts. Across the enterprise, and more broadly across the markets we serve, customers increasingly rely on trustworthy counterparties with scale, financial strength, and execution capability. Our global platform, longstanding supplier relationships, and strong balance sheet position us to meet and exceed customers' expectations and to continue delivering when reliability matters most. Together, this reflects a simpler, more focused business with a scale, measured execution, and balance sheet to reform across a broad range of market conditions. From an earnings standpoint, we delivered incremental profitability in the first quarter, with results supported by the high-price, high-volatility environment we saw across the market. And while more upside is possible given day-to-day unpredictability, our core expectations for the balance of the year have not changed, and our full-year assumptions have only been adjusted to reflect the profitability already generated during the first quarter. Mike will walk through our updated guidance in a moment. This quarter's performance reinforces my confidence in our platform, the strength of our team, and the durability of our customer and supplier relationships. Our strong results demonstrate the consistency of our model across a wide range of market conditions and the discipline with which we operate. With that, I'll turn the call over to Mike to walk through the financial results in more detail. Mike?
Thank you, Ira, and good afternoon, everyone. Before I discuss the results, I want to briefly address our use of non-GAAP measures. As we have stated previously, our GAAP results can include items that do not reflect our ongoing operating performance, such as restructuring and exit costs, impairments, operating results of non-corded investitures and business exits, and other non-recurring items. We provide reconciliations on our Investor Relations website and today's webcast materials. Total non-GAAP adjustments in the first quarter were approximately $16 million or $13 million at the tax. Now, on to our consolidated results, which exclude these non-GAAP adjustments. As Ira mentioned, we delivered a strong first quarter, benefiting from a dynamic market environment. While the results were grounded in our core businesses performing in line with expectations we set last quarter, they were further enhanced by our team's strong execution and ability to capture additional upside from pricing and volatility-driven opportunities. Our first quarter results were impacted by the conflict in the Middle East and the related market dynamics. In environments like these, we have demonstrated a proven ability to balance our role as a critical partner to our customers while leveraging our scale, supply our relationships, and the balance sheet to capture market-driven opportunities. This is a key strength of the WorldFuel platform and one that affords us the flexibility to generate incremental value when opportunities arise. While these opportunities are not always predictable, they can be meaningful contributors to our overall performance as we saw this quarter. On a consolidated basis, first quarter volume was 4 billion gallons, down 6% year-over-year, while first quarter gross profit was $254 million, up 10% year-over-year, which was above our expectations going into the quarter. Since Marine was the principal driver of for our strong performance this quarter. Let's start there. Wines were approximately 4 million metric tons in the first quarter, up 4% year-over-year, and gross profit was 66 million dollars, up a significant 86% year-over-year. This strong performance marks our third best quarter on record for marine. We entered the quarter expecting a low price, lower volatility environment. However, in March, conditions shifted quickly, with volatility increasing sharply, and average bumper prices rising approximately 70% month over month. By leveraging our supplier relationships and strong balance sheet, the team did what they do best and executed extremely well, supporting our customers while capturing strong risk-adjusted returns in our core resale business and in our physical inventory locations. As we discussed in the past, Marine's baseline performance in low-priced, lower volatility environments deliver solid returns with minimal working capital requirements. However, when prices rise, credit availability tightens, and volatility increases, the spot nature of the business positions us well and enables us to continue to provide our customers with the products, services, and credit they require when they need us. Our marine business is a proven track record of executing in these environments while maintaining disciplined risk management, and this quarter was no exception. This performance is a testament to our team's capabilities and how it's the optionality embedded in our model. We continue to view this as a major differentiator and a clear driver of value. Looking through the second quarter, we expect marine gross profits to be lower sequentially as price and volatility moderates, so gross profits should be meaningfully higher year-over-year. Now turning to aviation. For the first quarter, aviation volume was down five percent, as expected. However, gross profit was $138 million, up 20 percent year-over-year, and ahead of our expectations heading into the quarter. Baseline performance in our core offerings was in line with expectations, and the year-over-year increase was driven primarily by the universal trip support acquisition, which we closed in November of last year, and is performing as planned. Core aviation results exceeded our expectations, driven principally by favorable market conditions, which created some short-term opportunities to generate incremental returns in our core commercial business, while also driving increased government-related activity. Looking ahead, we remain confident in the aviation's outlook, but are closely monitoring the global supply landscape. As we progress through the year, we recognize that if the conflict in the Middle East continues for an extended period, it could begin to more broadly impact global supply and customer demand beyond what has, so far, been generally contained. From a baseline standpoint, and as we discussed last quarter, we expect the benefits of our expanded service capabilities and growing international activity to more than offset any competitive pressure. Heading into the second quarter, we expect our aviation gross profit to be up sequentially, driven in part by a typical seasonal increase in activity, as well as some continued contributions in the current market environment, as well as up year-over-year with the inclusion of universal trip support acquisition. Our land business delivery results in line with our expectations in the first quarter, with volume and gross profit down 50% and 38% year-over-year, respectively, reflecting the impact of our portfolio actions and previously announced disinfectives. The remaining exit-related activities are progressing as planned and are expected to be materially complete at the end of the second quarter. While these low-return businesses were a meaningful part of our portfolio in 2025, they are now part of our core growth strategy going forward. However, we continue to invest resources to support customers through a smooth transition. For the quarter, our car-lock mutual business performed well, benefiting from disciplined yield management that helped margins keep pace with higher working capital costs and credit requirements. in a rising price environment these results were offset by our natural gas business which is negatively impacted by severe weather in the Midwest in January we expect second quarter gross crop to be up sequentially so downwards to the prior year principally due to the businesses we have exited or in the process of exiting and the resulting impact on the comparative period that said we continue to expect our poor land businesses to further improve and drive meaningful year-over-year growth with operating income still on track from nearly doubled and operating margin improving significantly toward our 30% target for 2026. Next I'll cover operating expenses and net interest expense. Operating expenses in the first quarter were $181 million up 2% year over year. The year over year increase reflects the inclusion of the universal trip support business as well as higher variable compensation costs driven in part by a strong result in the first quarter. These operating expense increases were mostly offset by lower costs than the land simplification actions we have been taking. Net interest expense in the quarter was $26 million, up versus prior year, driven apart by a reduction in interest income as well as additional working capital requirements during the quarter as prices end. With that backdrop, let's turn to our outlook and guidance framework. As a reminder, for 2026, we're providing full year adjusted ETFs guidance. We believe this approach better reflexively manages the business and counts for seasonality and provides investors with a clear framework for evaluating performance. For the second quarter, while we do not expect the range to repeat its exceptional first quarter performance, we do expect overall adjusted ETS to be higher every year. For full year 2026, we are upping our adjusted ETS guidance $2.65 to $2.85 per share, up from the prior range of $2.020 to $2.040 per share. This reflects our over-performance to date, underpinned by baseline expectations that remain on track. According to cash flow, driven mainly by a sharp increase in commodity prices, which impacted working capital, our first quarter operating cash flow was negative $46 million and pre-cash flow was negative $60 million. While we expect prices to normalize over the coming quarters, we have proactively managing our exposure and we believe that we remain well positioned with strong liquidity to deliver positive free cash flow in 2026 consistent with prior years and finally a reminder that we return 86 million dollars of capital to shareholders to dividends and share repurchase in the first quarter this includes the 75 million of share repurchase we completed in january as discussed in the february call looking for the remainder of the year we remain disciplined in our capital allocation framework with a key focus on returning capital and delivering long-term value to our shareholders. As a wrap-up, I'd like to leave you with some key takeaways. First, we delivered a very strong start to the year, with results well above expectations. While our core business is executed on target, we captured additional upside in a higher price and more volatile market, especially in Marin. While these conditions have persisted into April, our outlook assumes a return to a more normalized market environment. Importantly, peer-efficient disease reinforce our role as a trusted partner to customers, driving it with market expertise and access to key supplier relationships, supported by strong credit and liquidity positions. Second, as we discussed, Marine delivered extremely strong results in a volatile market, allowing us to capture attractive market-driven opportunities underpinned by disciplined risk management. The strength of our team and marketing position enables us to significantly outperform our expectations for the quarter. Third, aviation outperformed our expectations this quarter and we continue to benefit from our strong global network and expanded service capabilities, our remaining focus on discipline returns. Our integration of the universal trip support business is on track and believe we are well positioned to deliver meaningful year-over-year work. Fourth, land is progressing well through the exits and divestitures we discussed last quarter. With a simpler, more focused portfolio and improving operating leverage, we are starting to see a steadier and more predictable baseline contribution from our core offerings. We expect to build this trend as we move forward with a focus on growth and improve year-to-year operating income and operating margin. And finally, financial discipline remains central to how we operate, from cost management to capital allocation. We remain focused on executing our strategy, maintaining a strong balance sheet, and delivering consistent core earnings growth and cash flow generation. With that, I'll turn the call to the operator for the Q&A session. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone. To remove yourself from the queue, you may press star 11 again.
Please stand by while we compile the q a roster our first question comes from the line of ken hexter of bank of america your line is open ken great thank you operator hey uh good afternoon uh good evening uh ira and mike and team um brolio uh so great job in a volatile environment you beat by our estimates at least 44 cents uh your full year you're targeting a 45 cents so uh mike maybe you answered this a little bit in the last part but maybe you could delve into it i guess are you expecting a a pullback right if you've got just based on your estimate you've got what uh two dollars remaining for the rest of
the year so about 66 cents a quarter so you're expecting a a consistent pullback uh a pullback through the year maybe just walk us through how we should think about that yeah hey ten uh thanks the question you know what we're kind of flowing through our guidance is a pickup from q1 you know while we're taking some some headwinds you know into april obviously you know the dynamic market pretty well so tailwind tailwind sorry sorry sorry to correct you yeah no good um so you know we're balancing out you know there's a lot of quarter left so our guidance for the remainder of the year kind of holds consistently uh the increased guidance really is a reflection of the Q1 over performance that we have already kind of recorded, so we're just kind of maintaining where we were before for the balance of the year.
Yeah, it's set in a different way, Ken, or not that different. Considering where we informally got into for the first quarter, you know, that $2 that you're referring to for the rest of the year is pretty consistent with where we thought uh the the q2 through q4 would be you know going into the first quarter uh there obviously there's the opportunity for some additional upside but as you see from what's going on today uh we have a different story every day and and we're uh we're just we're just assuming that uh we we generate the same level of profitability over the balance of the year that we expected going in if there's some upside you know we'll talk about that next quarter but we decided to do to play it safe.
So to be clear though what you what you're saying now is it's not that it's pulled back to that level right now it's just you're expecting the rollover and pull back in your forecast model but right now we're still seeing that volatility and pricing or profit per metric ton or gallon remaining elevated or or it's already back down to it.
It's not back to where it was it's still above where it was the peak volatility was clearly when these conflicts happen the craziness is always uh most severe at the very beginning um you know you know if you combine price and volatility and uncertainty uh so there's still some of that it's not the same degree that it was on the first couple of weeks in march uh but you know obviously there's still volatility in the market that's greater than it was in February. No one knows how long that's going to last. They could last another week, another month, another quarter. You know, it's very difficult to predict. The longer it lasts, in theory, there could be some additional upside. But, you know, I don't think any of us could predict, you know, predict that one. So, again, we're, for now, just assuming that the balance of the year comes through the way we forecast before the conflict began. And there's certainly a possibility for some additional upside, but we'll wait until we have that in the books and close before we report on it.
So if we look at bunker fuel, and Ira, maybe tell me if that's a good read on how we should think about marine, but you doubled your gross profit per gallon. Should we expect that to pull back? It looked like volumes were down, yet profitability obviously doubled. So maybe talk a little bit about the backdrop on the marine side, given you said they really do take advantage of that volatile market. Maybe talk about the sustainability of that.
Yeah, can maybe just add in, you know, like I said, I think that the peak of the volatility we saw so far was in March. So April is definitely coming off that level of volatility, which is kind of one of those areas where you could see some additional incremental. So, you know, going off of the average, you know, of the month, you April is performing stronger because obviously Jan and said we're factored into that. So volatility and prices are definitely elevated and higher. So, you know, for April, we definitely have some, you know, we're taking in that, you know, obviously higher level of performance. But as Ira indicated, you know, that can go away quickly. You know, as we said on the last earnings call, you know, we wouldn't have forecasted or expected the increase in price and volatility we saw throughout the month of March. So we're taking a cautiously optimistic view on the rest of the quarter and the balance of the year is kind of getting back to that at the moment.
Yeah, just some facts. You know, average prices for the various, you know, products in marine at the peak doubled in March versus February's average. They backed off about 20% from that max in April, but they're still well above February's average, right? So you could look at that number and, you know, read into and say, you know, if we stay at the level that we're even at today, even though it's off the high of March, you know, that could be, you know, again, that could be an opportunity for some incremental profitability. Not the same level that we saw in March, but certainly, you know, a greater profit contribution than we saw in the first two months of the year. But that number could change dramatically overnight or maybe it won't, right? So we're watching that very carefully and the teams out there trying to generate the best risk-adjusted returns they can without taking any undue risk in this uncertain environment.
So, Ira, maybe that's a good one for you or Mike. I guess seasonality, right? How do we think about if you've got maybe a stabilized April and what you're talking about, kind of 2Q through 4Q, We normally seasonally see a sizable uptick in the 3Q. Do you think that goes away given this volatility, or would you still see some seasonality there in terms of the bump?
That's really more of an aviation seasonality thing. So that doesn't go away. And that seasonality was factored into our guidance at the beginning of the year. uh so that you know if conflict or no conflict you know the you know the third quarter seasonality is is still there uh that would always be our so the first quarter is generally our weakest quarter of the year obviously that's not what happened this year we generally pick up a bit in q3 q2 and peak in q3 and then you know come back down in in q4 so the q3 story shouldn't change that much obviously the delta between the first quarter and the third uh you know becomes a lot smaller than you thought it was going to be at the beginning of the year. So, you know, but, you know, we could add the fact that, John, do you want to talk a little bit about, you know, what some of the risks to that might be?
Well, you know, we've seen a lot of the airlines announcing schedule reductions. So that could offset some of the growth that we should be seeing in the third quarter. So that's a possibility that we could see some reduction there.
So we'll still have seasonality, but, you know, of course, we don't know what will happen. But, you know, you heard, I think Lepton's announced that they were cutting back a whole bunch of flights to be precautious. So, you know, we could see some volume degradation because this drags on much longer. But even with that, the likelihood is it's still going to be a seasonally strong quarter. It may just not be as strong as we would have thought going into the year if those situations, you know, start materializing as the summer season carries on.
Yeah. And aviation, just to understand, you know, we saw a nice bump in gross profit per gallon on aviation. You know, not to the extreme we saw it in marine, but I don't know, maybe how much is tied to armed services, how much is tied to maybe flight patterns that you're talking about or changing flight patterns given the Middle East?
I mean, one thing to consider, Ken, when you look at, you know, our Q1 performance is universal trip support. You know, as a service as a business, there's no volume associated with that. So when you think about it on a gross margin basis, on a per unit basis, you know, it's going to show that we're, you know, stronger, that we did have a good Q1. So there were some spot business activities, you know, and code-related activity as well. You know, that's not a master part of our business. You know, that is something that we were able to kind of, you know, see some opportunities in Q1 and the team was able to kind of take advantage of those. However, you know, part of the, I guess, the margin picture you're seeing is related to the services business.
And then last one for me, appreciate the time, is thoughts on credit extension. So usually when prices go up, you know, you've got to extend a lot. We saw accounts receivable go up, what, almost $800 million sequentially. Your payables did, what, almost $900 million. But when you look at the receivables, you know, is that something we should look at? I know you've always historically been such good risk managers. Is there – maybe just walk us through that process, right, because usually it decreases your cash flow, increases your opportunity. Maybe, Ira, just if you want to update on thoughts on that, given the team moves like this for a while.
Great question. First quarter was literally, you know, a hand-to-hand combat customer by customer. Obviously, if you've got a customer with, you know, an X million dollar credit line and they're pulling the same volume and the price of jet fuel doubles, you need to double their credit line to support that level of volume. You have to decide whether you want to do that. So, you know, the team has historically done a phenomenal job, you know, looking at each and every customer, each and every situation, and determining, you know, where we had that room and where we might not, what our options are, and they're, you know, they're all different outcomes, but I think we've worked through that. The team's done a phenomenal job of that to date. Obviously, we're spending more time focusing on credit and related risk than, not that We don't do that all the time, but obviously we've stepped up, you know, that game in this situation. The numbers, as you point out, have grown by several hundred million dollars in aggregate. But it's something we do very, very well. You know, something could always, you know, God forbid, go wrong. But, you know, we manage that well. We monitor it on a day-to-day basis and stay as close as we can, you know, to our customers, especially the most sizable ones where, you know, where the risk is greatest.
That's it for me, Ira. Have a great weekend. and enjoy all the activities, and thanks for the time, guys. Appreciate it. Have a good quarter. Thank you.
Operator
I would now like to turn the conference back to Ira Burns for closing remarks.
Well, thanks, everyone. Thanks, Lateef. I'd like to just close out by reiterating how proud I am of our team and the incredible effort they put forth in the first quarter, not that they don't do that every quarter, but this quarter I would say that you could use a lot of words, incredible, remarkable, and, you know, John and I and Mike are extremely grateful for that effort. As we look ahead, you know, we're entering the remainder of the year as a simpler, more focused business, you know, built on scale, discipline, risk management, and a strong balance sheet, as I mentioned earlier, and, of course, supported by our extremely talented and experienced team, as I just mentioned. We'll stay close to our customers, Just as I mentioned to Ken in our last answer, execute with the same rigor you saw this past quarter and remain committed to delivering strong performance through all market environments. We know we haven't always painted a clear picture with all the exits and transformation efforts that have almost been completed. I think our story is getting simpler. We're able to focus more on the core businesses that we've had years and years of experience managing. And those businesses are all generating solid returns. And they all have different levels of growth opportunities that we're 100% focused on now. So moving in the right direction. We appreciate your time and continued interest in WorldFuel. And we'll talk to you again next quarter. Thank you very much.
Operator
Today's conference call, thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.
