Fly Leasing Limited (FLY) Q4 2019 Earnings Conference Call February 27, 2020 9:00 AM ET
Company Participants
Matt Dallas - Manager, Investor Relations
Colm Barrington - Chief Executive Officer
Julie Ruehl - Chief Financial Officer
Steve Zissis - President and CEO of BBAM
Conference Call Participants
Catherine O’Brien - Goldman Sachs
Conor Cunningham - Cowen
Koosh Patel - Deutsche Bank
Abdul Tambal - JP Morgan
Operator
Good morning ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the FLY Leasing Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2019 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participant lines are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session and instructions will follow at that time. [Operator Instructions]
I’d now like to turn the conference over to your host Matt Dallas with Investor Relations.
Matt Dallas
Thank you and good morning. I’m Matt Dallas, the Investor Relations Manager at FLY Leasing, and I’d like to welcome everyone to our fourth quarter and full year 2019 earnings conference call.
FLY Leasing which we’ll refer to as FLY or the Company issued its fourth quarter and full year earnings results press release which is posted on the Company’s website at flyleasing.com. We have a slide presentation that accompanies today’s call which is available to participants on the webcast. If you are not accessing the webcast, you can find a copy of today’s presentation in the Investor Relations section of our website on the Events and Presentations page.
Representing the Company today on this call will be Colm Barrington, our Chief Executive Officer; Julie Ruehl, our Chief Financial Officer; and Steve Zissis, the President and CEO of BBAM, the Company that manages and services FLY’s fleet.
This conference call contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements regarding the outlook for the Company’s future business and financial performance. Forward-looking statements are based on the current expectation and assumptions of FLY’s management, which are subject to uncertainties, risks and changes in circumstances that are difficult to predict.
Actual outcomes and results may differ materially due to factors that are summarized in the earnings press release and are described more fully in the Company’s filings with the SEC. Please refer to these sources for additional information. An archived webcast of this call will be available for one-year on the Company’s website.
And with that, I’d like to now hand the call over to Colm Barrington, the CEO of FLY Leasing. Colm.
Colm Barrington
Thank you, Matt and welcome, everybody and thank you all for joining us. FLY is reporting excellent financial results for the fourth quarter and full year of 2019. Indeed 2019 was FLY’s best year ever with record high operating lease revenue of $464 million, record high earnings per share of $7.12 and a record high return on equity of 29.2%. We’ve ascribed [ph] in success to the strategy that we put in place over the last few years and which has been executed expectedly by the BBAM team and supported by industry conditions.
We’ve entered the New Year with robust growth pipeline of latest technology Airbus narrow-body aircraft and attractive fleet of high demand aircraft on long-term leases to the first group of Global Airlines and the strongest balance sheet in our Company’s history. To address the news this is on everyone’s mind this morning, we’re monitoring the outbreak of Coronavirus or COVID-19 and we’re constant dialog with our lessees’ and business partners worldwide.
The virus is first and foremost a health crisis and our sympathy to those impacted by it. To-date there’s been no negative impact of the Coronavirus on FLY in terms of contracted payments of our lessees. That said, the virus will certainly have a negative impact on passenger demand and global airline profits this year. Other airlines have cancelled flights domestically within China into and out of China and increasingly more broadly.
At this point no one knows how long the impact of the Coronavirus or the virus itself will last or how much further it should spread. However FLY and BBAM executives have decades of experience to multiple cycles in the aircrafts leasing industry including financial crisis, wars, terrorist attacks and prior viral outbreaks. We know from experience that historically the profit margins aircraft lessors have been much more stable in those of airlines even through the bear shocks. And we know too thus, if history is repeated air traffic flows and airline profitability are likely to recover rapidly once the current crisis has abated.
Turning from one headline to another. The continuing grounding of the 737 MAX and the delay in delivery of Airbus models are likely to impact aircraft supply again in 2020. As a reminder, the MAX situation has little direct impact on FLY. Our two MAX aircrafts were acquired under purchase lease back transition and both are on long-term leases. We do not have any maxes on orders. FLY enters 2020 with a strongest balance sheet in our company’s history with more than $330 million in cash and net debt to equity ratio of 2.3 times and no near term debt maturities. We’re well positioned to support our committed pipeline and to act [indiscernible] in the event opportunity should arise.
We’ll continue to execute on our strategy with relentless focused on delivering value for our shareholders. Operationally FLY had a very good year in 2019, thanks to the implementation of our strategy and the comprehensive acquisition, announcing, leasing, management and disposition services provided by BBAM’s global platform. BBAM remains a strong and active partner for FLY with its principal’s [ph] holding 18% of FLY’s stock.
We acquired our first A321NEO this year end and during 2019 we purchased a total of 11 aircraft for a total investment of $332 million. At the start of 2020, FLY will have 11 more aircraft contracts to purchase this year including seven A320NEO family aircraft. These purchases represent an investment of approximately $450 million. As of today, one of these 11 aircraft have been delivered to FLY.
In 2019, we sold 35 aircraft for total proceeds including end of lease income of approximately $900 million generating total economic gains of $149 million and 18% premium to the book value of the aircraft sold. The average age of these 35 aircrafts was more than 10 years. Incidentally the five years since the start of 2015 FLY has sold a total of 113 aircraft from its portfolio. These 113 sales have generated total economic gains of $268 million, a 10% premium to our net book value.
Our profitable sales are not one off for selective events and demonstrate the value contained in our balance sheet. The sales towards the last five years have included 80A’s [ph] for 127 aircraft that we owned in January 1, 2015. At the end of 2019, FLY had eight aircraft contracts for sale. Off these contractive sales three have been completed and the remaining five are expected to close in the first half of 2020.
In 2019, our annual lease rate factor was 11.3%. At year end our average fleet age was 7.6 years and our average remaining lease term was 5.3 years. We started off 2020 with six aircraft remaining to be remarketed this year, over two of these are now committed. And during 2019, our fleet utilization was 99%. FLY continued to maintain a consistent operational strategy based on three main principals; disciplined aircraft acquisitions, conservative financing and active fleet management. We’re rigorous on pricing, refusing to overpay for aircraft, to accept marginal lease terms or to add less popular models merely to build our fleet size. Aircraft that are purchased conservatively provide better lease margins and produce stronger and more consistent gains when they’re sold onto third parties.
FLY sales of aircraft had substantial gains quarter-after-quarter and year-after-year validate the strategy and demonstrate that we’ve been executing it in a consistent and disciplined way. FLY had outstanding financial results in 2019, our best year ever. While Julie will take your through the detailed financial for the fourth quarter and full year later in the call. I’d like to give you some headlines for the years.
Our total revenues of $557 million with 37% ahead of previous year. Our adjusted net income of $246 million correspondent to an EPS of $7.75. At year end our book value per share was $28.42, a 32% increase during the year. We had an adjusted return on equity at 32%. At year end our net debt to equity was 2.3 times. And then finally, FLY has cash and balance sheet capacity to fund our committed aircraft purchases plus other aircraft that we expect to acquire opportunistically.
Our results reflect the significant developments at FLY over the last three years. Selling older and less performing aircraft, optimizing our capital structure and most importantly upgrading our fleet with newer and more profitable aircraft, we plan to continue these activities. During the year, our positive performance and financial outlook was recognized by one notch upgrade in our corporate rating from Standards and Poor’s and an upgrade to credit much positive from Moody’s. These factors along with our strong earnings and balance sheet have already had a positive impact on FLY’s funding cost.
In November, we repriced our $385 million term loan to LIBOR plus 1.75%, a 25 basis point margin reduction. Well at the same time extending the term by more than two years to August 2025. The term loan is our largest facility. FLY’s financing is conservative based principally a long dated amortizing secured debt. We’ve demonstrated that we can reduce leverage in an accelerated manner having reduced it to from four times equity at end of 2018 following completion of our large portfolio acquisition in that year to 2.3 times equity at year end 2019.
For both our shareholders and lenders, a particular lead with impressive feature FLY’s performance over the last two years has been substantial growth in our book value, which stood at $878 million [ph] at year end 2019, a 25% increase year-over-year. This growth has also been reflected in our book value per share it has grown by 46% in the last two years and stood at $28.42 on December 31, last.
FLY has a $1.6 billion pipeline of committed aircraft deliveries most of which is either on lease or committed to lessees. Are also focused on additional acquisition and will buy more aircraft if the need to discipline investment criteria that I’ve referred to earlier. We’re particularly excited about our 21 committed A320NEO family purchase lease back aircraft. The first of which we acquired in December. We have seven more A320 family aircraft and A320NEO and A321NEO’s scheduled for delivery in 2020 and 11 more in 2021. The last two aircraft in this program expected in 2022. We’ve also exercised eight options for A320NEO family aircraft, so with nine on exercised options remaining.
FLY remains a compelling value proposition as our shares continue to trade a significant discount to book value per share and low multiple of our EPS. We’re experiencing a positive supply-demand relationship the attractive and popular narrow-body aircraft that comprise approximately 70% of the FLY’s feet. Meanwhile we have a $2 billion pipeline of new narrow-body acquisitions including 28 A320NEO family aircraft who are the latest technology on the cleanest narrow bodies in production and which are proven to be particularly popular with airlines around the world.
FLY’s shareholders have benefit from the world leading aircraft and lease management services provided by BBAM. We’ve low leverage improved financial ratings and tangible financial capacity that is largely long dated in secured debt. The financial markets remain support to FLY and to our industry generally both in terms of providing attractive debt and as buyers of aircraft on these. We operate at the global aviation industry and which despite negative macro issues as to the one we’re facing today; passenger numbers have doubled every 15 years since 1988. And remember this impressive growth over more than 30 years with despite of two Gulf Wars, SARS, 9/11 and the World Financial Crisis.
With that I’ll hand over to our CFO, Julie Ruehl to take you through our fourth quarter and full year financial overview.
Julie Ruehl
Thank you, Colm. For Q4, FLY is reporting record net income of $75.2 million a $44 million increase from Q4, 2018. Earnings per share increased over 150% from $0.95 a year ago to $2.43 in the current quarter. FLY achieved ROE of 35.9%, a seventh consecutive quarter of double-digit ROE and more than 100 increase from a year ago quarter. these stellar financial results were driven largely by aircraft sales leasehold 10 aircraft in the quarter with an average age of nearly 12 years including FLY’s two A340’s which were each sold for an economic gain. Six of the aircraft were from portfolio sales, a strong demand continues in the secondary market while the other four aircrafts were sold when the leases expired.
For the full year, FLY is reporting net income of $225.9 million also a record for FLY and $140 million increase from 2018. Earnings per share increased nearly 150% to $7.12 from $2.88 in the prior year. ROE was 29.2% for the year and more than 100% increase from 2018. Our record financial results for the year were driven largely by the sales 35 aircrafts with an average age of over 10 years as well as the larger average fleet size.
As a result of FLY’s outstanding financial results for the year and the rapidly deleveraging enabled by selling aircraft at significant gains to book value, we ended the year with the net debt to equity ratio of 2.3 times down to four times at the beginning of the year and beating our year end estimate of 2.5 times.
On the revenue side, FLY’s operating lease rental revenue in Q4, 2019 decreased to $88.6 million driven by the aircraft sales we’ve discussed on the call. Although operating lease rental revenue declined versus Q4, 2018. We look forward to ramp up this year given our acquisition pipeline and continue to believe the quality of earnings is strong as demonstrated by FLY’s increased net spread.
Total revenue increased 26% to $154.3 million in Q4, 2019 from $122.3 million in Q4, 2018. In Q4, 2019 FLY recognized $48.4 million of end of lease income, the vast majority of which was related to aircraft that were sold at lease expiration. FLY recognized $14.7 million of net gains on the sale of aircraft in Q4, which together was retained end of lease income represents 31% premium to net book value of the 10 aircraft sold. For the full year, FLY’s operating lease rental revenue increased $1.7 million based on a larger average fee while total revenues increased $156.7 million to $575 million or over 37%.
In 2019, FLY recognized $78.8 million of end of lease income as compared to $20.3 million in the prior year. FLY recognized $97.3 million of net gains on the sale of aircraft in 2019 from the sold 35 aircraft which combined with retained end of lease income represents an 18% premium to net book value.
Turning to expenses, Q4 depreciation decreased as compared to the prior year quarters due to aircraft sales. While interest expense declined more significantly due to a number of factors. While aircraft sales are the largest contributing factor to the decrease in interest expense, we’ve also decreased our cost of debt to our active liability management effort. In addition, we have a higher level of unencumbered assets than a year ago.
As G&A expense is up $0.6 million in Q4 as compared to the year ago quarter primarily due to fleet activities, a portion of which are lease related costs that previously had been deferred and amortized and are now expensed under the new lease accounting standard. Also in Q4, FLY incurred $4.3 million lost on modification and extinguishment of debt. A majority of which represents non-cash write off of debt cost. A debt modification and extinguishment cost incurred were related to the repricing and extension of the term loan and the repayment of warehouse facility which carried a higher rate of interest and other facilities as well as debt repayment due to aircraft sales.
Overall, total expenses as a percentage of total revenue declined from 74% to 49% in Q4, 2019 as compared to Q4, 2018 a decrease of 34%. For the full year, although operating lease rental revenue increased both depreciation and interest expense were down. This is primarily due to aircraft sales with interest expense declining more significant due to the factors I just noted with respect to Q4. As G&A expense is up $4.1 million for 2019 primarily due to fleet activities including lease related costs as well as higher management servicing fees due to fleet growth. For the full year, total expenses as expense of total revenue dropped 26% as compared to 2018.
Now I’d like to cover our guidance for Q1, 2020. For the first quarter of 2020, we’re expecting operating lease rental revenue of $86 million to $87 million. We expect amortization of lease incentives of $1 million. Gain on sale aircraft is expected to be $32 million to $33 million. We expect end of lease income of approximately $2 million. Depreciation expense will be approximately $31 million to $32 million. We expect interest expense of $27 million to $28 million. Debt extinguishment cost are expected to be approximately $1 million related to aircraft sales.
Maintenance and other costs are expected to be $1 million to $2 million. We expect SG&A expense of approximately $8 million without consideration of any foreign exchange gains and losses that may occur. Overall, Q1 pretax income is expected to be more than $50 million. With record net income in 2019 and positive momentum extending into 2020. We expect FLY’s leverage level to remain low with a net debt to equity ratio below three times in the near term.
I’ll turn it back to Colm now for his closing remarks.
Colm Barrington
Thank you, Julie. So let’s recap onto the highlights of 2019. We achieved a 37% growth in total revenues to $575 million. We sold 35 aircraft for an economic gain of $149 million, 18% above book value. We produced $246 million of adjusted net income equivalent to $7.75 of adjusted EPS and we’ve produced 32% adjusted ROE. We continued our track record of growing book value which was $28.42 per share at year end, 32% higher than a year ago.
We reduced our leverage considerably during the year bringing it down to 2.3 times. Meanwhile looking ahead, we have a pipeline of aircraft including options valued at $2.1 billion and including 37 of the latest generation Airbus NEO aircraft. We expect to add to this pipeline through acquisitions and over $900 million in unrestricted cash and unencumbered assets. And as Julie has just said we’ve given pretax guidance of over $50 million for the March quarter.
These outcomes are obviously all highly positive, demonstrate that FLY continues to represent a real value of proposition. So with that, we’re now ready to take questions.
Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
[Operator Instructions] your first question comes from Catherine O’Brien with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.
Catherine O’Brien
So in the past, I believe you’ve noted that the decision to exercise remaining A320NEO options there’s still quite a bit of time before you have to make that decision. But I guess first, could you give us a sense of when the first of those decision you’ve made and then does a calculus for exercising those changed all at the impact of Coronavirus or do you think there’s sufficient demand for these aircraft as Max grounding and Airbus delivery delays? Thanks.
Colm Barrington
Well I think, as we said in our prepared remarks Catherine. We’ve exercised eight of the 17 options and we still have remaining two with now and these are delivery over the next few years. So the BBAM team are out marketing those aircraft now. We’re finding very strong interest in the aircraft type, modern fuel efficient aircraft a very much aligned with airlines interest for the moment and obviously it’s too soon to say, if the Coronavirus will have any impact on that. But as so far, we have found no impact of the virus on our marketing. We will be making decisions on the remaining options over the next few years but there’s no hurry on us to decide on those.
Catherine O’Brien
Is there any, like is there a period when you will have to make that decision or is it pretty flexible on the remaining nine?
Colm Barrington
It’s pretty flexible on the remaining nine, it’s not within - in the next year or two.
Catherine O’Brien
I understood and then my second question.
Colm Barrington
That whole program spreads out through 2025.
Catherine O’Brien
Okay understood, thank you. And then in terms of your aircraft sales are you still seeing same level of appetite, if your own aircraft as you were maybe say six months ago and then, are there any particularly variance where you’re seeing the most interest? And then I guess kind of secondary question to that is, obviously after a very active year of aircraft sales in 2019, can you frame your expectations for this year? Are you done calling the fleet or is there more to come? So I guess longwinded question, but mostly is appetite still the same, any particular variance. You’re seeing particular demand for and then expectations this year. Thank you.
Colm Barrington
Steve, would you like to comment on this?
Steve Zissis
Sure. So Catherine for 2020 FLY’s budgeting [indiscernible] seven aircraft sales. In terms of demand this is really pre-virus because everything is, it is evolving pretty quickly now. Demand has still been very strong, primarily driven by all this new capital that’s coming to the sector especially what we call ADS [ph] accumulators people looking to put portfolios together to ADS [ph] plus the other various funds that are buying for long-term hold. So right now, we don’t see any veining of demand but again its early days in this virus and we’re hoping that things do slow down so just an opportunity to go out and acquire some better returning deals for FLY.
Catherine O’Brien
Okay, understood. And then just one quick modeling one, what’s the appropriate tax rate to use going forward? I believe last year you had mentioned 15%, but seems like this year it came in a bit lower than that. Thanks.
Colm Barrington
Julie, would like to comment on that one?
Julie Ruehl
Yes, hi Catherine. So for our purposes we’re working on - the statutory rate in [indiscernible] which is 12.5% we did out some a little delays [ph] in Q4 so it’s much lower than that, but going forward you do expect tax rate approximating the statutory rate and not [indiscernible].
Catherine O’Brien
Great, thank you so much for all the time.
Operator
Your next question comes from Helane Becker with Cowen. Your line is open.
Conor Cunningham
This is actually Conor Cunningham for Helane. Just on Asia, we’ve seen they’re looking to defer somehow lease payments by giving the Coronavirus. Do you have any other customers that are looking to do the same? Is that contemplated within your rental guidance right now? Thanks.
Colm Barrington
Conor I think, all the airlines that has actually asked to defer rental payments is AirAsia ex- to which we don’t have any exposure and I think it’s only minority ownership by the AirAsia Group. So we have not had any request for rent reductions or deferrals at this of time.
Conor Cunningham
Okay, great. And then appreciate the move that you guys have done in improving the quality of the fleet over the past couple of years. But your lease equipment assets are now back to where they were at end of 2016, but curious if you could speak to how you envision the fleet over the next five to 10 years. What size do you want to get to, is there a goal just curious if any thoughts there?
Colm Barrington
Well we don’t have any specific goal Conor. But as you’ve seen from our presentation, we have a reasonably good pipeline of the latest technology A320NEO. So we’ll continue to focus on the popular hi-tech modern aircraft. We’ll opportunistically buy some reasonably modern mid-life, other types but basically our focus now will be on the latest technology because I think that’s what where airlines are going to themselves. I think that the whole concern about the environmental airlines are consistently looking now for the most modern aircraft with the lowest emissions.
Conor Cunningham
Okay, great. And then just the last one. There’s been some chatter about potential opportunities to [indiscernible] some financial stress of some customers in China, just curios if you guys have had conversations like that as well? And if you have really any appetite to do something like that currently? Thanks again for the time.
Colm Barrington
Yes, look I think again as we said in our prepared remarks the whole virus and particularly in China. Its health crisis the moment and that’s where we’re most focused on. We have long-term relationships with a lot of airlines in China and in Asia and in fact around the world, some of these go back over 30 years. We’ll obviously work with those clients as best we can and to support them as best we can. And if there are opportunities for either moving aircraft or selling lease backs, we’ll certainly look at it and again, but however all the time putting best interest apply and stakeholders [indiscernible].
Conor Cunningham
Great, thank you.
Operator
[Operator Instructions] your next question comes from Koosh Patel with Deutsche Bank. Your line is open.
Koosh Patel
Just had a couple here. On the options you have on the meals, could you let us know when the first of those eight is going to deliver or is that a part of what you have in 2020, the seven you’re talking about?
Colm Barrington
Steve, I don’t know whether you’d like to comment about, Steve. It’s not one of the seven. Steve do you want to comment on option deliveries?
Steve Zissis
Well, Koosh I will take that - it’s sort of fluid right now. For two reasons because of the virus, it’s going around but also because of the production line at Airbus. So we’re in constant discussions with AirAsia about picking up these options and we may pick up some as early as the end of this year. But it’s more likely it will be later in 2022 and 2023 that you’ll see us pick up options.
Koosh Patel
Got it and then, when I think about the pricing you received on these aircrafts. I guess the perception of the industry is that an airline typically is able to negotiate a better rate than a lessor. So is it true to assume that you would get the same pricing that AirAsia has negotiated on these assets? Or is there a renegotiation of a price and how should we think about that?
Steve Zissis
Look the best way to think about it is that, the pricing is not something that AirAsia or Airbus will disclose. We negotiated our prices upfront when we did the original package with AirAsia on the deal. So it’s set in stone subject to installations and what have you so. I can’t comment whether it’s their price because we don’t have visibility on what their discounts were. We just know that they were attractive prices for us and made sense.
Koosh Patel
Got it, okay. And then.
Colm Barrington
And I think after Koosh, the reason we can be [indiscernible] on all the business we do, we don’t have any pre-delivery payments up on these aircrafts.
Koosh Patel
Okay that’s very helpful. And then lastly, have you seen any change in behavior from any of the Chinese lessors with whom you may compete in the purchase lease back market over the course of the last couple months?
Colm Barrington
Steve, do you want to comment on that one too?
Steve Zissis
Yes. Going observation I will make is that, we definitely see in the last year. The Chinese lessors selling more of their aircraft that they’ve acquired over the last five years than in the previous five years, right? So they’ve become net sellers on my mind. But we haven’t seen any material change since the virus, but we do expect that to change. We think a lot of these guys will probably little tight on funding or want to reduce their exposure and I think you’re going to see more opportunities coming out of the Chinese lessors.
Koosh Patel
Okay, great. Thanks a lot guys.
Operator
[Operator Instructions] your next question comes from Jamie Baker with JP Morgan. Your line is open.
Abdul Tambal
This is Abdul Tambal on for Jamie and Mark [ph]. Most of my questions have been answered, but just to clarify. In your prepared remarks you mentioned that there’s been no impact from the virus on your payments. So just to be clear, have you not seen any indications with the customers who’ll ask for rental to further assistance and how would you characterize the level of support they may have either from you or other parties?
Colm Barrington
Steve, do you want to comment on that one?
Steve Zissis
Yes, somebody in the Q&A asked about AirAsia and just to everybody is clear. AirAsia ex- is a separately owned airline that is listed. AirAsia owns approximately 17% of that, so that’s the AirAsia Group. That is the only airline in the AirAsia Group that is currently asking for deferrals and as Colm said we have zero exposure to AirAsia Ex-. AirAsia Group which includes all its affiliates in the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, India and Malaysia has not requested any deferrals. And I would say that, Tony is a unique manager. Has a deep bench at AirAsia and one of the most capable management teams that we’d come across and we think they will navigate this virus better than any airline in Asia.
Abdul Tambal
Understood. Thank you.
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today’s conference. Thank you for participating and have a wonderful day. You may now disconnect.
- Read more current FLY analysis and news
- View all earnings call transcripts
