New Fortress Energy Inc. (NASDAQ:NFE) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

New Fortress Energy Inc. (NASDAQ:NFE) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

New Fortress Energy Inc. (NASDAQ:NFE) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript February 29, 2024

New Fortress Energy Inc. beats earnings expectations. Reported EPS is $1.06, expectations were $0.93. New Fortress Energy Inc. isn’t one of the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds at the end of the third quarter (see the details here).

Operator: Good morning everyone and welcome to the New Fortress Energy fourth quarter and full year 2023 earnings conference call. Today’s conference is being recorded and all participants are in a listen-only mode, but later we’ll have the opportunity to ask questions. To get us started today with opening remarks and introductions, I’m pleased to turn the floor over to Managing Director of Strategy and Investor Relations, Mr. Chance Pipitone. Please go ahead, sir.

Chance Pipitone: Thank you Lisa, and good morning everyone. Thank you for joining today’s conference call, where we will discuss our record fourth quarter and full year 2023 results, recent developments, operational highlights, and future here at NFE. As Lisa said, the call is being recorded and will be available by replay on the Investors section of our website under the subheading, Events and Presentations. In that same location, you will find a press release regarding our fourth quarter and full year results and the corresponding presentation, that we’ll walk through on the today’s call. As we proceed through the discussion, we will be referring to that presentation, and in that same presentation you will also find a series of important disclosures related to forward-looking statements and non-GAAP financial measures.

We encourage participants to review these important disclosures in addition to the description of risk factors contained within our SEC filings. Now let’s dive into the call. My name is again Chance Pipitone, and joining me today from New Fortress Energy are Wes Edens, Chairman and CEO, Chris Guinta, CFO, Andrew Dete, Managing Director, and Brannen McElmurray, Managing Director. Thank you. Wes, over to you.

Wes Edens: Great, thanks Chance, and welcome everybody. As Chance said, as usual, please refer to the deck that we posted here just a few minutes ago, and let’s start at the beginning. Page 3 - 2023 was a very good year, fourth quarter a record for us as well, and from an operating perspective $1.3 billion in EBITDA, $388 million in EBITDA for the quarter, more than doubled earnings per share and FFO for 2022 to 2023, and we’re poise to roughly double that again this year, so tremendous financial results. Most importantly, when you look at the second line down - it’s not numbered but it’s the second line, the profit from cargo sales, you’ll see zero contributions from cargo sales in Q3 and Q4, which now fully reflects that our business is operating on the--through to the terminals to our customers in our sales of gas and products and power, and so very much an operating company now as opposed to a development company, and both the quantity and the quality of those earnings were terrific, so it’s actually a very, very good thing.