ENVIRI Corp Q4 FY2025 earnings call

1. Clean Earth transaction: Targeting midyear closing, HSR waiting period scheduled to expire on March 9, expect to publicly file Form 10 and proxy documents later in March. 2. Q4 performance: Total revenues $556 million, adjusted EBITDA $70 million. Harsco Environmental achieved highest quarterly adjusted EBITDA for the year. Rail benefited from additional machine shipments. 3. Unusual items: $57 million pretax including costs related to sale of Clean Earth, spin-off, stock compensation, and additional estimated costs for ETO projects. 4. Free cash flow: Quarter $6 million, full year negative $15 million. Harsco Environmental and Clean Earth generated over $160 million free cash flow for the year. 5. Rail ETOs: Network Rail working towards milestones, SBB vehicles delivery and homologation progress, Deutsche Bahn vehicle completion and homologation plans. 6. New Enviri priorities: Assembled leadership team, working on cost-out actions, streamlining corporate functions, reviewing HE and Rail operations to improve efficiency

Harsco Environmental: Segment revenues totaled $257 million, an increase of 7% compared with the prior year quarter and adjusted EBITDA totaled $48 million, which translates to a margin of nearly 19%. Clean Earth: For the quarter, revenues totaled $244 million, and adjusted EBITDA reached $38 million. Hazardous waste revenues grew approximately 3% through a mix of price and volume. Rail: Rail revenues totaled $56 million and its adjusted EBITDA loss was $4 million in the fourth quarter. Compared with the prior year quarter, lower volume across all business lines as well as a weaker business mix led to the decline in adjusted earnings

1. 2026 outlook: Harsco Environmental adjusted EBITDA expected to be within $170 million to $180 million range. Rail expected EBITDA loss between $26 million and $19 million. Pro forma EBITDA for New Enviri approximately $140 million. 2. First quarter guidance: Segment performance projected lower year-over-year and compared to fourth quarter, reflecting lower volumes, demand, contract exits for HE and certain non-repeating Q4 items

1. Uncertainty around Clean Earth transaction closing and cash payout range. 2. Rail ETO projects face uncertainties in contract negotiations and completion timelines. 3. Market demand fluctuations impacting Rail's revenues and EBITDA. 4. Risks associated with implementing cost-out actions and achieving full run rate benefits in a timely manner

Q: Good morning. Just quickly just on the Clean Earth just on the fact that it sounds like your cash usage or what you may need to retain at New Enviri sort of running towards the higher end of the range or maybe above that a little bit. So I guess that just infers that the cash payment will be towards the lower end, I guess, is that fair to say?

A: No, I wouldn't say that, Larry, it's Nick. In fact, is that there are just many moving parts here. And so we just can't be more specific, but I wouldn't infer from the comments that payout is trending to the lower end of the range. That's not necessarily the case.

Q: HE had a really nice quarter actually. I know it's just 1 quarter, and it sounds like there were some onetime benefits in there. Your outlook is, I think, in line with expectations, somewhat muted, but in this environment, I think it within expectations. Just curious, looking -- breaking out some of the moving parts, what are your expectations for steel production? Is it flattish still? And I think over the last few years, your customers have actually even been hurt more than overall industry. So just curious if you can help parse that out.

A: Yes. Well, certainly, as I think you know, we are more exposed to the EU steel markets than other geographies, and that's been in particular weak. And Tom commented on that and certainly indicated reason for optimism, even though not built into guidance, and we could begin to see some of those benefits as early as the second half of this year. . But I would say in other geographies, North American volumes are reasonably good. Of course, they continue to be strong in India and the Middle East, Brazil and Mexico were a bit weaker perhaps. But overall, I would probably use the term stable and hopefully improving in the latter part of this year.

Q: Just Harsco specifically, I know you mentioned some newer contracts, and I think you've had a couple of press releases out. But then there's some net exited contracts. So I'm curious, is your -- and I know sometimes you exit discretionarily because of lower margin, but is your -- are you netting a benefit as we look out, you're getting -- you're adding more contracts in that are going out the door? Or any way you can give us color on that?

A: Yes. I think for this year, that contract churn, if you will, in terms of revenue will be -- margin should be higher. We believe that we're mixing up in terms of the margin on contracts. And you're correct, the contracts that we've exited have largely been due to price that we're simply not willing to sacrifice margin given the large number of opportunities we have that we view as more attractive. So as we look forward kind of beyond this year, given the visibility we have to our pipeline and the likelihood of entering into some of these new contracts, we expect that churn rate to be positive to both EBITDA and margin.

Q: Just one question on Rail. It sounds like just demand environment continues to weaken. Just on the ETO contract specifically, though, I think you said $20 million EBITDA loss, $40 million on free cash flow for '25. It sounds like directionally, we're going a little bit better in '26, maybe not as much as initially expected. But did you actually -- or can you give sort of at least a little more specifics on what that might look like in '26?

A: Yes, Tom, do you want to take that one?

Q: Yes. Larry, we haven't spoken to that and we'll probably stay off it. But yes, we expect improvements as we go along. ETOs will still be a large use of cash in 2026. The $40 million that we had in 2025, if you remember when we started the year, I had talked about completion of small ETO projects. And our Rail team did a real nice job of driving those to completion. And as a result, it got paid for many of those. And that has partly the reason why the $40 million is certainly better than what we had last year, for instance, in 2024. But for 2026, we still expect to see a fairly large cash use from mainly the big 3 European ETOs.

Q: A bit of a modeling question, maybe tying back to, I think, the last question. But just the guidance had some directional comments on pro forma free cash flow in 2026 and looking for some improvement year-over-year. I believe there's a table at the back of the deck that outlines the cash flow performance by business. So that's helpful. But Tom, I was just wondering if you can walk us through the puts and takes to get to a reasonable range that pro forma free cash flow number, both in 2025 and 2026.

A: I think what I said in my comments were that we expect it to be modest. So whether it's total Enviri or the pro forma of a New Enviri, I would have it breakeven or slightly worse than breakeven.

Q: On the Rail business, look, I know adjusted EBITDA excludes the impact from the large ETO contracts. But I think if earnings are expected to remain in negative territory in 2026. I think you mentioned it was down $19 million to $26 million. Just I know there's some overhead costs in the business that are tied to supporting those ETO contracts. Can you just remind us how much those are and when those should roll off? And if you back those out, would the business be operating at or above a breakeven level?

A: Yes. The -- so the -- the SG&A, Devin, to support those, it's not just SG&A, there's some other overheads as well, is in the $15 million to $18 million range. And so removing those, the business we're projecting will still be at a loss in the base business. And that is because of just the demand, the very weak demand situation. We have taken cost actions and there'll be more cost actions to follow. But it takes time for those to reach a full run rate and particularly in the manufacturing business, even though you save cash costs, it takes time for that to come through the P&L. So we expect to see a full benefit of those towards the back half of the year. And that is partly the reason why we're projecting a loss for the base business.

Q: And then sticking with the Rail business. Do you feel like most or all of the lower revenues that you're seeing, is that due to just soft industry conditions? Or is there a regional mix element to that? Or is there market share losses? Just trying to understand or if you could unpack what you're seeing on the top line performance?

A: It's Russell Hochman. Maybe I'll start and then, Tom, if you want to add anything or Nick. Just it's primarily related to the North America base business. We just see continued weakness, really historic weakness. We are hopeful that at some point, the customers will start investing in this equipment, but this is a cyclical low. That's really what's driving a lot of that market contraction for us.

Q: For sure, for sure. And if I could just squeeze in one last one. Tom, I think你 have some good color on the contracts with SBB and Deutsche Bahn. Apologize if I missed it, but is there any update on the contracts in -- for the ETO contract?

A: Devin, I didn't catch you -- I think you mentioned Network Rail, right? Yes. Yes, Network Rail, so this -- we are progressing towards the completion of the very first machine. And once that is delivered, it will undergo what we've referred to before as homologation that will occur in the U.K. We are also in talks with the customer to improve the commercial terms, the financial terms so that the go-forward picture is more attractive for the company. And what we have sensitively agreed with the customer is that upon -- around the timing of the delivery, the arrival of the machine in the U.K., we will also look to finalize this agreement. Basically, that's the focus of our activity for now. There are more machines to be made, but our focus is on completing the first one and then also completing these negotiations.

Q: Good morning. Just sort of sticking to the ETO contracts. A lot of things are going to happen this year. I guess, what's -- exiting '26, what do you sort of see the ETO exposure and risk level down to? Is it sort of complete by the end of '26? Or I guess, is the Network Rail still outstanding? But just a sense of after these steps happen this year, what's the remaining risk on the ETO side?

A: So it's Russell Hochman. I'll start with my thoughts on your question. So with regard to the -- what we're calling the smaller ETOs, those will be essentially completed this year with a minor exception, which will be completed in the first quarter of 2027. And we're -- as we've said before, not taking on any new ETOs. So that will be the end of the smaller ones. With the larger ones, as I said in my comments, my commitment is to derisk the company of these. And so I'm directly involved along with Tom and others in these conversations with these customers. And I would say the message that we've communicated is pretty clear that we will come to terms on these contracts this year. Obviously, something on a mutually beneficial basis or we will look to pursue other ways of de-risking the portfolio, right? But my commitment is to complete those conversations so that the terms are improved or we've derisked the portfolio, as I said, in other manners.

Q: Okay. Great. Got it. And then I guess thinking Rail, the cyclical kind of downturn activity, I know it's hard to predict the sort of recovery. But what are sort of the dynamics as these orders start to recover, how quickly can it come back? And what's the kind of customer -- I assume the longer they wait, the more they kind of have a pent-up demand, maybe that's not how it works. Just a sense of how the recovery cycle tends to happen in the Rail market?

A: Well, we haven't seen it this -- volumes this low for a very long time. But Rob, it's a fairly quick cycle kind of business. So these are standard pieces of equipment. We can make them pretty fast unlike, say, the ETOs, for example. So if demand comes back, we should start to see our volumes respond pretty quickly. And we are monitoring, as you can imagine, monitoring the market very closely. For now, our customers are not ordering as much as they have in the past. They're choosing to conserve cash. In some cases, they're looking to remanufacture or refurb some of the old machines and stretch them out. And so yes, it's a matter of waiting at the moment.