World Kinect Corporation Q2 2026 Earnings Call

To remove yourself from the queue, you may press star. I would now like to hand the call over to Braulio Medrano, Director of FP&A and Investor Relations. Please go ahead. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to World Kinect's second 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 Birns, Chief Executive Officer, John Rau, President, and Mike Tejada, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. 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 actual results to materially differ can be found in our most recent Form 10-K and 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 Birns.

Thank you, Braulio, and good afternoon, everyone. We delivered an exceptional second quarter. Adjusted earnings per share was $1.29, the highest quarterly adjusted EPS in our company's history. While favorable market conditions contributed meaningfully to the quarter, our teams executed exceptionally well and converted those opportunities into strong results. More importantly, the quarter provides further evidence that the actions we have taken over the past several years to simplify the portfolio, strengthen our core businesses, and improve returns, are translating into stronger performance. Aviation and marine each delivered record quarterly gross profit, supported by favorable market conditions, including continued volatility associated with the conflict in the Middle East. During periods of disruption, customers place an even greater premium on certainty of supply, operational execution, and trusted relationships. That is where our supplier relationships, local market knowledge, and global platform become especially valuable.

Our teams did an outstanding job converting those market opportunities into results by staying close to customers, managing risk carefully, and executing with discipline. Just as important, land continued the improvement we discussed coming out of the first quarter, providing further evidence that the actions we have taken to simplify the portfolio and improve returns are working. Over the past five weeks, I've spent a significant amount of time with our teams across Europe. Those visits reinforced something I believed since becoming CEO. The strength of this company starts with our people. Across our businesses, I saw teams that know their markets, understand their customers, manage risk carefully, and take tremendous pride in what they do. The execution we delivered in the second quarter was a direct reflection of those strengths. In June, we also brought our commercial leaders together in Miami.

As we reviewed opportunities across our businesses, what struck me most was the enthusiasm around the opportunities under discussion. Many of these opportunities are expected to create value in 2027 and beyond, giving us increased confidence in our long-term growth outlook. Moving on to the segments. I will cover the highlights, and Mike will provide the financial details. Aviation performed exceptionally well, and we saw strong execution across the business, solid contributions from our fuel offerings across the globe, and continued benefits from the Universal Trip Support acquisition. Aviation continues to demonstrate the value of building a broader platform around our core fuel distribution capabilities, and the team delivered an absolutely terrific quarter. Moving on to marine. Our strong execution was especially clear. Marine delivered one of the strongest quarters in the history of the business.

Continued volatility drove favorable market conditions, which created opportunities much greater than what we anticipated at the beginning of the second quarter, and our teams converted those opportunities through disciplined execution, strong customer and supplier relationships, and careful risk management. This was an outstanding performance by the marine team. Land is also an important part of the story this quarter because it reflects the progress we have made transforming this business over the past several years. With the sale of our North American tank wagon business completed in June, we have largely accomplished the portfolio simplification objectives we set out to achieve. The benefits of those actions are increasingly evident in our results, and for the full year, we remain on track to deliver approximately twice the operating income we generated in 2025.

After effectively completing our land segment transformation, Cardlock and retail now represent the core of our land portfolio. Today, we serve approximately 3,100 retail customers, up from roughly 2,900 a year ago, but still representing a relatively modest share of a highly fragmented market in the U.S. Importantly, our retail growth strategy is increasingly focused on higher margin opportunities that should drive stronger earnings growth and solid returns over time. Given our relatively modest market share today, we believe the opportunity ahead could be quite significant. In the second quarter, we delivered exactly what we expected. Land produced strong results, including a substantial year-over-year improvement in operating profit, and year-to-date operating margin was more than 20% better than last year, providing clear evidence that the business is moving in the right direction.

The portfolio is simpler, more focused, and performing better, and the progress we have made through the first half of the year reinforces our confidence in the outlook for the business. Taken together, the quarter gives us real confidence in the direction of the overall business with a more focused portfolio, stronger execution, and greater operating discipline. We should also be clear that this was an exceptional quarter, and not every quarter will look like this. Our teams did an outstanding job converting market opportunities into results, and while the second quarter is clearly not a normal run rate, we are extremely proud of what we accomplished during the quarter. As we look ahead, we are not assuming the market conditions we saw over the past few months will repeat.

That is why our focus remains on what we can control, driving growth in our core businesses, improving the efficiency of our platform, and making disciplined decisions that position us to deliver the best possible outcomes in 2027 and beyond. After spending the last several months with our teams throughout the world, I am highly confident that we have the people, the platform, and the strategy to do exactly that. With that, I'll turn the call over to Mike to walk through our financial results.

Thank you, Ira, and good afternoon, everyone. Before I discuss our 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-core divestitures and business exits, and other non-recurring items. We provide reconciliations on our investor relations website and in today's webcast materials. Total non-GAAP adjustments in the second quarter were approximately $19 million, or $18 million at the tax. I'll now turn to our consolidated results, which exclude these non-GAAP adjustments. Building on Ira's comments, the second quarter was very strong, with gross profit increasing 50% year-over-year to $350 million, representing an all-time quarterly gross profit record for the company.

On a consolidated basis, second quarter volume was down 9%, driven primarily by lower demand tied to the Middle East conflict, as well as businesses we have exited within Land. Our aviation and marine businesses each delivered record gross profit and Land profitability increased meaningfully year-over-year, demonstrating the benefits of the portfolio actions we have been focused on and completing. When we spoke in April, we noted that the duration and the magnitude of the conflict-related market conditions that had favorably driven Q1 performance remained uncertain. Those conditions persisted longer than we initially forecast, while the related potential market headwinds did not fully develop. As a result, favorable market conditions extended well into the second quarter, even as price and volatility moderated from the March and April peaks. Our platform, portfolio actions, and disciplined execution enabled us to capture incremental value as market opportunities presented themselves.

Starting with aviation, the business exceeded our expectations as market conditions created incremental opportunities across the portfolio. Aviation volume was 1.8 billion gallons, down 5% year-over-year, reflecting lower margin volume reductions and some demand disruption tied to the Middle East conflict. Despite lower volume, aviation gross profit increased 51% year-over-year to $208 million, an all-time quarterly record for the segment. The largest driver was our physical inventory business, which benefited from elevated jet fuel price movements and the overall market structure. We also realized the expected contribution from our Universal Trip Support acquisition, which closed in the fourth quarter of 2025. To provide more clarity around our services contribution, which does not have associated fuel volume, we have added additional context this quarter.

Services represented approximately 18% of aviation gross profit, and the performance was broadly in line with our expectations at the start of the year, with the contribution from our services businesses more than doubling year-over-year. This reflects the baseline benefit of the Universal Trip Support acquisition and reinforces the strategic value of building a broader, more service-oriented aviation platform alongside our core fuel offerings. Looking ahead to the third quarter, we expect aviation gross profit to be up year-over-year, supported by the Universal Trip Support acquisition, as well as continued strength of the core fuel distribution business. Sequentially, however, we expect gross profit to decline as the second quarter inventory-related benefits continue to normalize, even with the heightened seasonal activity we typically see in the third quarter. Turning to marine. The segment delivered another very strong quarter and outperformed our expectations.

Marine volume was 3.5 million metric tons, down 10% year-over-year, driven principally by lower demand tied to the Middle East conflict. Despite the lower volume, marine gross profit increased almost three times the prior year level to $80 million, the highest quarterly gross profit in the history of the segment. Both the core resale business and certain physical supply locations were meaningfully higher year-over-year, benefiting from elevated bunker fuel prices, increased volatility, and disciplined yield management. The year-over-year comparison also benefited from a particularly low second quarter last year when the global tariff disruption weighed on trade flows and customer demand. Looking to the third quarter and considering our July activity to date, we expect marine gross profit to be up year-over-year, reflecting continued momentum in the business.

Sequentially, we expect gross profit to be down as our outlook does not assume a repeat of the exceptional market conditions we experienced in the second quarter. However, should market conditions prove more favorable than our assumptions, we believe we are well-positioned to capitalize on those opportunities. Now turning to land. The benefits of our portfolio repositioning are beginning to come through, with second quarter operating income nearly doubling sequentially from the first quarter. Similar to what we discussed in the first quarter and principally due to the businesses we have been exiting, volume was down 12% year-over-year, and gross profit was $62 million, down 8%. Importantly, on June 1st, we completed the sale of our tank wagon delivery and lubricants businesses, which substantially completes the land transformation that we have been working through over the past two years.

While the year-over-year gross profit comparisons will remain challenged as we anniversary these portfolio actions, the improvement in profitability is clear and reflects how the land business has changed. Land operating income was $20 million, compared with $1 million in the second quarter of last year, and operating margin expanded to over 32% of gross profit. This is tangible evidence that the refocused land portfolio was delivering the more consistent earnings profile and improved returns we expected. We remain on track toward our full-year operating income and margin objectives while increasingly shifting our focus on growth efforts across areas of the portfolio to generate attractive, incremental, and sustainable returns. Next, I'll cover adjusted operating expenses and net interest expense. Consolidated operating expenses were $233 million in the second quarter, up 35% year-over-year.

The increase was driven by higher variable compensation tied to our strong results, the inclusion of Universal Trip Support, and a higher bad debt reserve reflecting increased credit risk among certain customers, driven by the elevated fuel prices and increased volatility. These increases were partially offset by the continued benefit of our land cost reduction and exit actions. Net interest expense in the second quarter was $31 million, up 19% year-over-year. The increase reflects higher average borrowings driven principally by increased working capital requirements in the continued elevated commodity price environment. Our adjusted effective tax rate for the quarter was 21%, compared to 11% in the second quarter of last year. The prior year to date benefited from favorable discrete items tied to our U.K. divestiture and the impact of goodwill impairment on income mix, while this year reflects a more normalized global income mix.

With that backdrop, let's turn on to our outlook and guidance framework. As a reminder, for 2026, we are providing full-year adjusted EPS guidance. We believe this approach better reflects how we manage the business, account for seasonality, and provides investors with a clear framework for evaluating performance. Reflecting our strong first half performance, we are again raising our full-year adjusted EPS guidance to $3.20-$3.40 per share, up from our prior range of $2.65-$2.85 per share. This increase principally reflects the earnings we have already delivered, as well as our expectation for strong performance over the balance of the year. While we continue to see opportunities in the current market environment, our guidance reflects a more measured level of performance in the second half of the year compared to the record first half. Turning to cash flow. Higher commodity prices and volatility continued to place demands on working capital during the second quarter, particularly in aviation and marine.

Operating cash flow for the quarter was the use of approximately $21 million, and free cash flow was the use of approximately $35 million, driven mainly by higher commodity prices and volatility, which continued to impact working capital. We have seen early signs of working capital improvement entering the third quarter, and we continue to proactively manage our exposures to improve cash flow conversion over the balance of the year. Additionally, the sale of our tank wagon and lubricants businesses returned approximately $85 million of cash to the business in the quarter. Finally, on capital allocation, we remain committed to a disciplined and balanced approach to returning capital to shareholders while preserving flexibility to invest in our core platforms.

During the second quarter, our board approved a 15% increase to our quarterly dividend and we repurchased approximately $14 million of shares, bringing year-to-date repurchases to approximately $89 million. We believe these actions are consistent with our improved earnings outlook, the strength of our balance sheet, and our focus on sustainable long-term shareholder value creation. In closing, I'd like to leave you with a few key takeaways. First, we delivered one of the strongest quarters in the company's history, with record consolidated gross profit and adjusted earnings per share of $1.29, reflecting both favorable market conditions and strong execution across the business. Second, the actions we have taken to sharpen our focus and simplify the portfolio are delivering results, evidenced by record performance in aviation and marine and the significant improvement in land profitability.

Third, our strong first half performance supports a second increase to our full-year adjusted EPS guidance. We remain focused on our capital allocation framework by returning capital to shareholders while preserving flexibility to invest in the business. Stepping back, this quarter demonstrated the strength and responsiveness of our platform, our ability to consistently execute through changing market conditions, and our confidence in the direction of the business. I want to thank our teams around the world for a very strong quarter. With that, I'll turn the call to the operator for the Q&A session. Thank you. Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star one one on your telephone.

To remove yourself from the queue, you may press star one one again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from the line of Ken Hoexter of Bank of America. Please go ahead, Ken. Hey, great.

Good afternoon, Ira, Mike, and John. Really great job in handling the volatility and turning that into results. It's been a long time coming, so congrats on the quarter. Maybe just talk a little bit about that, Mike. You mentioned, I think, twice in the prepared remarks, your outlook is really just the uptick from the quarter. I think this is two quarters in a row now that you've really kind of beaten expectations, yet kind of hold the outlook. Why such a conservative, especially given volatility, given prices remain elevated? We can kind of see that almost a month into the quarter. Why such a conservative view given that setup?

Yeah. Hey, Ken. Thanks for the question. The earnings, principally, as you said, reflects what we delivered in the first half. I think, as we look to the quarter, we're well off the March and April peaks of volatility and price. Those coming into July. The last couple of weeks, obviously, we've seen a little bit of price action going on in the market with volatility and stuff. The reality is, it's a more measured approach to the balance of the year. The markets are difficult to predict. Things are changing on a daily basis, and our core is performing. Our outlook to the balance of the year is more measured, more balanced, and really focused on delivering on the core. If we see opportunities for themselves, we're going to capitalize on them, make sure that our team can focus on them.

To predict how the market's going to react going forward is going to be difficult. We've taken a more measured approach.

With that, given the near term vol in literally the last, I don't know, 10 to 11, 12 days, would you think the environment has picked back up given that volatility, given what's going on in the news, given the move of oil? Is there a sense you'd be able to keep earnings flat year-over-year if you think about 27, or are you writing that off as it would be down, or can you grow that from this level?

I think the performance in Q1 and Q2 are difficult to replicate. I think two weeks into the quarter, it's hard to justify a balance of the year forecast. In terms of will it persist, will it be there, we've seen volatility in the market much more frequently in the past few years than we've seen historically. Volatility may be around, but predict that and factor that into kind of the way we're looking and forecasting the future is difficult to judge. It's been 10 days. I think it creates opportunities. We're going to balance those, making sure that we're viewing everything from a risk perspective. I think too early into the balance of the year to really think where the end of the year is going to come out.

Maybe a bigger picture question for you. If we're thinking about 2Q, you've got, I don't know, gross profit per metric ton at $22. You've got gross profit per gallon at aviation up, what, $0.11? Up 59%, and in marine, it's up almost 230%. How do we think about what is a normal run rate in terms of profit? Does it change now that vol is here and pricing is here? Are you working its way back to kind of normal historical average very quickly into the third quarter in your outlook? I just want to understand what you're building in versus where the market ended and where it may be now.

Yeah. Through the second quarter, obviously April was a peak. We came down in May and June, it was more balanced up to the last 10 days or so of market activity. Price and volatility is a little bit higher than it was at the beginning of the year. We set out this year, we gave full-year guidance. I think that was a good baseline for the business and where we expected the business at the core to perform. The upside we've seen in Q1, Q2, we've been able to kind of execute on those opportunities. To stay in that ZIP code, the market would have to continue to cooperate with us. We'll have to see as time goes on. The team is ready. They're focused. They're trying to make sure they support their customers and execute in a really good way.

We're balancing on the cash side, credit side. We're being very disciplined as we look to this, and that's where being a bit measured as well as we look to the balance of the year. Thinking back to where we started the year is probably a good baseline, seeing the opportunity from there.

One more, if I can. I guess if I go back in history and as long as I've followed the company or my model goes back, the bad debt expense at $29 million, even in this exceeds COVID levels, it exceeds other things. I know, I think, Ira, you mentioned that in your prepared remarks. What's your thought on bad debt? Is that just because of elevated pricing? Was there something that you saw with customers? Is anything on your risk profile changed? Thanks. It's a good question, Ken.

I think in this kind of environment, we're obviously really focused on credit. We've got a really good team. They're focused on it every single day. We've got a good balanced portfolio from a credit perspective. I think we've been very measured on that side, too. Making sure we're not taking outside risk, not chasing margin. I think the opportunities we've been doing are very calculated. We did tick up our reserves. There was one specific customer that sought credit protection that we had to reserve prudently for as well. That was an outlier. I wouldn't say our portfolio is looking bad or turning negative. I think we're in a really good position. Some of that is just the normal price volatility with exposures growing, but the portfolio is pretty sound.

We've been managing that really well over the years. Nothing there has changed. Appreciate it, Mike.

I clearly have scared Ira off. He's not answering any questions. Thank you, guys. Really appreciate the time.

Ask another one. Ask me. I'm waiting for one from me. I'm a little insulted. I'll let you slide.

No, thanks, guys. Thanks. Ira, good job on simplifying.

I like the chart with the what is core fuel, what is other stuff. I think that's been really helpful just to visualize. Thank you, guys. We're listening, Ken.

No problem. Thanks. Thanks, Ken.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Justin Jenkins of Raymond James. Please go ahead, Justin. Awesome.

Thanks. Appreciate the time, guys. I guess I'd like to pick at the thread a little bit more on aviation and marine and pick up on a few of Ken's questions. To assume that more volatility that we've seen in July would keep things somewhat elevated in the near term. I guess my question is more, do you think there's a new normal here even after the conflict, or is it too soon for that type of view?

Since Ken was complaining that I didn't speak, I'll try to chime in, Justin. Thanks for the question. It's Ira. It's really tough to judge. Marine, we've told that story for many, many years. In times of limited volatility, margins tend to drift down to respectable level, but clearly far from the levels we've seen over the last several months. Is that going to happen again? History says yes. We're also in a period that is tough to define and judge in terms of where the market's going to go one month from now, three months from now, six months from now into next year. Anything is possible but history says markets generally settle down. We saw the market settling down just a few weeks ago.

While we've seen a spike for 10 days or so, that could last another 10 days or it could last six months, and it's impossible to judge. I wouldn't call a new normal by any means. Could margins remain elevated beyond where they were at the beginning of the year? Sure, that's possible, but it really depends on, again, what happens going forward over the next several weeks, couple of months, balance of the quarter through the end of the year. That's why Mike said what he said earlier about where our thinking was in sharing the guidance update that we did today.

Yeah. I appreciate that, Ira. Pivoting to working capital, Mike, you said that pretty sizable headwind in the first half of the year started to reverse in early July. What type of backdrop or timeframe do you think we need to see or to get to bring that $300 million working capital build back into the system here?

Yeah, we're halfway through the year, Justin, I think we're going to look at our portfolio, make sure we focus on that a bit more in our Q3, Q4. It's a trade-off. The market's there, opportunities are there. Sometimes you got to deploy a bit more working capital. Inventory with prices moving obviously drives a little bit more use of capital as well, there's ways we can balance that with customers, with terms, with the amount of exposure and collateral we request or require, and with terms with the customers. We're going to try to focus on really being disciplined or continue to be disciplined, and we think we'll come out with the year with a positive result. That said, do we get all the way back to $200 million plus? From this point, a bit challenged, again, depends on the market as well.

Got it. Last one, if I may. I think even with what looks like a lot of one-time OpEx in 2Q, obviously a strong quarter driving a good bit of that, should we think of OpEx staying somewhat elevated in the back half or normalizing back to the first quarter run rate?

I believe the answer, Justin, is that number would drop back down closer to the first quarter. The second quarter was elevated because of the reasons that Mike described. Chances are the number should be down fairly significantly in Q3 versus Q2, for sure.

Awesome. Thanks, guys. Appreciate the time.

Thank you. Once again, to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone. As there are no questions, I would now like to turn the conference back to Ira Birns for closing remarks. Sir? Thank you as always, Latif.

I'll just close by saying how proud I am of our team's execution this quarter. The business is more focused, our strategy is clear, and our teams are aligned around the areas where World Fuel has the strongest capabilities and the best opportunities to create value. Importantly, we are not just seeing the benefit of market conditions. We are seeing the benefit of the work we've done to strengthen the company, improve execution, and position the business for more consistent performance over time. We appreciate your time and your continued interest in World Fuel, and we look forward to speaking with you again next quarter. Thanks for joining, everyone. This concludes today's conference call.

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