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Text: They will provide an update on Greenbrier's performance and our near-term priorities.
And with that, I will hand the call over to Bill.
Greenbrier adhered to disciplined management program throughout this year of the pandemic.
Our simple core strategy since March 2020 has been number one, to maintain a strong liquidity base and balance sheet; number two, to safely operate our factories, while generating cash, reducing costs and adjusting to reduce demand for our products and services, that reduction and demand was clearly shown in this quarter's results; number three, to prepare for economic recovery and forward momentum in our markets.
We believe we're now solidly in this recovery phase.
We believe that our Q2 just completed in February will be the most challenging quarter of our fiscal year, particularly affected by very bad weather in North America.
There's good reason to be optimistic as vaccines expanded in the United States.
Vaccinations will bolster already accelerating infection and mortality rates and allow America to turn the corner on the pandemic at last.
Globally, we are prepared for the pandemic to take a longer course toward resolution.
Sadly, we learned last week that Greenbrier lost two more employees, our sixth and seventh loss to COVID-19.
Merala Nisioh [Phonetic], 58 was a assistant to the plant manager at our Severin, Romanian facility where she worked for over 32 years.
We also lost Luis Martinez aged 43.
Luis was maintenance manager in our factory in Tlaxcala, State of Mexico -- in the State of Tlaxcala in Mexico.
He's been with Greenbrier since December 2017.
He was survived by his wife and four children ages, 19, 17, 11 and five.
We mourned the loss of Merala and Luis.
And we're extending support and prayers to their family and to colleagues who worked with them.
Our results in the second quarter reflect the current -- temporary difficulties in the operating environment, particularly in North America, but also in Europe and Brazil, and I emphasize temporary.
In addition to lower production levels related to the market downturn and as earlier mentioned, severe weather conditions impact our second quarter results in North America.
On a much more positive note, revenue, aggregate gross margin and EBITDA, all improved sequentially month-by-month during the quarter, indicating positive momentum.
Our order pipeline of inquiries took a big jump in March.
We completed our GBX joint venture post quarter with Steve Menzies and funded the first $100 million tranche of railcars from a newly established $300 million non-recourse credit line established for this business.
Our financial results were also positively impacted by tax benefits related to the creation of GBX Leasing joint venture and additional capitalization of railcars into the Greenbrier leasing fleet in our second fiscal quarter.
Adrian Downes, our CFO, will touch on this in a few minutes.
Finally, post quarter and almost all in the month of March, we received orders for another 1,700 railcars with an approximate value of $190 million on top of the 3,800 railcars orders received during the quarter worth $440 million in all 5,500 cars worth about $630 million in the space of four months or more.
In recent weeks, North American rail traffic grew in year-over-year comparisons, including double-digit increases in grain and intermodal loadings.
The added traffic has driven year-to-date rail velocity down by nearly 6% compared to the same period in 2020 or about 2 miles an hour.
Slowing rail velocity, as all of you know, impacts cars and storage and demand for new railcars.
Consider that about 148,000 cars have been taken out of storage in North America alone since the peak storage levels of last year, storage statistics have fallen now to 378,000 units, well below what we believe to be the frictional level of storage, 400,000 cars.
At that point, new cars need to be built.
With returns of cars serviced, higher scrap pricing and tax benefits for construction of new, more efficient and environmentally friendly equipment, we expect this trend to continue.
Throughout the course of the pandemic, we've been laser-focused on maintaining our strong liquidity position.
We ended the quarter with over $700 million of liquidity, including nearly $600 million of cash and another $115 million of available borrowing capacity.
We expect to add another $100 million shortly.
Now let's talk for a moment about our plan for recovery.
Vital to our ongoing success is the ability to rapidly align production capacity and execution with our forward view of the market.
We began to reduce capacity prior to the onset of the pandemic as our industry was already entering a weaker period due to PSR.
COVID-19 compelled us to take a series of further actions to protect the enterprise and to ensure Greenbrier attained its strongest possible financial position.
We have maintained long-term profitability over the years by prioritizing our manufacturing flexibility and refusing to allow our unique manufacturing platform to become a mere commodity.
Refinement of our go-to-market strategy, adding GBX Leasing to our successful formula of direct sales, syndications and partnerships with operating lessors will reinforce our recovery.
We reactivated a number of North American production lines in March, and several of our production lines are already booked well into or through fiscal 2022.
The inquiry rate for new manufacturing business has picked up dramatically.
We expect a continued high rate of commercial activity to continue April, May, and beyond.
Consistent with our earlier forecasts that the second half of calendar 2021 would be the time of a V-shaped recovery.
Forecast for rail traffic fundamentals in North America support Greenbrier's outlook that we are entering a period of sustained and expanding railcar [Indecipherable].
FTR Associates projects the total rail traffic will grow by 5.7% year-over-year in 2021 and intermodal traffic will grow by 6.4%.
In North America, that's even more bullish and closer to 7% for 2021.
In February, the Purchasing Managers' Index reached its highest level since February 2018.
At the same time, however, supply chain disruptions that have been evident for months persist with congestion at West Coast ports, and these continue to weigh in the North American traffic flows.
Strong consumer demand, manufacturing growth and Fed policy on lower interest rates, along with low-cost funding available globally will continue to spur economic recovery from the COVID-19 crisis.
Federal stimulus spending in the US is at extraordinary levels.
Also, a federal infrastructure bill will provide additional stimulus for a sustained growth into 2022 and probably beyond.
Other bills in the work -- in the works at past should enhance US job growth and further incent the construction of more efficient, environmentally friendly railcars.
In Europe, the large EU recovery and resiliency facility will begin to impact EU economy, and money remains plentiful and cheap.
A wave of pent-up consumer and investment demand is expected to materialize, although vaccine rollout has been slower than in America.
In the meantime, rail freight has continued to perform well through the latest rounds of lockdowns and restrictions.
Order rates have ticked up dramatically with EU.
EU policy and congestion and the environment is attempting to shift transportation from truck to rail, which is three to four times more fuel efficient and produces less congestion and better air quality in cities.
Rail freight traffic has actually grown over pre-crisis levels in some countries.
In the UK, rail may turn out to be one of the few beneficiaries of Brexit as trade flows are rerouted to accommodate new circumstances.
Longer term, broad scale economic European reforms to address climate change are ushering in an era of mode of shift from freight -- for freight from polluting and congested road travel to efficient higher-speed rail service.
This will drive significant growth in railcar demand in the years to come, above and beyond replacement demand growth.
And the fleets in EU countries are aging.
Many cars are already well past the time for replacement.
Finally, in Brazil, the continued impact of COVID-19 has left the country's health system in a very weak condition.
Greenbrier Maxion continues to operate well in a stressful environment.
Demand for its products is strong.
Earlier, we rightsized this business and it has a strong and profitable backlog.
About 30% of our present backlog is in Europe and Brazil.
We expect tailwinds from both regions.
Our approach globally continues on course to emphasize safe operations of all of our facilities under essential industry status.
We continue to plan for robust liquidity and ongoing cost containment and to execute on the growing number of orders we expect, while maintaining pricing discipline and control of costs, especially on steel and components.
Entering the second half of our fiscal year, Greenbrier enjoys an industry-leading manufacturing leasing and services franchise on three continents, and we've achieved scale.
Our business outlook is significantly improving, which will bring advantages from that scale.
Despite the lingering uncertainty created by COVID-19, the one thing I'm certain about is that our franchise will benefit strongly from all the things I've mentioned in these remarks today.
Meanwhile, we will continue to preserve our strong liquidity position, make prudent business decisions about deployment of capital, grow our market opportunities, manage our manufacturing capacity judiciously.
We will do all this with -- at all times respect for our customers, for our workforce and through diversity and environmentally sound policies.
Our team continues to work hard to accomplish these goals and to maintain focus as better days draw closer as the COVID chill on society melts away.
Now over to you, Lorie.
I too am proud of how Greenbrier employees responded in our second quarter.
We expected it to be a challenging operating quarter, but the extreme winter weather that impacted every location in North America added an additional test.
I was impressed with the creativity and commitment shown to ensure operations continued as seamlessly as possible.
Over the last several quarters, Greenbrier has balanced right-sizing our global footprint and production capacity with maintaining our ability to respond quickly as recovery begins.
The first six months of the fiscal year were painful, but we're seeing improved demand in each of our markets, and we've recently restarted several production lines in North America and are poised to flex our manufacturing footprint as conditions evolve.
As you heard from Bill, we remain focused on executing our COVID-19 protocols by focusing on employee safety and maintaining our liquidity to ensure we're prepared for the emerging economic recovery.
Regarding the second quarter activity, Greenbrier delivered 2,100 units in the quarter, including 400 units in Brazil.
We received orders for 3,800 units in the quarter valued at approximately $440 million.
International order activity accounted for nearly half of the orders in the quarter and the average sales price in backlog increased sequentially reflecting a more favorable mix of railcars.
Our book-to-bill ratio of 1.8 times resulted in a growing backlog to 24,900 units valued at $2.5 billion.
Our global manufacturing performance was not indicative of its true value.
While a positive gross margin was achieved, the team's operational execution was tremendous in a challenging environment.
Now bear with me while I throw some numbers at you.
Compared to Q1, our deliveries in Q2 were down 37% and that followed a 45% decline from Q4 to Q1.
And then, further if you were to do a year-over-year comparison, you guys like all these year-over-year comparisons of Q2, manufacturing revenue was down 59% on 54% lower deliveries.
With such a steep decline in revenue and production, it's effectively impossible to quickly cost cut your way to profitability.
It was more a matter of weathering the short-term pain for the longer-term goal of responding effectively to increasing activity.
Over the next six months, the manufacturing team will be focused on increasing production rates quickly and efficiently, while maintaining employee safety, quality and customer satisfaction.
Volumes in our wheels and parts business improved sequentially, although still well below normal winter level.
The volume and mix of work continue to lag in our repair business, although we are seeing some early signs of increased activity and improved efficiency as we right-size those operations.
We've well-positioned shops that serve our customer base in an efficient and safe manner, and our network is prepared for the return of more normalized activity levels later in the calendar 2021.
Our leasing and services team continues to navigate the downturn well with fleet utilization improving sequentially during a time when approximately 25% of the total North American railcar fleet and storage.
Greenbrier's capital market team had a relatively quiet quarter with 100 units syndicated.
This lower volume is reflected of the lower production rates in the prior two quarters and the types of railcars being produced.
Our Management Services Group added another 38,000 new railcars under management during the quarter, bringing total rail cars under management to 445,000 or about 26% of the North American fleet.
After quarter-end, we finalized the formation of GBX Leasing.
The joint venture is an exciting development for us and an opportunistic deployment of our capital.
The JV achieved several important goals for Greenbrier.
From a commercial standpoint, it's a strong complement to our integrated business model of railcar manufacturing and services that further enhances our distribution strategies to direct customers, operating lessors, industrial shippers and syndication partners.
We expect the joint venture will help Greenbrier continue to grow its diversified customer portfolio with the focus on industrial shipper customers and small batch production to leverage long-standing customer relationships and capabilities gained through the acquisition of the manufacturing unit of ARI.
We've realized significant cost synergies following the US manufacturing acquisition, and we expect that this joint venture will result in meaningful commercial synergies.
Financially, GBX Leasing delivers clear benefits.
Over the long term, it reduces our exposure to the new railcar order and delivery cycle by creating a new annuity stream of tax-advantaged cash flows and sound portfolio practices, including asset diversity, staggered lease terms and debt maturities.
Adrian will discuss the tax benefit shortly.
GBX Leasing will acquire approximately $200 million of railcars per annum from Greenbrier with the initial portfolio identified from leased railcars on our balance sheet or in backlog.
The joint venture will be levered about 3-to-1 debt to equity during the initial $300 million traditional non-recourse warehouse facility, of which we've drawn the first $100 million and those transition to a more traditional asset-backed securities financing as time progresses.
GBX Leasing will be consolidated in our financial statements, and we plan to provide additional supplemental information to illustrate the performance and benefits of this exciting new venture.
Looking ahead, I'm optimistic about a recovery in calendar 2021 that will primarily benefit our fiscal 2022.
And while the first six months of '21 were difficult, we still expect gross margins in the low-double-digit to high-single-digit range, and we'll continue controlling costs to improve financial performance.
Greenbrier remains healthy with strong liquidity and no near-term debt maturities.
We have leadership positions in our core markets in North America, Europe and Brazil, and see early signs of recovery in each geography.
And you can see that, particularly with what Bill mentioned, our recent orders for 1,700 railcar units in just the first month of our Q3.
The decisive actions we've taken over the last 12 months have positioned Greenbrier to exit the pandemic economy a stronger and leaner organization.
And now, Adrian will provide commentary on the quarterly results.
During the quarter, Greenbrier continued managing for near-term stability, while positioning for a strong recovery.
Obviously, the pandemic has had a major impact on our revenue and delivery levels.
Nonetheless, we were able to achieve positive margins in each segment as a result of our flexible manufacturing footprint and aggressive cost reductions.
Reduced deliveries and revenue is a power driver of bottom line performance even in the face of dramatic reductions and payroll, overhead and SG&A.
Performance did improve each month within the quarter, and we exited the quarter with positive momentum increasing production rates to build sequential momentum in Q3 and Q4.
A few quarterly items I'll mention include revenue of $296 million; book-to-bill of 1.8 times made up of deliveries of 2,100 units, including 400 units from Brazil and orders of 3,800 new units; aggregate gross margin of 6%; selling and administrative expense of $43 million, flat sequentially and 20% lower than Q2 of fiscal 2020.
Net loss attributable to Greenbrier was $9.1 million or a loss of $0.28 per share.
EBITDA was negative $1 million.
The effective tax rate in the quarter was a benefit of 62%, due to the net operating losses and tax benefits from accelerated depreciation associated with capital investment in our leasing assets.
These deductions will be carried back to earlier high tax years under the CARES Act, resulting in a $16 million tax benefit in the quarter and cash tax refunds to be received in fiscal 2022.
We also incurred $2.5 million of incremental pre-tax costs specifically related to COVID-19 employee and facility safety.
These costs will continue for the foreseeable future.
Moving to liquidity, we have continued managing for near-term balance sheet strength and are positioned for a recovery.
Including borrowing capacity of $115 million, Greenbrier's liquidity remains healthy at $708 million plus another approximately $100 million of initiatives and process.
Cash in the quarter ended at $593 million, reflecting $48 million of inventory purchasing to support higher production levels beginning in Q3 and the $44 million increase in leased railcars for syndication.
Historically, tax receivables have been included in the accounts receivable line in our balance sheet, but to improve transparency, we separated this activity in the quarter to provide a more accurate picture of operating receivables as well as the future tax refunds I just mentioned.
Capital expenditures, net of equipment sales, in the quarter was $9.2 million.
Leasing and services capital spending is expected to be about $90 million in 2021, with about 42% of that already occurring in the first half of the year.
This capital spending includes GBX Leasing, which began operations in Q3 and approximately $130 million of leased railcar assets were transferred into the JV at that point, including some assets, which were already on our balance sheet at the beginning of the year.
An additional approximately $70 million of assets will be newly built or transferred later this year.
Manufacturing and wheels repair and parts capital expenditures are still expected to be about $35 million for the year with spending focused on safety and required maintenance.
We continue to have healthy cushions in our debt covenants.
And while we have no significant debt maturities until late calendar 2023 and calendar 2024, we are proactively evaluating opportunities to extend maturities and capitalize on the low interest rate environment.
Greenbrier's Board of Directors remains committed to balanced capital deployment.
Authorization of share repurchases remains in effect through January 2023.
And today, we're announcing a dividend of $0.27 per share, our 28th consecutive dividend.
Since the start of our program, the growth of our dividend represents a compound annual rate of 9%.

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q2 loss per share $0.28.
q2 revenue $296 million.

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