Good morning and welcome to USA Compression Partners' December 2025 Investor Conference Call. During today's call, all parties will be in a listen-only mode. At the conclusion of management's prepared remarks, the call will be opened for Q&A. If you would like to ask a question during that time, simply press star then the number one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, press star one again. This conference is being recorded today, December 1st, 2025. I would now like to turn the call over to Clint Green, President and CEO. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Operator, and thank you all for joining us today. During this call, we will reference certain non-GAAP measures, forward-looking statements. Please review the related legends included in our presentation discussing this transaction found on our website. As you all have seen, we are excited to discuss our acquisition of J-W Power Company, a largely privately-held provider of compression services with a storied history dating back to the 1960s. This represents an exciting opportunity to increase our geographic footprint across the U.S. and expand our existing customer relationships while acquiring new ones. We especially want to thank the Westerman family for entrusting us with the assets and for their commitment to the combined company going forward as owners of common units.
Together, our two companies bring decades of experience in contract compression and a shared focus on exceptional people, a strong culture, reliable equipment, and superior service, consistent with our four pillars. With that, I will turn the call over to Chris Paulsen to discuss the merits of the transaction in further detail.
Thanks, Clint. I'll start on page two of the presentation. The transaction will be funded with $430 million in cash, initially via the existing credit facility, and approximately 18.3 million USAC common units issued to the seller. This represents an attractive valuation of approximately 5.8 x 2026 estimated Adjusted EBITDA. Notably, while we anticipate meaningful synergies associated with the combined business in the fullness of time, we have assumed no synergies upon announcement. The majority of J-W's Adjusted EBITDA is tied to its 800,000-plus active contract compression horsepower, which is primarily mid to large, and will increase our active fleet to roughly 4.4 million horsepower on a pro forma basis. Non-contract compression Adjusted EBITDA is approximately 10% of the total and is attributable to the AMS and manufacturing businesses.
The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2026 and will be subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approval. Turning to page three. J-W allows us to increase the scale and product offering, expand long-term customer relationships, and improve geographic presence, all while priced at an attractive valuation. J-W's assets are complementary to our own, with over 300 customers across the U.S. In the near term, we expect this asset will deliver meaningful accretion in 2026 on a DCF basis and will move us below 4x leverage on a pro forma basis. J-W also provides a strong pipeline for continued organic growth. We expect active horsepower to grow roughly 2% by year-end 2026, driven by newly contracted horsepower and dependent upon our post-close finalized capital budget. Turning to slide four.
In slide four, you can see that J-W provides 70% of the contract compression fleet that is mid to large horsepower, with 46% of the HP greater than 1,000 horsepower. The fleet historically serviced both gas lift and gathering, with a slightly higher proportion tied to the wellhead. The fleet is relatively evenly spread across our existing operations in the U.S. and provides us new access to the Bakken. Total acquired horsepower is approximately 1.05 million, of which we anticipate over 900,000 horsepower is readily deployable, with limited additional capital to make ready idle units. Approximately 90% of the expected Adjusted EBITDA in 2026 is tied to the contract compression business, with expected gross margins nearing 60% for contract compression and AMS. While this is lower than our baseline average, we are confident that through combined best practices, we can streamline operations and incrementally improve our operating margins over time.
Finally, page five shows our pro forma active fleet mix by basin and unit size. The hatched areas represent basins where we currently have an operating presence, whereas the blue areas are new, including portions of the Bakken, Uinta, and Arkoma basins. In each hatched area, we expect to meaningfully enhance operational efficiency through improved materials and fluids cost and route management. We could not be more excited about the addition of J-W Power to the USAC portfolio. Its field operations are well respected throughout the industry, and its horsepower offerings complement our own. As mentioned, we anticipate closing the transaction early Q1 and will look to provide pro forma Adjusted EBITDA and capital numbers at that time. I will now open up to Q&A.
We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, press star then the number one on your telephone keypad. We kindly ask that you please limit your questions to one and one follow-up. Our first question will come from the line of Jim Rollyson with Raymond James. Please go ahead.
Hey, good morning, guys. Congrats on the deal. Chris, maybe starting with you, can you give us a little bit of kind of trailing 12-month context on revenues, EBITDA, and I think the 10% mix was related to EBITDA, but just maybe a little bit of history is kind of where we're coming from to then project where we're going.
Yeah, good question, Jim. As we look forward into 2026, we mentioned that we're looking to grow new horsepower approximately 2%. That horsepower number in terms of what's currently contemplated within the J-W legacy assets is about 40,000 new horsepower, of which over 60% of that's contract, 60% of that's contracted at the moment. Looking back historically and relatively, the last 12 months, the number has been just south of $140 million on an Adjusted EBITDA basis. Again, most of that increase on a relative basis for 2026 is tied to that new horsepower.
Got it. That's helpful. Clint, yeah, obviously, J-W has been around for a long time. Would love to just hear your thoughts on kind of how you got this transaction and as you think about it. You mentioned geographic diversity, but love to hear beyond just kind of geographic footprint and what your thoughts does this bring to the table. Does it bring a lot of new customers of the 300? I imagine there's a lot of overlap there. Is it more tied to new growth opportunities? Is there any technologies or the manufacturing and AMS business that you kind of wanted to grow into and this helps you, or is this more of a kind of gets you more scale, gives you some growth opportunity and helps deleveraging with a bunch of synergies? Just kind of curious your approach there.
Yeah. Thank you, Jim. That is really all of that, right? At investor conferences and over the last year, we've talked about if we were going to do a deal, it would need to be deleveraging. It would need to be accretive. It would need to be DCF, improved DCF. We feel like this does all of that. We also like being the footprint and the basins that it gives us opportunities to work in. The AMS business, we've been pushing to grow that business here over the last year, and this helps us with that. It gives us opportunity there as well. I think the best way to sum it up is we like the whole enchilada.
Got it. Appreciate that. I'll turn it back for someone else. Thank you.
Our next question comes from the line of Eli Josen with J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.
Hey, thanks, everyone. Just wanted to start on the kind of age and utilization of the horsepower versus your existing fleet. Can you just kind of provide some high-level color on how these assets from a utilization and uptime perspective compare to what you already have? Thanks.
Sure, Eli. Yeah, in terms of utilization, I think in the context of historical utilization, we have to decide what is that appropriate count of total horsepower. As we indicated in the slide deck, we're about the total horsepower being delivered associated with the transaction is about 1.05 million. We also distinguish between that and indicate that in excess of 900,000, we believe, is readily deployable with some limited capital tied to it. If you tag that in and look at kind of where that number is, if you just simply look at 850 into 900, that would kind of be the relative utilization on what we would say is a comparable basis. Ultimately, we'll get in with the assets and determine whether or not that number is 900 or 950 or whatever the case may be.
In terms of service offerings and the comparable service offerings, their uptime requirements are no different than our own, no different than many of our peers at the same time. The assets themselves are on average kind of similar age as our existing. The contract terms, I would draw a distinction there. They have tended towards shorter contract terms on average, whereas our average contract term nears 30 months, theirs is probably half that. That is something that we are going to look towards as we go about recontracting in the next 12 months. With that, we will also be moving towards MLP qualified income with the recontracting. There are some synergies that we would hope to achieve as it relates to that. Obviously, some additional tax synergies in time as we move to MLP qualified income. Hopefully that addresses your questions.
If you have anything that I did not address, please let me know.
No, that's super helpful color. Maybe just one more. I think there's some helpful splits and pie charts in the deck, but if we think about the upstream versus midstream exposure for the acquired assets, if you can provide a little bit of color on that and also just how that tied into the acquisition decision as well. Thanks.
Yeah, I'll just say this. We think that the gas gathering versus the what I would call gas lift or upstream component is somewhat similar with our own with a little bit heavier weight towards the gas lift side. I mean, when we looked at this acquisition, what was exciting to us, frankly, was its geographic presence across the U.S. While it incremented our Permian presence and continued to increase our Permian presence, in fact, on a pro forma basis, moved that just below 40%. These other areas are areas that are really going to be necessary to see the gas growth into the second half of this decade. As we look forward to 2028, 2029, 2030, various third-party reports really show the growth and wells drilled in some of these other basins within the Greater Rockies, within the Greater Mid-Continent, within the Greater Northeast.
That in and of itself is exciting. Certainly, having a little bit smaller proportion of what we would call small horsepower relative to our own fleet creates some more horsepower nearer to the wellhead.
Great. I'll leave it there. Thanks very much.
Our next question will come from the line of Nate Pendleton with Texas Capital. Please go ahead.
Good morning, and congrats on a great acquisition. Following this acquisition and the improving distributable cash flow, can you talk about how you're looking at balancing further growth, accelerated deleveraging, and the distribution? I know it's early, but any thoughts that would be helpful?
Yeah. One of the things that we need to do is combine both assets once the deal closes and the expectations, hopefully, well before February timeframe. In February, come out with our combined capital budget in the same way and timing that we normally do. If we do that, our capital priorities remain the same. I mean, we want to draw leverage below 4x sustainably. I mean, we want to look at opportunistic growth with that. We had a horsepower number in mind, separate and distinct from this asset. As I mentioned, this asset has 40,000 horsepower that will be deployed and could be deployed to these particular, to the contract compression space tied to the manufacturing business. We anticipate utilizing all that. We need to decide what the pro forma numbers will be for USAC sum total.
We're looking at keeping leverage at or below 4x and then finding ways to continue to grow that relative coverage. At a point in time, decide what the priorities are beyond that.
Nate just adds that we're going to maintain our capital discipline we've been talking about.
Got it. I really appreciate the detail there. Maybe just a quick follow-up, just drilling down a bit on the fleet. Can you talk about the composition, specifically electric motor drive, and are the others mostly CAT Ariel or any color there?
The vast majority is CAT Ariel. We will improve our relative electric components. Part of the manufacturing business has been retrofitting electric on smaller units, 690 horsepower units and below in some cases, so mid to small horsepower. We will improve that. I would expect for that to continue. We'll kind of provide some more fulsome numbers on electric. Again, within our capital budget for 2026, and we haven't arrived at the final proportion for that, but I would tell you that electric would be extremely limited. As needed and as required by our customers, we're delivering electric. Overall, for 2026, the electric appetite was not immense.
That's helpful. Thanks for taking my questions.
Our next question will come from the line of Gabe Moreen with Mizuho. Please go ahead.
Hey, good morning. Just had a couple of quick follow-ups. One is any divestitures, whether basins or HP types contemplated after this acquisition? I'm just curious.
No, not at this time, Gabe. We'll continue to evaluate that as we move through it, but not at this time.
Thanks, Clint. I am just curious, you mentioned a lot of new customers here, but as far as your existing basins where there is overlap with J-W Power, any shared customers here where you think one-on-one could equal three here in terms of more market share with some of those producer customers given this acquisition?
What was interesting about it, one is the contract tenor, the customers. When we look at the top 10, it is real similar to our own in terms of the timeframe. What was interesting was, as it relates to top 10, the relative limited overlap. Three hundred customers, amongst top 10, limited overlap, really limited overlap in many of the top 20 customers. To your point, I think the calculus is actually a very positive one and not one where we necessarily have a great customer intensity rate for any one customer.
Got it. Thanks, guys.
Our next question comes from the line of Elvira Scotto with RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Hey, good morning, everyone. Can you talk about—I know you gave the acquisition multiple kind of without synergies—but can you talk about some of the potential synergies or cost savings that you expect over time from this acquisition?
Sure. Yeah, Elvira, I'll take that one. The synergies, we're pretty reasonably excited about the potential for synergies. I think we'll be more apt to be able to speak to those upon close. I'll tell you, we'll look across the landscape and find out where we can improve in terms of the gross margin side. I think some of that improvement is going to come from simple things like we had a lot of contract labor throughout a good portion of this year, had some open positions through a portion of this year. We had budgeted for some open positions next year. I think through this process, we'll be able to fill those with J-W employees. We're excited about that. In turn, I think margins will improve.
There are things that, again, in the fullness of time, as we move MLP qualified contracts over, I think there will be some ability to minimize some of the cash taxes associated with the assets that were historically tied to them. When I say minimize and defer some of those cash taxes, that probably is better said. Between the two companies, we really made some meaningful impact in terms of our shared services offering with ET. I think we'll have some immediate impacts with some things like HR, IT platforms, and so forth. Keep in mind, as we mentioned on that last call, our healthcare costs have come in and improved quite substantially. Our 401(k) and benefits package, I think, is a really strong offering.
I think once we integrate some of the J-W platform into the shared services offering, I think we'll have some improvements to talk about. I think we'll be, again, better positioned to discuss that upon the transaction close and maybe be able to put forward some synergy numbers over the next six months or so.
Great. Thank you very much.
Again, for any questions, press star one. Our next question will come from the line of Selman Akyol with Stifel. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning. Just a couple of quick ones. Just to confirm, there was no debt acquired with this transaction?
Yeah. This is kind of what we would call a cash, a debt-free, cash-free transaction. The legacy J-W asset did have an ABL tied to it. That ABL will go away with the transaction. Again, we'll fund a portion of this initially through our ABL and then decision whether or not we want to approach anything different with more of a fixed proportion going forward.
Understood. Thank you for that. I know this is small, but I'm just curious more than anything else. They had some enhanced oil recovery compression. I'm just wondering, is there any difference in terms of margins, growth outlook, pricing, anything different in there that we should be aware of?
No. I think CMG, EOR are part of the specialized manufacturing business. I think they're different and exciting packages for J-W relative to some other manufacturers. Ultimately, EOR is the better way to probably say that is really big, big units. That is a lot of horsepower on location and on site. They take some reasonable time to build. The long and short of that is they're just big, big units.
Understood. Thank you so much.
That concludes the question and answer session. With that, I would like to turn the call back to Clint Green for closing comments.
Thank you all for dialing in. As you can see, we're extremely excited about this opportunity. Just to close it out, we'd really like to thank the Westerman family for entrusting us with this. We're excited about carrying on the legacy and the history. We'll be back with more updates later on. Thank you all very much.
This does conclude our call today. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.