Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the World Fuel Services First Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call. My name is Jerome, and I'll be coordinating the call this evening. During the presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. Instructions on how to ask a question will be given at the beginning of the Q&A session. If at any time during the conference you need to reach an operator, please press star zero. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Glenn Klevitz, World Fuel's Vice President, Treasurer, and Investor Relations. Mr. Klevitz, you may begin your conference.
Thank you, Jerome. Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the World Fuel Services first quarter 2022 earnings conference call. I'm Glenn Klevitz, and I'll be doing the introductions on this evening's call alongside our live slide presentation. This call is also available via webcast. To access this webcast or future webcasts, please visit the World Fuel Services website and click on the webcast icon. With us on the call today are Michael Kasbar, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and Ira Birns, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. By now you should have all received a copy of our earnings release. If not, you can access the release on our website. Before we get started, I would like to review World Fuel's safe harbor statement.
Certain statements made today, including comments about World Fuel's expectations regarding future plans and performance, are forward-looking statements that are subject to a range of uncertainties and risks that could cause World Fuel's actual results to materially differ from the forward-looking information. A description of the risk factors that could cause results to materially differ from these projections can be found in World Fuel's most recent Form 10-K and other reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. World Fuel assumes 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 as defined in Regulation G. A reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures to their most directly comparable GAAP financial measures is included in World Fuel's press release and can be found on its website.
We will begin with several minutes of prepared remarks, which will then be followed by a question-and-answer period. As with prior conference calls, we ask that members of the media and individual private investors on the line participate in listen-only mode. At this time, I would like to introduce our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Michael Kasbar.
Thank you, Glenn, and thank you everyone for joining us this evening. I want to start by recognizing our global team for their tremendous individual and team effort and execution during these turbulent times, both through COVID, then supply chain disruptions, and now coupled with historic fuel price volatility arising from geopolitical events. During all of it, you have continued to deliver on our commitments to our customers and suppliers each and every day with extraordinary skill and expertise, remaining calm in the face of what was, in essence, a perfect storm of logistical complexity and difficulties in market dynamics. A big thank you to all of you. I've always said that our company's diversified business model is uniquely positioned to deliver during times of uncertainty in the markets we serve, and that when taken together, complement each other during times of heightened volatility.
This quarter's solid overall result is a perfect example of that. In our aviation segment, our commercial passenger, business aviation, and cargo volumes were all up year-over-year, with commercial passenger volume approaching 80% of 2019 pre-pandemic levels globally. Our aviation service and technology offerings also delivered strong year-over-year growth. While our core aviation business performed very well, aviation results were negatively impacted by a historic backwardated fuel price environment, which Ira will explain in greater detail shortly. At the same time, our marine business performed extremely well, navigating a sharply rising bunker fuel price environment where average bunker prices increased 30% sequentially. Unlike our aviation business, most of our marine transactions are executed on a spot basis, and we earn higher returns on the back of higher prices, resulting in extraordinary performance when compared to recent periods.
As credit capacity invariably tightens in high-price markets, the scale of our business and the strength of our balance sheet differentiates us in a volatile pricing environment. We can continue to provide our customers with the products, services, and credit they require when they need it most. Simply put, this served us well in the first quarter. With the backdrop of high container and dry bulk rates, strong commodity demand, capacity constraints, rising interest rates, supply chain inefficiencies, and sustainability, we have expanding opportunities to play an important role in the success of our marine customers. Lastly, our land business performed well in the first quarter. We experienced seasonally strong results in our UK heating oil business and solid contributions from our natural gas and power activities, which served to further augment the immediate benefits from the addition of the Flyers Energy Group operations to our overall land business.
With Flyers Energy Group, we are better positioned to build a more ratable and leverageable national platform with a myriad of growth opportunities ahead. Now I will turn the call over to Ira for his review of our financial results.
Thank you, Michael. Before I walk through our first quarter results, please note that the following figures exclude the impact of non-operational items, which are highlighted in our earnings release. These items include acquisition-related expenses and integration costs, which in aggregate were only $500,000 after tax in this year's first quarter. To assist you in reconciling results published in our earnings release, the breakdown of the non-operational items can be found on our website and on the last slide of today's webcast presentation. Furthermore, before getting to the numbers, as Michael already mentioned, this was a quarter which clearly demonstrates the value of our diversified business model. With aviation negatively impacted by unprecedented market pricing dynamics, while marine significantly benefited from the sustained high price environment, and land delivered strong results with Flyers now on board.
I will get into the details shortly, but I thought it was important to start by pointing this out. Consolidated revenue in the first quarter was $12.5 billion, up more than 100% year over year, and putting us on a $50 billion annual run rate for revenue for the first time in our history. Volume continued to improve across all of our business segments as commercial aviation passenger volumes continue to recover, contributing to a 26% year-over-year increase in consolidated volumes. Adjusted first quarter net income and earnings per share were $26.8 million and $0.42 per share, respectively. Adjusted EBITDA for the first quarter was $75 million. That's an increase of $14 million or 23% compared to the first quarter of last year.
With regard to segment volumes, aviation volume was 1.7 billion gallons in the first quarter. That's down 2% sequentially from a seasonally strong fourth quarter, but an increase of 45% compared to the first quarter of 2021. The year-over-year volume increase resulted principally from the ongoing recovery in commercial passenger activity. Volume in marine for the first quarter was 4.7 million metric tons, a decrease of 3% sequentially, but an increase of 11% year over year. As stated on last quarter's call, continued increases in our core resale activity, principally in the container and dry bulk markets and physical operations, drove the expected improvement in year-over-year volume. Land volume was 1.6 billion gallons or gallon equivalents during the first quarter, an increase of 16% sequentially and 22% year over year.
Year-over-year volume increase was principally driven by volume associated with the Flyers acquisition, as well as continued growth in our natural gas and power activities. Consolidated volume was 4.5 billion gallons or gallon equivalents. That's up 3% sequentially and 26% over last year. Consolidated gross profit in the first quarter was $231 million, an increase of 7% sequentially and 21% year-over-year. Before I discuss aviation gross profit, I would like to provide some backdrop. As you know, backwardation occurs when oil futures forward prices trade at lower levels than current spot prices. During the first quarter, futures forward prices were trading significantly lower than spot oil prices, which resulted in the most severe level of backwardation since futures prices have been tracked. Many have actually referred to this as super backwardation. Why has this happened?
Short-term supplies have dwindled, and as most economies have bounced back from COVID-19, supply growth has simply not kept up. Second, Russia's invasion of Ukraine has increased supply concerns and driven up current prices with longer-dated futures much lower as the market clearly does not expect these dynamics to last. What does this mean for us? The impact on our results is most pronounced in aviation, where we carry higher levels of inventory with the longest cycle times, and we hedge our price exposure with heating oil derivative contracts as heating oil is the forward market commodity that is most closely correlated to jet fuel. When heating oil futures prices trade significantly lower than the spot market, since we hedge our inventory with futures contracts, it is difficult to avoid losses. This materially impacted aviation's margins and net results in the first quarter.
While the fundamentals of our aviation business remain strong with commercial passenger, business and general aviation, and cargo activities all posting solid growth versus last year, the segment's gross profit contribution declined 42% sequentially and 16% year-over-year, with the sequential decline driven principally by the inventory issue and seasonality, and the year-over-year decline driven by the inventory impact and the exit from Afghanistan during 2021. As we look ahead to the second quarter, we expect the core business to benefit from the continuing recovery and seasonality, with a sequential seasonal increase in volumes likely to be 15% or greater. However, with the market remaining steeply backwardated, it is likely that aviation gross profit will continue to be significantly impacted by the effects of backwardation on our physical inventory positions.
With most of our aviation contracts renewing at the end of the second quarter, as we enter the third quarter, we have more opportunities to mitigate or eliminate this risk should the steeply backwardated market continue into the summer months or beyond. On a more positive note, the Marine segment performed extraordinarily well, generating first quarter gross profit of $47 million. That's an increase of 55% sequentially and 85% year-over-year. As noted earlier, the strong result this quarter was driven by increased returns in our core resale business in a tightening credit environment caused by the significantly elevated price of bunker fuel during the quarter. As we look ahead to the second quarter, we expect Marine gross profit to remain strong as the price of bunker fuel remains at or above first quarter averages.
If this trend continues, second quarter Marine results should again be materially ahead year-over-year and relatively consistent with the results delivered in the first quarter. Our land segment delivered record gross profit of $120 million in the first quarter, up significantly both sequentially and year-over-year, principally as a result of the recent Flyers acquisition, which performed very well in its first quarter since we closed the transaction in early January. Additional highlights in land include strong seasonal strength in our U.K. operation, which actually delivered record results in the month of March. While our natural gas activity was down from last year's record performance, which benefited from extreme weather conditions in last year's first quarter, performance was still solid, and our power business delivered strong year-over-year growth as well.
Looking ahead to the second quarter, land gross profit should experience a sequential seasonal decline, but should be up materially year over year, driven largely by the impact of Flyers. On to expenses. Core operating expenses were $187 million in the first quarter, slightly higher than the top end of the range provided on last quarter's call. Looking ahead to the second quarter, we expect core operating expenses to be similar to Q1 in the range of $185 million-$190 million. The debt expense in the first quarter was only $2 million. That's down about 40% sequentially and year-over-year.
Our team continues to manage our accounts receivable extremely well at a time where volume growth and higher fuel prices have increased the size of our overall receivables portfolio to $3.5 billion. Adjusted EBITDA in the first quarter was $75 million. That's up 36% sequentially and 23% compared to last year's first quarter. Our interest expense was $14.3 million in the first quarter. As we mentioned on last quarter's call, interest expense increased principally due to higher borrowings related to the recent Flyers acquisition, increased working capital, and rising interest rates. With rates forecasted to rise further this quarter, we expect second quarter interest expense to be in the range of $15.5 million-$16.5 million.
On another positive note, our adjusted effective tax rate continues to decline with the first quarter rate at 19.6%, with the rate for this year's second quarter expected to be even lower. For the full year, we currently expect our effective tax rate to be in the range of 19%-22%, which is down significantly from 2021. During the first quarter, operating cash flow was negative $72 million, which principally relates to a 50% increase in average fuel prices from December to March, driving a 50% or $1.15 billion increase in accounts receivable in the first quarter. We mitigated the working capital impact of higher fuel prices during the first quarter by maintaining our net trade cycle at a near record low.
As announced a few weeks ago, on April 1, we amended our banking facilities, increasing the size of the facility to $2 billion and improving terms which further enhances our liquidity profile and extending the facility's maturity date to April 2027. This demonstrates the strength of our relationships with our global bank group and their confidence in our longer-term opportunities. All in all, our balance sheet remains strong, and we remain committed to disciplined capital allocation to support our ongoing business activities and strategic investments in our core business, all focused on driving long-term shareholder value. Finally, we repurchased 500,000 shares of our common stock during the first quarter, demonstrating our continued commitment to drive additional shareholder value through buybacks and dividends. In summary, despite near-term headwinds in our aviation business, we delivered a solid overall result in the first quarter.
Our land business is larger and stronger than ever following the recent Flyers Energy acquisition, and our marine business once again demonstrated its ability to contribute to results handsomely during periods of market and price volatility. Overall, our business is now significantly more ratable than our business of old, with a much refined portfolio of business activities, providing greater opportunities to drive operating efficiencies, EBITDA growth, and higher returns going forward. Now, I'd like to turn the call back over to Mike for his closing remarks.
Thank you, Ira. As I mentioned earlier, over the last several decades, we have designed a business model that we believe is built to be resilient through times of adversity. Since our operating model is not constrained by a single method of fulfillment, our physical operations is just one component of what we call 3PV, our third-party physical inventory and logistics and virtual modes of fulfillment. It is our global network of third-party supply and service partners, excuse me, together with our physical inventory and distribution capability, which is further supported by our evolving virtual or digital capability that manages cost and creates operational integration with our customers and partners and has become a bona fide technology and software business. The combination drives strong value creation that decommoditizes energy to provide real value add to the market.
As you know, we have reshaped our land portfolio, and Mike Crosby gets a lot of credit for that, and I will be forever grateful for his contributions. As a result of his work and many others, I believe the quality of our earnings and the diversity and complementarity of our portfolio will help us drive more durable, ratable and repeatable results. The rollout of our common operating model under John Rau, combined with the arrival of our long sought after liquid land platforms and World Kinect sustainability solutions, better positions us for operating leverage, taking market share and embracing transitions. As mentioned earlier, the resiliency of our business model allows us to pivot and respond to the inevitable gyrations of energy logistics and the endless amount of geopolitical and societal issues that impact local, national and global commerce.
Our evolution from a simple intermediary to a sophisticated underwriter of risk and omni-channel and an omni-channel participant speaks volumes about our potential. Our evolution continues to be a source of pride for our team. It's what motivates and animates us in our mission to support global commerce each and every day. I'm optimistic about the opportunities we have across all of our end markets, and I'm increasingly confident in our ability to execute our 3PV growth plan with a growing suite of highly desirable energy solutions. I'd like to now open the call to Q&A, operator.
Thank you. At this time, I would like to remind everyone, if you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. You will hear a three-tone prompt to acknowledge the request. If your question has been answered and you would like to withdraw your registration, please press the pound sign. If you are using a speakerphone, please leave your handset before entering your request. As a reminder, we would appreciate it if the participants will limit themselves to three questions with associated follow-ups. We'll pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from the line of Ken Hoexter from Bank of America. Please proceed with your questions.
Great. Good afternoon, Michael and Ira.
Ken.
Hey, good afternoon. Phenomenal results, if not for the inventory issue. Let's hit on the aviation for a quick second and, or I guess more on the inventory side. Ira, are there things you can do in the interim? I don't know, maybe not take possession of as much and move away from the own side and just do the reselling? Is that an opportunity to avoid some of these backwardation issues? Or is this something you have to do to get price certainty and understanding the market at any given time? Maybe just walk us through your thoughts on that.
Ken, I'm gonna intercept the pass to Ira, and he'll fill in with some details. You know, just a short history lesson. You know, we got involved, you know, in the physical part of the market, particularly in aviation, I think it was 2003. It took us a little while to develop expertise there, and we certainly have it today. I mean, very proud of what we do every day to keep aviation and a lot of other folks supplied. We're, I think, an extraordinarily responsible counterparty. You know, we have, you know, extended that model to many, many locations. If not for our inventory in some locations, there wouldn't be supply, or there wouldn't be reliable supply.
There is a cost of that, and because there is no, you know, perfect hedge within jet fuel, and we're a conservative company. You know, we're a risk management company, and we look to cover off our risks. There are not really perfect hedges for jet fuel. You know, in this, you know, crazy market, these were about as ineffective, as Ira suggested. We're revisiting some of, you know, our deployment, you know, of those physical locations, and we're also reviewing some other things that we can do in terms of pricing structures on buy and sell. You know, we can't turn on a dime. That is the nature of the business. It's a contractual business.
We make commitments and we, you know, we uphold those commitments, and we always have. You know, we've reviewed that as we do with all of our businesses. These are extraordinary times. We believe that we'll have some ability to moderate, but those will not really kick in until, you know, Q3. I don't know if you wanna add some more color to that, Ira.
No, I think Mike said it all. You know, clearly we're trying to optimize and carry no more inventory than we need to. Also, as Mike mentioned, as we get into the third quarter, we have some more, you know, flexibility in terms of pricing structure and trying to find ways to, you know, reduce this specific risk as much as we can. Once again, as Mike said, doesn't turn on a dime. You can't do it overnight, but something we're heavily focused on and managing through in the short term.
Ira, just to clarify, or Mike, this is completely different than a few years ago where you got caught in terms of hedging and pricing went the other way, where you could have made money, right? You got out of the hedges. This is just a factor of taking ownership of that to, like you said, Ira, Michael, to ensure you had inventory at specific locations.
Well, I think it's really a question of scale. It's a question of scale and extremity. Certainly, we've built out the business, and, you know, we're a significant global participant, and the business has grown. The severity of the movements, you know, is what, you know, in a short period of time has created the, you know, the impact. I don't know if there's other comments you wanna make, Ira, on that.
Yeah, no. I mean, this is different than what you're talking about, Ken. This is purely, you know, the inventory that we have to, you know, to support the core business. Just because of the structure of the market, it's just, you know, very difficult to avoid the losses right now. This, you know, again, there's lots of things we're focused on. We're trying to shorten the amount of transit times that we have, which creates more risk. In some cases, buying in location rather than buying in the Gulf Coast and then, you know, being locked in for several weeks as the fuel travels up the pipeline. This is a little different.
The market has never seen this level of backwardation before, meaning, you know, next month's price versus the spot price, that difference is just absolutely extraordinary. You know, again, we're working on focusing on how we could mitigate some of those impacts. As time goes on over the next couple of months, the chances increase significantly that we'll, you know, that we'll be able to do that.
Great. Just one other follow-up from me, and then I'll hand it over. You mentioned, Ira, in your remarks, the change in cycle terms. You know, I think I've only seen you rein it in maybe in a weaker economic time where you were concerned about bad debt and potential for bankruptcies and surrender it. Maybe walk through. I mean, obviously now you're extending more credit as pricing goes up and volumes are increasing. Maybe walk through your process there. Do you have to wait till contracts are renewed to change those cycle times? Or walk us through where it is now versus where it is historically.
Yeah. I think you're talking about the net trade cycle in that, am I-
Yeah.
In terms of healthcare markets?
Yes. Sorry. Yeah. Yep.
That's something we've worked on religiously for years. Of course, you know, the tighter you could manage that trade cycle, the better your longer term cash flow profile is going to be. There's a little bit of, you know, risk mitigation there as well. We've been bringing that down over time. Some of that's mix of business, some of that is just smarter business. You know, we're great trading partners, but maybe in some cases we're a bit too great and, you know, have too much flexibility historically in terms of things like extended terms beyond traditional trade terms. We've got much less of that.
You know, we had been pretty consistently, you know, running at about a 7-day trade cycle for several years, and we've just continued to work at that every quarter, and now it's just a little over four days. I don't think we could bring it down much lower than that, but we're looking to maintain, you know, that level between four and five days, which is, you know, compared to a lot of other business, a lot of other industries, a very, you know, respectful, respectable metric. Of course, it reduces the amount. Think about, you know, we're a run rate of $50 billion of revenue, and we only have about $700 million of net working capital.
That's, you know, a pretty good comparative. We just, you know, work at it every day, and we work the receivables, we work the payables, work the inventory days and, you know, solve for the, you know, the lowest net number possible.
Great. Thanks, Mike. Thanks, Ira. Great job on the marine and certainly the land side and on Flyers. Thanks for the time. Over to Ben.
Thanks, Ken.
Thanks, Ken.
Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Ben Nolan from Stifel. Please proceed with your question.
Thanks, Ken. I've got a couple here. First is, I forgot one of you, Ira or Mike, one of you talked about. I think it was you, Ira, talked about the impact on the business in a rising interest rate environment, and how that has historically been positive. Obviously, we are in a seemingly very quickly rising interest rate environment. Can you just help me walk through maybe each of the segments or just in general how that does impact the business and the margins and volumes and everything else. How big of a determinant is it in how the business does?
Yeah. The greatest impact then is in marine, 'cause as we've mentioned on many occasions, marine is a spot business, meaning we're pricing transactions every day as opposed to aviation where we're heavily locking into contracts for a year at a time, and even in parts of land, we're locking many contracts for multiple years at a time. I would say the interest rate is secondary but important. I say that 'cause I mean the principal driver this quarter in particular is just the substantial increase in flat price or the price of the metric ton of bunker fuel, rising to more than $800. That's one.
If you combine that with rising interest rates, you've got a world, you know, many of the folks that we may, you know, come up against in the market don't have the size balance sheet that we do, right? They need more capital, and capital is becoming more expensive. It just naturally makes them a little less competitive or in some cases, a lot less. It gives us a greater chance to win on the back of our global scale and strong balance sheet. That has historically, as it did this quarter, provided, you know, greater opportunities for us in the market and has led to, you know, much stronger results, you know. This isn't the first time we've seen that. Less of an impact in the other businesses.
The interest factor, of course, the competitive issue could impact everyone that's participating in a commodity in a sharply rising price environment. In the short term, we see the greatest impact in marine just because we're reacting and bidding on business on a day-to-day basis, you know, without you know, long-term commitment, so to speak. That's why in this environment you've seen the greatest positive impact in marine. There are parts of land as well as an example, where we also saw improvement in results. We saw that at Flyers in our first quarter, that they outperformed our expectations, driven in part by that phenomena. Even our land UK business, in my prepared remarks, I mentioned that March was a record.
They also improved their results, you know, indirectly tied to this issue as well. Hopefully, that answers your question, you know, across the business.
Yeah, no, that's helpful. I appreciate it. Speaking of Flyers, the land numbers are pretty good, really good. You'd call that Flyers as sort of outperforming. I know there's a degree of seasonality there. You know, a quarter into the deal now, does it feel like what you sort of had originally outlined in terms of your expectations for accretion and the impact on the company? Does it feel like, given one solid quarter in, those might have been a little conservative yet?
Yes. They were a little conservative by design, because when you're doing something new, you don't wanna get ahead of your skis until you hit the slopes, so to speak. You know, we had a good first run in the first quarter, and you're commenting on seasonality. First quarter is a seasonally weakest quarter for that business historically. You know, we saw outperformance there to the extent that maybe there won't be seasonality because it's not definite that they're gonna repeat that in the second quarter. Overall, I would say yes, based on where we are today, you know, things could change.
They're certainly performing at a level above you know our initial expectations, which is just fantastic. A great team of people. They've been you know working around the clock to you know kinda integrate themselves into the World Fuel platform. You know we've learned a lot about what they do well, and they're even though we're the bigger company, we're learning from them every day in some areas. Some areas, they're learning from us. We've certainly gotten off to a good solid start and you know we hope that continues for the balance of the year.
All right. Well, if I'm limited to three, maybe I'll have one little tiny poll. Why heating oil.
Heating oil.
Okay, thanks. Heating oil was, you know, again, one of the things on the land side that you called out as having a good impact. Natural gas prices, especially in Europe with LNG and everything else, are just crazy, and I think there's a lot of people looking for alternatives to meet their thermal energy demand. Are we in an environment here, do you think, where maybe there's an opportunity to continue to see a little extra benefit, and for whether it's heating oil or fuel oil or whatever, just people, you know, looking for a higher-margin alternative to a really expensive natural gas price?
No, I don't think that is necessarily the case. You know, we did, as you point out, very well in the heating oil season in the UK, combination of weather and just volatility in the marketplace. That season is about to end, right? You know, I think I would say we still did really well in April, but once you get into May and June, you know, that level of activity wanes. Whether what you're describing may have a positive impact as we approach the fall, you know, good question. You know, I'd be guessing if I said that would be the case.
You know, despite the craziness going on in many parts of Europe, our guys, you know, hunkered down and really delivered, you know, very, very solid results. You know, Claire and Chris and, you know, the rest of the team in the UK, if you're listening, they really nailed it, and we're looking forward to nailing it again next, you know, next winter season in that part of our business.
Great. Well, they're probably a few pints in the UK at this point.
Ben, just a little clarity. Were you talking about sort of switching between heating oil and natural gas? I'm not sure that I quite got it well.
Yes. Yeah. That's right. Just because natural gas is so high, you know, maybe there's a little bit more persistent demand for heating oil, is kind of the.
Yeah. You know, I'm gonna have to say I don't know the answer to that question, but I'll research that.
The last, and this is just a little really just kind of a modeling type question, maybe, Ira. There was, I think, a little over a $5 million other income item that, you know, had an impact on net income. Any color as to where that came from?
Yeah, of course. I knew you were gonna ask that question, so, you know, I got my answer. You know, well, one area we've done a much better job at the last several years is managing foreign exchange risk. We actually have a couple of new folks that we brought on board that focus on that day in and day out to make sure, you know, we don't have any, you know, unnecessary losses. In this particular quarter, we actually, with all the volatility, we couldn't avoid generating some gains. We had $2 million of foreign exchange gains in regions that are very difficult to hedge and markets moved in the right direction.
We also had, I would say, more than our average income from, you know, minority investments. We have a couple of those. One of them relates to the ExxonMobil deal in aviation that we did several years ago. As those markets in Europe have come back, we generated some more profitability there. There were a couple other miscellaneous buckets, but most of it was the equity earnings and a couple million dollars of foreign exchange gains. That, you know, offset a bit of the growing amount of interest expense, which was good, which was great.
Right. Okay. Well, I appreciate that color, and thanks for letting me have an extra half question there.
Yeah. Ken, if you're still listening, we owe you a half on this call. Thanks, Ken. Yep.
Mr. Kasbar, there are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back to you for closing remarks.
Well, thank you. I really wanna say thank you to our incredible dedicated, talented, passionate team that really makes our company what it is every day of the week for our customers, our partners, our shareholders, communities. Thank you very much, and look forward to talking to you next quarter. Thanks very much for all your support.
Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude the conference call for today. We thank you for your participation and ask that you please disconnect your lines.