Kirby Corporation (NYSE:KEX) Q2 2023 Earnings Conference Call July 27, 2023 8:30 AM ET

Company Participants

Kurt Niemietz – Vice President and Treasurer

David Grzebinski – President and Chief Executive Officer

Raj Kumar – Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Jack Atkins – Stephens Inc.

Ben Nolan – Stifel

Greg Wasikowski – Webber Research

Operator

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Kirby Corporation 2023 Second Quarter Earnings Conference Call. At this time all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speakers' presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded.

I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Kurt Niemietz, Vice President and Treasurer. Please go ahead.

Kurt Niemietz

Good morning and thank you for joining us. With me today are David Grzebinski, Kirby's President and Chief Executive Officer; and Raj Kumar, Kirby's Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. A slide presentation for today's conference call as well as the earnings release, which was issued earlier today, can be found on our website. During this conference call, we may refer to certain non-GAAP or adjusted financial measures. Reconciliations of the non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures are included in our earnings press release and are also available on our website in the Investor Relations section under Financials.

As a reminder, statements contained in this conference call with respect to the future are forward-looking statements. These statements reflect management's reasonable judgment with respect to future events. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, and our actual results could differ materially from those anticipated as a result of various factors. A list of these risk factors can be found in Kirby's Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2022 and in our other filings made with the SEC from time to time.

I will now turn the call over to David.

David Grzebinski

Thank you, Kurt, and good morning, everyone. Earlier today, we announced second quarter revenue of $777 million and earnings per share of $0.95. Both of our segments continued to perform well during the quarter and produced higher revenue and operating income sequentially and year-over-year. In Marine Transportation pricing on spot and term contracts continued to benefit from strong demand and limited availability of barges. Favorable weather conditions and increased operating efficiency helped improve margins for both inland and coastal. Distribution and Services delivered improved margins and business remains stable at high levels. Overall, we had solid results, and we generated $113 million of free cash flow, which helped support an increase in our share repurchases to $34 million in the quarter. In Inland Marine Transportation, our second quarter results reflected continued improvement in pricing, together with better weather conditions and operating efficiency.