MATX

A reminder, today's program is being recorded. Now I'd like to introduce your host for today's program, Justin Schoenberg, Director of Investor Relations and Corporate Development. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you. Joining me on the call today are Matt Cox, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and Joel Wine, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Slides from this presentation are available for download at our website www.matson.com under the Investors tab. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that during the course of this call, we will make forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws regarding expectations, predictions, projections, or future events. We believe that our expectations and assumptions are reasonable. We caution you to consider the risk factors that could cause actual results to defer materially from those in the forward-looking statements in the press release, the presentation slides, and this conference call.

These risk factors are described in our press release and presentation and are more fully detailed under the caption Risk Factors on pages 12 to 23 of Form 10-K, filed on February 27, 2026, and in our subsequent filings with the SEC. Please also note that the date of this conference call is May 4, 2026, and any forward-looking statements that we make today are based on assumptions as of this date. We undertake no obligation to update these forward-looking statements. I will now turn the call over to Matt.

Thanks, Justin, and thanks to those on the call. Starting on slide three. In the first quarter 2026, ocean transportation operating income exceeded our expectations, primarily due to higher freight demand post-Lunar New Year in our China service. In our domestic trade lanes, we saw lower year-over-year volume in Hawaii and Alaska. In Logistics, operating income was lower year-over-year, primarily due to a lower contribution from supply chain management. To date, the Iran conflict has not impacted our operating performance or service levels. However, it has impacted fuel prices in all our markets. While we have effective mechanisms to recover the cost of fuel by the end of the year, for the second quarter, we expect a negative impact from the lag in the recovery of fuel costs. I'll go into more detail later in the presentation on the effects of fuel prices and our recovery mechanisms.

Lastly, we are raising our full year outlook for consolidated operating income and now expect to modestly exceed the level achieved in 2025. The primary driver behind raising outlook for consolidated operating income is the strengthening of freight demand in our China service post-Lunar New Year that we expect now to continue through peak season. Joel will go into more detail on the outlook later in the presentation. I will now go through the first quarter performance in our trade lanes, SSAT, and logistics. Please turn to the next slide. In our Hawaiʻi service, container volume for the first quarter decreased 5.6% year-over-year, primarily due to lower general demand and the drydocking of a competitor's vessel in the year-ago period.

For the full year 2026, we expect volume to be comparable to the level achieved in 2025, reflecting similar economic conditions in Hawaii and stable market share. Please turn to slide 5. According to UHERO's February economic report, Hawaii's economy is expected to experience modest growth supported by construction activity while tourism remains soft and inflationary pressures persist. Construction continues to be a bright spot for the labor market and with a high level of public and private building activity, including the rebuilding of Maui. Regarding tourism, the outlook for international visitors remains weak, offsetting modest growth in domestic tourist arrivals. Lastly, inflation remains elevated and may continue to weigh on discretionary spending and overall demand. Moving on to our China service on slide 6. Matson's volume in the first quarter of 2026 was 9.5% lower year-over-year, primarily due to lower general demand.

As we noted on the fourth quarter earnings call, we expected volume in the first quarter to be lower than the prior year as we return to a more traditional Lunar New Year freight cycle. Please turn to slide 7 for additional commentary on current business trends. In the first quarter, we did not see a traditional bump in demand prior to Lunar New Year. Post-holiday, the freight demand exceeded our expectation and was driven by higher demand across several of our key market segments such as e-commerce, e-goods, and garments. We saw continued air-to-ocean freight conversions and further growth and penetration into Southeast Asia ports. E-commerce from South China continues to be a solid recurring contributor to volume demand. E-goods volume picked up in the post-holiday due to strong demand for data center servers and racks, which has continued into the second quarter.

With respect to air-to-ocean freight conversions, we benefited from elevated freight costs and reduced air cargo capacity in select markets. In the first quarter of 2026, we saw strong volume from our feeder network in North and South Vietnam and Thailand. Our Thailand feeder service, which commenced operations in late December 2025, has received positive feedback and has exceeded our expectations to date on volume. Overall, the uptick in freight demand we saw post-Lunar New Year has continued to build in the second quarter as demand strengthens and volumes return to a more traditional seasonal pattern. With increasing demand, we remain focused on maximizing the yield on every sailing out of Shanghai, and our freight rates remain at healthy levels.

As a result, we expect second quarter 2026 container volume to be higher compared to the prior year period, which included a market decline in Transpacific demand due to the tariffs imposed in April 2025. As a reminder, our container volume declined 30% last April before recovering in May and June. Encouragingly, conditions are more stable today. For the full year 2026, we expect container volume to be moderately higher than the level achieved in 2025, as we expect the demand strength in the second quarter to continue through peak season. Please turn to the next slide. In our Guam service, Matson's container volume in the first quarter of 2026 was flat year-over-year. In the near term, we expect Guam's economy to remain stable. As such, for the full year 2026, we expect container volume to be comparable to the level achieved last year.

Please turn to the next slide. In our Alaska service, Matson's container volume in the first quarter of 2026 decreased 2% year-over-year. The decrease was primarily due to lower general demand, partially offset by an additional northbound sailing and an additional AAX sailing compared to the year ago period. In the near term, we expect continued economic growth in Alaska, supported by a low unemployment rate, job growth, and continued oil and gas exploration and production activity. For full year 2026, we expect container volume to be comparable to the level achieved last year. Please, sir, turn to slide 10. In the first quarter, our SSAT terminal joint venture contributed $5 million, representing a year-over-year decrease of $1.6 million. The decrease was primarily due to lower lift volume.

For the full year 2026, we expect the contribution from SSAT to be lower than the $32.5 million achieved in full year 2025. Turning now to logistics on Slide 11. Operating income in the first quarter came in at $6.8 million or $1.7 million lower than the result in the year-ago period. The decrease was primarily due to lower contribution from supply chain management. For full year 2026, we expect operating income to approach the level achieved in full year 2025. Please turn to the next slide. Before I turn the call over to Joel for review of our financial performance, I'd like to share a few thoughts on the recent volatility in fuel prices attributed to the Iran conflict.

We expect fuel price volatility to impact our near-term earnings due to a timing lag between when we incur fuel costs and when we can fully recover these costs through our fuel surcharge. These mechanisms are very effective at recovering the cost of fuel over time. Historically, in our maritime business, we have been successful in recouping the cost of fuel within any calendar year, although fluctuations can occur between quarters. In the first quarter of this year, the impact was not material as we experienced escalating fuel prices only during the last few weeks of the quarter. For the second quarter, we expect to lag in the recovery of fuel costs, but we expect to fully recover our fuel costs by the end of the year, with most of that occurring in the third quarter.

These expectations regarding the impact of fuel costs and the recoverability of these costs have been factored into our outlook. With that, I will now turn the call over to my partner, Joel.

Okay. Thanks, Matt. Please turn to Slide 13 for a review of our financial results. For the first quarter, consolidated operating income decreased $20.7 million year-over-year to $61.4 million, with ocean transportation decreasing $19 million and logistics declining $1.7 million. The decrease in ocean transportation operating income in the first quarter was primarily due to a lower contribution from our China service. The decrease in logistics operating income was primarily due to a lower contribution from supply chain management. We had interest income of $6.1 million in the quarter, compared to $9.4 million in the same period last year. The effective tax rate in the quarter was 16.6%, compared to 21.6% in the year-ago period.

Our tax rate was lower year-over-year due to a discrete tax item that reduced taxable income. Given the lower income level in the quarter relative to the other quarterly periods in the year, discrete tax items can have a more pronounced impact on our effective tax rate in the quarter. In the first quarter 2026, net income and diluted earnings per share were $56.6 million and $1.85, respectively. Diluted weighted shares outstanding decreased 7.8% year-over-year. Please turn to the next slide. We continue to generate strong cash flows. For the trailing 12 months, we generated cash flow from operations of $552.1 million.

We returned capital in the form of dividends and share repurchases of $333.8 million, and we had maintenance CapEx of $156.9 million. Our cash flow from operations exceeded the aggregate spend on maintenance CapEx, dividends, and share repurchases by $61.4 million. Please turn to slide 15 for a summary of our share repurchase program and balance sheet. During the first quarter, we repurchased approximately 400,000 shares for a total of $54.4 million. Since we initiated our share repurchase program in August 2021 to the end of March of this year, we have repurchased approximately 14.2 million shares, or 32.7% of our stock, for a total cost of approximately $1.3 billion.

On April 23, 2026, we announced the addition of 3 million shares to our existing share repurchase authorization. As we have said before, share repurchases are an important component of our capital allocation strategy, and this increase allows us to continue to be steady buyers of our shares in the absence of any large organic or inorganic growth investment opportunities. Turning to our debt levels, our total debt at the end of the first quarter was $351.1 million, a reduction of $10.1 million from the end of the fourth quarter of 2025. With that, let me now turn to slide 16 and walk through our outlook for the second quarter of 2026 at the top of the page.

Based on the outlook trends Matt mentioned earlier, we expect ocean transportation operating income to be approximately $20 million higher than the $98.6 million achieved in the second quarter of 2025. We also expect logistics operating income to approach the $14.4 million achieved in the second quarter of 2025. As such, we expect consolidated operating income in the second quarter to be approximately $20 million higher than the prior year, which includes the negative impact we expect from the lag and the recovery of fuel costs that Matt mentioned earlier. On the bottom half of the slide, we have our expectations for full year 2026. Starting with ocean transportation, we now expect year-over-year operating income to modestly exceed the level achieved in the prior year.

The strengthening of freight demand in our China service post-Lunar New Year and our expectation that this demand strength continues through peak season is the primary driver behind our raise in outlook. For logistics, we expect operating income to approach the level achieved in the prior year. We now expect consolidated operating income to modestly exceed the level achieved in the prior year. Our full year outlook includes the expectation that we're able to recover fuel costs by the end of the year, with most of the recovery occurring in the third quarter. We also expect a more normal operating seasonality pattern with consolidated operating income in the second and third quarters being the strongest relative to the first and fourth quarters.

In addition to this full year operating income outlook, we expect the following for the full year: depreciation and amortization to approximate $210 million, inclusive of approximately $35 million for drydocking amortization, interest income to be approximately $16 million, and interest expense to be approximately $6 million, other income to be approximately $7 million, an effective tax rate of approximately 21%, and drydocking payments of approximately $45 million. Moving to slide 17, the table on this slide shows our CapEx projections for the full year 2026. Our range for maintenance and other capital expenditures is unchanged at $150 million-$170 million for full year 2026. Our estimate for expected new vessel construction milestone payments and related costs for full year 2026 is $400 million.

As of March 31st, we had cash and cash equivalents of approximately $100 million and had approximately $522 million in our Capital Construction Fund. Our CCF covers approximately 93% of our remaining milestone payment obligations, and when combined with our balance sheet, cash exceeds our remaining financial obligations. We continue to be in a great funding position on the new build program. Lastly, our targeted build schedule remains unchanged. In the first quarter, we made a milestone payment of approximately $16 million from the CCF. Looking ahead, we expect to make approximately $213 million in milestone payments in the second quarter. Then in the third and fourth quarters, we expect to make milestone payments of approximately $34 million and $110 million respectively. With that, let me turn the call back over to Matt for closing remarks.

Thanks, Joel. Please turn to slide 18, where I'll go through some closing thoughts. We continue to navigate a period of geopolitical tension and uncertainty. While we've experienced higher fuel prices, we're confident in our ability to fully recover our increased fuel costs. Our focus remains on what we can control, which is to put our customers first, maintain operational excellence, and uphold our high standard of service. We remain confident in the demand consistency of our businesses because of our focus on serving niche markets where we're an integral part of the supply chain. In our domestic trade lanes, we provide a vital lifeline to the communities we serve. In our China service, our value proposition is differentiated based on speed, reliability, and schedule integrity.

Building on these strengths, we've successfully moved with our customers into Southeast Asia markets to extend our geographic reach and diversify our origination ports. Our China service has also become an important means for our e-commerce customers to meet the increasing consumer demand in the U.S., and we continue to expect e-commerce to be a long-term driver of growth for our CLX and MAX services. Lastly, we remain disciplined in our return of capital to shareholders. In the absence of sizable growth projects or acquisitions, we expect to continue to return excess cash to shareholders. As Joel mentioned, and we recently announced, we added 3 million shares to our authorization to repurchase stock. With that, I will turn the call back to the operator and ask for your questions.

Certainly. Our first question for today comes from the line of Jacob Lacks from Wolfe Research. Your question please.

Hey, Matt. Hey, Joel. Thanks for your time.

Sure, Jake.

You mentioned that you expect demand strength to continue through peak season. You know, last year was a little bit unique with Matson Asia Express, with the Matson Asia Express service below 100% utilization during peak. Do you think you can get back towards more full ships this year as we move into 3Q?

I do, Jake. I think, we said at the beginning of the year, and we continue to see it, as it's unfolding in front of us, a more traditional cycle in the China trades, meaning, you know, a post-Lunar New Year slow build to the second and third quarter full or nearly full ships as we have, traditionally. Whether we a week, and we have vessels that are slightly different sizes, but we expect to be full or nearly full in the second and third quarter as we build into the traditional peak season. When we expect it to remain busy until, you know, the traditional first, second week of October pattern in the Lunar New Year.

Yeah, we're feeling like we're in a more normal environment and perhaps a bit slower post-Lunar New Year, but that's kind of the way we're seeing the world today. Overall, you know, we expect to end up above where we did last year, and now we're at a point where we're feeling like we're gonna exceed last year's marks.

Very helpful. When I look at sort of air freight versus ocean freight, air tends to be a lot more fuel intensive. Are you seeing more shippers look to convert freight to your service just the longer this high fuel price environment persists? You know, to the extent we start seeing some jet fuel shortages in Asia, could that accelerate volume growth from, you know, some of the non-China geographies?

Yeah, I think you're right. I think what we have heard from our customers is, although we have been mentioning this air freight conversion for the last couple of years, given this expedited space that we created, there's been sort of a long term. There are periods in markets where that growth trend would go up or go down, and we think we're entering a period where we're going to see more air freight conversions, some of which will be temporary and some of which will continue to convert. I also think that the longer that energy prices, I'm sorry, energy prices and availability are issues, I think the air freight markets have been significantly dislocated, and especially in places where, you know, they primarily import their jet fuel.

While we haven't seen significant impacts yet, we are seeing both from a price standpoint and a potential availability, we're seeing is we're seeing a lot of passenger airlines cancel flights or cancel marginally profitable flights. That's happening all over the world, including in the U.S., although that's not our core market. Just a reminder that 50% of the air freight flies in the bellies of passenger planes. We think we see it as not a tailwind, and rather than a, you know, a huge catalyst, our ships are likely to be in a more traditional peak cycle, nearly full. I think it'll be helpful in the tailwind.

Interesting. Thanks. Maybe last one for me. Can you give us a sense how much the fuel lag headwind you're expecting in the second quarter is? I know it's volatile, but, you know, any quantitative, like just a number around that would be helpful.

Oh, go ahead. Did you have a second part of that question?

Yeah. Just as you get into 3Q, like could you even over recover just given the investments you've made in scrubbers and LNG? Or is this really a true pass through?

Okay. Let me get to your first question first. I think the way we're thinking about it in terms of providing more visibility to our second quarter under collection, we're not exactly sure, you know, where we're going to end up. As you say, there's a significant amount of volatility. I think it's not central to our story. As we think about it, we remain highly confident in our ability to recover fuel for the year. The first quarter because that it happened late in the quarter and we consume fuel over longer voyages, so there was very little impact. We're thinking that, you know, the impact will primarily be felt in the second quarter. We're also highly confident that we're going to be able to recover that in the second half of the year.

It, there's not a margin erosion story. It, I think we've given you our second quarter guide, so that's inclusive of the amounts we're including, but would rather stay away from point specific items. As to your second question on fuel, I'll turn that over to Joel.

Yeah. If it's fuel related items that we'll put in the recovery basket, Jake. For instance, if for a scrubber, which we haven't done recently, but we did many, many years ago, that's a fuel related item that allows us to really purchase fuel at lower cost. It's part of the overall equation. If something like that is very specific to our fuels, it's related to fuel, then yes, that goes into our overall recovery basket.

Got it. Thanks for your time. Appreciate it.

Okay, thank you.

Thanks, Jake.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Joe Enderle from Stephens Inc. Your question please.

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the question. You previously disclosed transshipment mix around 20% of CLX and MAX. Was there any change in that figure in 1Q? Any regions in particular made you more optimistic on near-term growth?

Yeah, I think we, that 20% we previously cited, we're in the 20%-25% range. I think we expect to continue to be in that range, as we'll grow both our China origins and our Southeast Asia origins, both as we look towards filling our ships as we get into the more traditional peak season. I think the question really is, we do expect our customers to continue to move some of their manufacturing base out of China, although we continue to believe that China will remain an important element of our story and remain an important part of the world productive capability for manufacturing products.

I would say, could we go up from the 20% to 25%? Sure, I think it's possible. Importantly, it allows us to move with our customers as they look at relocating their plants. We're a trusted supply chain partner, and they have confidence in us, and so we'll continue to move as our customers move at that pace.

Got it. That's helpful. Just as a follow-up, I guess kind of a broader question on the China service. It was a really volatile year last year, a lot of changes in trade. How would you just describe overall hesitancy on China trade as we move through the year among customers?

Yeah, I mean, I think for our customers, there are, you know, obviously there remains events around tariffs. Do those settle down? They're gonna be looking at producing their products at a place from an all-in standpoint, including tariffs and transportation charges and all of the things to help them meet their needs for their retailing needs. I think there's a lot of factors that go into it. You know, our view and is embedded in our commentary is that we think, while there will be moments where tariff issues pop up, I think in our world, we think that tariff uncertainties are largely behind us. You know, Xi Jinping and Donald Trump will be meeting in a few weeks.

We're optimistic that we're past the period like we had last fall, where there was significant uncertainty. That's based into or baked into our thinking about how the rest of the year is gonna unfold in that regard.

Got it. That's helpful. Thank you. Just 1 more on the competitive backdrop. We touched on expedited air, within expedited ocean, how do you shape up the competitive backdrop there? Have you seen any increase in blank sailings? Has there been any capacity losses as competitors had less confidence on the trade backdrop with China?

Yeah. Let me make a general comment about the ocean trades, generally, the more generic, and then I'll pivot to your question about what we describe as a second-tier expedited carriers. That is that group that are below us or between the general freight markets and in our industry-leading market. On the general, on the general generic ocean side, I think we're seeing relatively good utilization of the ocean carriers. There are small roll pools. The ocean carriers themselves are trying to get ocean freight up. Many of them have very significant increases in their fuel consumption and cost and other cost increases, and they're seeking to raise rates in part to recover those costs.

I would call the broader generic ocean market as orderly. I would say the second tier expedited carriers, we haven't seen any dramatic changes in any of the carriers' capabilities. We haven't seen any significant cancellations of sailings. We see that the market for that secondary carrier, there's 3 or 4 of them that vie for that space, to be relatively similar. Again, not that you asked, but our belief was and continues to be that if we remain the fastest and second fastest CLX and MAX service, we're gonna get the lion's share of this expedited market, and that continues to be true now. Thanks.

Thanks so much, guys. That's all for me.

Okay. Appreciate the questions.

Thank you, Joe.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Tomohiko Sano from JP Morgan. Your question please.

Hello, everyone.

Hi, Tomohiko.

Hi, Tomohiko.

Thank you. Your Q2 ocean transportation operating income guidance is $20 million of up last year. Which services or customer segments are driving this growth? What are the key risks to achieving it, please?

Okay. Thanks, Tomo. The primary driver to that increase is really the continued strength in our China trade post-Lunar New Year that we talked about. Our domestic businesses, we expect to hang in there on a relatively similar basis on a year-over-year basis, the primary uptick is really the China trade and the demand drivers in some of our core segments that Matt talked about earlier. E-commerce, e-goods, garments, those sectors really returning to a more normal traditional demand in Q2 compared to last year's Q2, which had a lot of tariff impacts on it. The risk, and that speaks to the risk, the risks are that there's a dislocation or there's a tariffs reenacted or other kind of shocks to the system.

Absent a shock to the system that would impact consumer demand or tariffs, and direct trade relationships, we expect it to be a relatively orderly, demand-driven second quarter, and that's why we expect to be up year-over-year.

Thank you. If you could, share some more color on Hawaii and Alaska demand and economic conditions, especially, regarding tourism and constructions, energies, and again, like what risks do you see for 2026?

Okay. Tomo, I'll start with Hawaii. Hawaii, the bright spot is construction. There has been more construction activity. It's been fairly consistent for a year and a half. We see that driving some demand in 2026. It hasn't been enough to really buoy the economy in a really meaningful positive way because the other side, the tourism side, has been still very sluggish. U.S. West Coast tourism and U.S. tourism to Hawaii has been okay, although dollar spend has been not really dramatically growing.

Where you've really continued to see sluggishness on the tourism side is international tourism, which is still quite a bit off where it was 3, 4, 5 years ago, and that's been the biggest overhang on the lack of creating lack of growth and GDP growth in the Hawaiian economy. It's a mixed bag in Hawaii, but overall, we still continue to say it's a sluggish environment. Alaska, moving to that market, there continues to be a significant amount of oil and gas and infrastructure investing around energy. That's been a very, very positive for Alaska. Our volumes have hung in there well. We sometimes have year-over-year differentiation based upon competitors drydocking and timing of voyages and things like that.

Overall, the Alaska market continues to be steady and hanging in there with upward trajectories or expectation because of investment in oil and gas and activity happening because of that more disposable income for the residents of Alaska because of that. Those are the general high-level puts and takes in those two key markets. The third market for us, Guam, you didn't ask about that directly, but it's a really important domestic market for us, and that's continued to be steady as well. Tourism is hanging in okay, but not, again, not on the international side. We still continue to see a lot of government spending in Guam and the Western Pacific region that's helping the volumes in that region.

Thank you.

Go ahead.

Yeah. Thank you. Yep. Then lastly, if you could talk about logistics segment operating income decline in Q1, what specific actions are you taking to drive recovery in Q2 and beyond? What is your outlook for the rest of the year?

Yes. The outlook for the rest of the year is that we'll be approaching in last year's results. The actions we've been taking is really focusing on two different pieces. Our Alaska Span Alaska piece is about a little bit over half the logistics side. There, we're continuing just to focus on disciplined pricing and delivery for our customers and providing the best transit times and customer service in that market. Then a similar strategy on the brokerage business side, which has been the other piece where margins have been more compressed and under pressure, both on highway truckload, but also intermodal.

There, we're continuing to really focus on stickier customer relationships, small and medium customers, and having pricing discipline and good execution to deliver for those customers in what's still been generally a soft freight environment. That's on the demand side. Also on the buy side for truck, for the actual procurement of truck pricing, continue to work with our trucking partners and buying the truckload capacity at the right kind of price in the market as well to maintain our pricing and margin discipline. Those are the actions that our team's focused on in this environment, and we expect to be able to, you know, achieve the results we talked about the rest of the year by approaching this year, approaching last year's results as well.

Thank you very much.

Okay. Thank you, Tomo.

Thank you. This does conclude the question and answer session of today's program. I'd like to hand the program back to Matt for any further remarks.

Okay. Thanks for listening in today. We'll look forward to catching up with everyone on our second quarter call. Thanks very much. Aloha.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect. Good day.