GATX Corporation (GMT)’s Fourth Quarter 2014 Earnings Conference Call Transcript

But, once again GATX’s exposure is with high quality customers and for very long-term. Beyond those two cars types you could see second and third order negative effects, you know certain high pressure cars or certain asset, car type but none of these other car types experienced a boom that small cubes and 30,000 gallon tank cars did over the last decade and they are also tied the movement other real movements in other industries as well.
Also, you could see a number of positive effects from low crude and energy prices on a variety of car types in our fleet, and examples would be car types serving the construction industry, the fertilizer industry both tank and freight cars serving the plastics industry both tank and freight, certain cars serving the steel industry, the order industry, I mean I could go on but beyond the obvious effect of crude drilling and production in the cars who serve those markets. The fact that is that the U.S. economy and the European economy for that matter are largely consumption based and we believe that net effect of sustained lower oil prices should be a net positive for those economy, that economic activity generally benefits rail transportation and a leased fleet such as ours which is in great shape and well positioned from a diversification and term perspective.

And outside rail, low crude prices could also affect our other businesses. So inland and blue water marine vessels could see their fuel cost decrease, airlines will obviously benefit for the same reason that could be positive for the portfolio and our Rolls-Royce joint-venture. Once again all this is going to play out over the coming months as customers assess the facts on their business, obviously we will monitor it and keep everybody informed.
So, I hope that help you think about it. Now let’s go ahead and open it up to questions.

Operator

The question and answer session will be conducted electronically. If anybody wants to ask a question press * on your phone followed by the digit 1, if you are using the speaker phone make sure your mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. Once again *1 to ask a question and first question we will hear from Mike Baudendistel with Stifel.

Mike Baudendistel – Stifel
I just wanted to notice that you didn’t provide an outlook for the lease price index in 2015. And just wondering if you think it is likely that is going to be at a lower rate of change than it was in 2014 just due to more difficult comps associated with expiring leases.