Earnings call transcript: CoreCivic Q3 2025 sees stock drop despite revenue beat

CoreCivic Inc. (CXW) reported its third-quarter earnings for 2025, revealing a mixed financial performance with earnings per share (EPS) missing expectations but revenue surpassing forecasts. The company’s EPS came in at $0.24, falling short of the anticipated $0.28, marking a surprise of -14.29%. However, revenue reached $580.4 million, exceeding the forecast of $544.4 million by 6.61%. Despite the revenue beat, CoreCivic’s stock dropped 9.79% in aftermarket trading, closing at $17.65, reflecting investor concerns over the earnings miss.

Key Takeaways

• CoreCivic’s Q3 revenue exceeded expectations by 6.61%.
• EPS fell short of forecasts, with a surprise of -14.29%.
• Stock declined 9.79% in aftermarket trading.
• Reactivation of four facilities expected to boost future revenue.
• ICE revenue increased significantly, while U.S. Marshals Service revenue declined.

Company Performance

CoreCivic demonstrated a robust revenue performance in Q3 2025, driven by a 28% increase in revenue from federal partners, notably a 54.6% rise in revenue from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). However, the U.S. Marshals Service saw a 5% revenue decrease. The company’s total occupancy improved to 76.7%, up 1.5 percentage points from the previous year, with an average daily population of 55,236 compared to 50,757 last year. Despite these positives, the operating margin declined to 22.7% from 24.9% due to startup costs for new facilities.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: $580.4 million, up from forecasted $544.4 million
• Earnings per share: $0.24, down from forecasted $0.28
• Adjusted EBITDA: $88.8 million, 6.6% increase year-over-year
• Normalized FFO per share: $0.48, 11.6% increase year-over-year

Earnings vs. Forecast

CoreCivic’s Q3 2025 EPS of $0.24 fell short of the $0.28 forecast, resulting in a negative surprise of 14.29%. This miss contrasts with the company’s revenue performance, which exceeded expectations by 6.61%, reaching $580.4 million against a forecast of $544.4 million.

Market Reaction

Following the earnings release, CoreCivic’s stock fell by 9.79% to $17.65 in aftermarket trading. This decline reflects investor concerns over the EPS miss, despite a positive revenue performance. The stock’s movement positions it closer to its 52-week low of $16.02, indicating a cautious market sentiment.

Outlook & Guidance

CoreCivic maintains its 2025 adjusted EPS guidance of $1.00-$1.06 and projects a normalized FFO per share of $1.94-$2.00. The company expects adjusted EBITDA to range between $355 million and $359 million, with a projected run-rate EBITDA of $450 million by mid-2026. Future revenue from recently reactivated facilities is anticipated to reach $320 million annually.

Executive Commentary

David Garfinkle, CFO, highlighted the expected EBITDA growth, stating, "Upon reaching stabilized occupancy at these four facilities, we currently expect our run rate EBITDA to be no less than $450 million." CEO Damon Hininger emphasized expansion opportunities, noting, "We believe there are numerous opportunities to activate additional idle facilities we own."

Risks and Challenges

• Potential government shutdowns impacting cash collection.
• Startup costs for new facilities affecting margins.
• Dependence on federal contracts and potential policy changes.
• Competitive pressures in the corrections and detention facility market.
• Fluctuations in ICE and U.S. Marshals Service populations.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts probed the impact of a potential government shutdown on cash flow and the company’s interest in share repurchases. Management confirmed ongoing discussions with ICE and state partners to expand capacity, reflecting strategic efforts to mitigate risks and capitalize on growth opportunities.

Full transcript - CoreCivic Inc (CXW) Q3 2025:

Operator: Good day, and welcome to CoreCivic’s third quarter 2025 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are on a listen-only mode. After the speaker’s presentation, there’ll be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question, please press star 11. If your question has been answered and you’d like to remove yourself from the queue, press star 11 again. As a reminder, this call may be recorded. I would like to turn the call over to Jeb Bachmann, Managing Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Jeb Bachmann, Managing Director of Investor Relations, CoreCivic: Thank you, Operator. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to CoreCivic’s third quarter 2025 earnings call. Participating on today’s call are Damon Hininger, CoreCivic’s Chief Executive Officer; Patrick Swindle, CoreCivic’s President and Chief Operating Officer; and David Garfinkle, our Chief Financial Officer. We are also joined here in the room by our Vice President of Finance, Brian Hammonds. On this call, we will discuss financial results for the third quarter of 2025, as well as updated financial guidance for the 2025 year. We will also discuss developments with our government partners and provide you with other general business updates. During today’s call, our remarks, including our answers to your questions, will include forward-looking statements pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities and Litigation Reform Act.

Our actual results or trends may differ materially as a result of a variety of factors, including those identified in our third quarter 2025 earnings release issued after market yesterday, as well as in our Securities and Exchange Commission filings, including Forms 10-K, 10-Q, and also 8-K reports. You are cautioned that any forward-looking statements reflect management’s current views only and that the company undertakes no obligation to revise or update such statements in the future. Management will discuss certain non-GAAP metrics. A reconciliation of the most comparable GAAP measurement is provided in the corresponding earnings release and included in the company’s quarterly supplemental financial data report posted on the investors’ page of the company’s website at CoreCivic.com. With that, it is my pleasure to turn the call over to our CEO, Damon Hininger.

Damon Hininger, Chief Executive Officer, CoreCivic: Thank you, Jeb. Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us for CoreCivic’s third quarter 2025 earnings call. On this afternoon’s call, I will discuss our near-term and long-term outlook and recent contracting activity. Following my opening remarks, I will hand the call over to Patrick Swindle, our President and Chief Operating Officer. Patrick will review the performance of our core portfolio, discuss in further detail our operational activities relating to facility activations during the quarter, and how we are preparing for additional demand from our government partners. We will then turn the call over to our CFO, David Garfinkle, who will provide detail on our third quarter financial results, as well as our updated 2025 financial guidance, and provide an update on our capital allocation strategy. I will then conclude with some closing remarks before we open up the call for Q&A.

First up, an update on our activation activities, where we’ve made substantial progress on contracting several idle facilities. Since our last earnings call, we announced new awards at the 600-bed West Tennessee Detention Facility, the 2,560-bed California City Immigration Processing Center, the 1,033-bed Midwest Regional Reception Center, and the 2,160-bed Diamondback Correctional Facility. In aggregate, these four new contract awards are expected to generate annual revenue of approximately $320 million once we reach stabilized occupancy. Our updated full-year 2025 financial guidance reflects significant earnings growth from 2024. Although these recently announced new contract awards negatively impact our financial guidance for the fourth quarter for startup-related activities, which Dave will review in detail, these new awards set us up nicely for an even stronger 2026.

Once we reach stabilized occupancy for these new awards, which we expect to occur during the first half of 2026, we expect our annual run rate revenue to be approximately $2.5 billion and annual run rate EBITDA to increase by $100 million to over $450 million, and this is not counting any additional contract awards. While staffing ramp continues at each of these facilities with some already accepting detainees, the intake process at our Midwest facility has been delayed by a lawsuit filed by the City of Leavenworth, and although we are optimistic, we cannot predict if or when a favorable resolution will be achieved. Patrick will provide further details on the progress of these activations.

Moving to a discussion of the business climate, at the end of September 2025, nationwide ICE detention populations were at historical highs of around 60,000, an increase of a couple of thousand from the end of the second quarter. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, has been our largest customer for over a decade. From the end of 2024 through the third quarter, ICE populations in our facilities increased 3,700 to almost 14,000, or 37%. We believe that enforcement activity could gain additional momentum in the coming months as more agents are hired to meet ICE’s 100,000-bed detention target. Nationwide populations from the U.S. Marshals Service, our second-largest customer, have remained relatively flat, although we expect marshal populations to increase in 2026 due to an anticipated increase in enforcement activities and as more U.S. attorneys are put in place.

Our Marshals populations have declined slightly to just over 6,300 at the end of September. Many of our state partners continue to face complex correctional challenges, either because of staffing shortages, overcrowding, or outdated infrastructure. Our year-over-year state populations were up about 600 people, driven most notably from new contracts with the state of Montana and increased populations in Georgia. We are in conversations with numerous existing and potential state partners to accommodate their additional demand. As we continue to look for additional ways to meet our government partners’ needs, we believe that we can make available substantial capacity to meet future demand. Even after the earlier-mentioned activations, we own five idle corrections and detention facilities containing approximately 7,000 beds, along with surge capacity we have made available at certain facilities.

Partial capacity we have in facilities that are currently in operation, and capacity we can make available through third-party leases, like our great partnership with Target Hospitality I’ve previously mentioned, we have close to 24,000 beds that we have informed ICE could be available. We continue to believe that detention beds like these represent the best value and are the most humane, most efficient logistically, have the highest audit compliance scores in their system, are more secure, weatherproof, and are readily available. One final comment before I pass the call over to Patrick. As you all know, the company has an authorization for a share repurchase program for up to $500 million in the aggregate. During the nine months ended September 30, 2025, we purchased 5.9 million shares of common stock under the share repurchase program at an aggregate cost of $121 million, or $20.60 per share.

Since the share repurchase program was authorized in May of 2022 through September 30, 2025, we have purchased a total of 20.4 million shares of our common stock at an aggregate cost of $302 million, or $14.81 per share, excluding fees, commissions, and other costs related to the repurchases. As of September 30, 2025, we had approximately $198 million of repurchase authorization available under the share repurchase program. Looking at the current stock price and our historical EBITDA trading multiples, the market is assuming a $300 million EBITDA run rate for the company, which is clearly a misalignment with our recent operating performance and anticipated forecast for 2026. With that, we expect to be executing an aggressive buyback plan this quarter, likely to be more than double the amount we have done in previous quarters.

With that, I will pass the call over to Patrick Swindle for further review of our operations activities during the third quarter.

Jeb Bachmann, Managing Director of Investor Relations, CoreCivic: Thanks, Damon. I’ll start with a high-level overview of our top-line revenue and third-quarter operational performance. Federal partners, primarily Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the U.S. Marshals Service, comprised 55% of CoreCivic’s total revenue in the third quarter. Revenue from our federal partners increased 28% during the third quarter of 2025 compared with the prior year quarter. Further breaking down our federal revenue, revenue from ICE increased $76.2 million, or 54.6%, while revenue from the U.S. Marshals Service decreased by 5% versus the prior year quarter. Some of this decline is simply a shift mix where ICE and Marshals share a contract. As Damon mentioned, we expect increases in U.S. Marshals populations later in 2026. Revenue from our state partners increased 3.6% from the prior year quarter.

This increase includes additional revenue from the state of Montana resulting from the two new contracts we signed with the state since the second quarter of 2024 and population increases in Georgia. Total occupancy for safety and community segments for the quarter was 76.7%, up 1.5 percentage points since the year-ago quarter. As we noted on our last quarter earnings call, total occupancy reflects the transfer of our 2,560-bed California City Immigration Processing Center from our property segment, which is not included in these occupancy statistics, to our safety segment. Although this facility recently transitioned from a letter contract to a definitized contract, we had not yet begun receiving any detainees until late in the third quarter. Therefore, if we exclude this additional capacity from the calculation, making a more apples-to-apples comparison with prior periods, our reported occupancy would have been 79.3%.

The average daily population across all of the facilities we manage was 55,236 during the third quarter of 2025, compared with 50,757 in the year-ago quarter. This increase was driven by more demand for our services and new contracting activity. Our teams continue to be successful in working with our government partners and managing the additional people in our care, which we are focused on every day. Our third-quarter results exceeded our internal projections for adjusted EPS and normalized FFO per share by $0.03 and $0.04, respectively, and adjusted EBITDA by $4.8 million. As Damon alluded, the third quarter was a very busy quarter with reactivation activities at several previously idle facilities. We resumed operations in March at the 2,400-bed Dilley Immigration Processing Center under a new five-year agreement and reached full operational capacity in September.

Shortly after the second quarter earnings release, we announced the new IGSA contract for our 600-bed West Tennessee Detention Facility. This contract has a five-year term and is expected to generate $30 million of annual revenue once fully activated. Full ramp is expected to be completed by the end of the first quarter of 2026. Effective September 1, 2025, we transitioned from a letter contract with ICE to a definitized contract at our 2,560-bed California City Immigration Processing Center. The new contract is for a two-year period and is expected to generate annual revenue of approximately $130 million once fully activated. We began receiving detainees at the facility on August 27 and expect the activation to be completed in the first quarter of 2026. Effective September 7, 2025, we transitioned from a letter contract with ICE to a definitized contract at our 1,033-bed Midwest Regional Reception Center.

This new contract is for a two-year period and is expected to generate annual revenue of approximately $60 million once fully activated. However, the intake process continues to be delayed by the lawsuit with the City of Leavenworth that Damon mentioned earlier. Given the facility’s centralized location, ICE is eager to begin fully utilizing this facility, and we’re optimistic about successfully resolving the dispute. The recent entrance into the lawsuit by the Department of Justice could help expedite a favorable outcome. Effective September 30, 2025, we entered into a new IGSA between the Oklahoma Department of Corrections and ICE to resume operations at our 2,160-bed Diamondback Correctional Facility. This new contract has a five-year term and is expected to generate approximately $100 million in annual revenues once fully activated, which we currently forecast to occur in the second quarter of 2026.

In aggregate, these four recently announced contract awards are expected to generate annual revenue of $320 million. Despite visibility into annual run rate EBITDA, we do not believe the current stock valuation reflects the cash flows of our business, particularly considering these new contracts and our growth potential. Therefore, we plan to accelerate the pace of our share repurchases in future quarters, taking into consideration stock price and alternative opportunities to deploy capital, among other factors as Dave will discuss further. The substantial progress made during the quarter in reactivating previously idle facilities couldn’t have been accomplished without the hard work of our employees and the strong relationship with our government partners. However, we know there’s more work to be done. Activations are complex, and activating four idle facilities simultaneously is particularly complex.

I’m confident we have the right plan and the right teams in place to be successful both in these and future activations. In the meantime, we continue to remain focused on effectively managing our core portfolio and ensuring we meet our high operational standards as well as those of our government partners. Without this focus and performance, these additional opportunities may not exist. As I turn it over to Dave to discuss our third-quarter financial results in more detail, our capital allocation activities, and assumptions included in our updated 2025 financial guidance, I’d like to again express my appreciation to our 13,000 employees for their focus and commitment to our mission. Dave?

Damon Hininger, Chief Executive Officer, CoreCivic: Thank you, Patrick. And good afternoon, everyone. In the third quarter of 2025, we generated GAAP EPS of $0.24 per share and FFO per share of $0.48. Special items in the third quarter of 2025 included a $2.5 million gain on the sale of assets, a $1.5 million asset impairment, and $0.8 million of M&A charges, including our acquisition of the Farmville Detention Center on July 1, reported in G&A expenses. Excluding special items, adjusted EPS in the third quarter was $0.24, compared with $0.20 in the third quarter of 2024, an increase of 20%. Normalized FFO per share was $0.48, compared with $0.43 per share in the prior year quarter, an increase of 11.6%. Adjusted EBITDA was $88.8 million, compared with $83.3 million in the third quarter of 2024, an increase of 6.6%.

Adjusted EPS and normalized FFO per share exceeded our internal forecast by $0.03 and $0.04 per share, respectively, and adjusted EBITDA exceeded our internal forecast by $4.8 million. The increase in adjusted EBITDA from the prior year quarter of $5.5 million resulted from higher federal and state populations, as well as higher average per diem rates across much of our portfolio, partially offset by startup activities in the third quarter of 2025 and some one-time benefits in the prior year quarter. The number of ICE detainees in our care followed national trends, which remained at or near record highs throughout the third quarter of 2025. As Damon and Patrick both mentioned, the third quarter was a very busy quarter for idle facility activations.

We completed our reactivation of the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in September and are now generating revenue under a fixed monthly payment for the full 2,400-bed facility. During the third quarter, however, this facility accounted for a net decrease in facility net operating income of $3.4 million, or $0.02 per share, compared with the third quarter of 2024, as the facility was fully operational during the third quarter of 2024 until the contract with ICE was terminated, effective August 9, 2024. As we previously disclosed last year, we also accelerated recognition of deferred revenue of $5.7 million in the third quarter of 2024 due to the contract termination. Shortly after last quarter’s earnings release, we announced a new contract under an IGSA between the City of Mason, Tennessee, and ICE to activate our previously idled 600-bed West Tennessee Detention Facility, where we began receiving detainees on September 8.

In September, we announced that we transitioned from short-term letter contracts at our 1,033-bed Midwest Regional Reception Center and our 2,560-bed California Immigration Processing Center into newly signed longer-term contract structures. We began receiving detainees at the California City facility on August 27. While obviously good news, we did incur facility operating losses at these three facilities during the third quarter of $3.4 million, or $0.02 per share, for startup-related activities. Although not impacting the third quarter, on October 1, we announced a new contract award under an IGSA between the Oklahoma Department of Corrections and ICE to activate our 2,160-bed Diamondback Correctional Facility, which commenced September 30. Other factors affecting EBITDA and per share results included higher G&A expenses, the favorable impact of our share repurchase program, and the acquisition of the Farmville Detention Center on July 1, 2025.

Operating margin on our safety and community facilities combined was 22.7% in the third quarter of 2025, compared to 24.9% in the prior year quarter. Excluding the aforementioned operating losses at the three facilities in various stages of activation, operating margin was 24% for Q3 2025. Again, margin in the prior year quarter was favorably impacted by the accelerated recognition of deferred revenue at the Dilley facility and a rapid ramp-down of populations at the facility in July 2024, despite generating a fixed revenue payment for the full facility through the August 9 termination date. Turning next to the balance sheet, during the third quarter, we repurchased 1.9 million shares of our common stock at an aggregate cost of $40 million, increasing our year-to-date repurchases to 5.9 million shares at an aggregate cost of $121 million.

As of September 30, we had $197.9 million available under our $500 million board authorization. As mentioned last quarter, on July 1, 2025, we acquired the Farmville Detention Center, a 736-bed facility located in Virginia, for a total purchase price of approximately $71 million, including the acquisition of working capital accounts at an attractive return. After taking into consideration these share repurchases and this acquisition, our leverage, measured by net debt to adjusted EBITDA, was 2.5 times using the trailing 12 months ended September 30, 2025. At September 30, we had $56.6 million of cash on hand and an additional $191.4 million of borrowing capacity on a revolving credit facility, which had a balance of $65 million outstanding, providing us with total liquidity of $248 million.

Moving lastly to a discussion of our updated 2025 financial guidance, we expect to generate adjusted diluted EPS of $1-$1.06, compared with $1.07-$1.14 in our previous guidance, and normalized FFO per share of $1.94-$2, compared with $1.99-$2.07 in our previous guidance. We expect adjusted EBITDA of $355-$359 million, compared with $365-$371 million in our previous guidance. Our updated guidance reflects the favorable results for the third quarter, updated occupancy projections consistent with current trends, as well as updated assumptions for startup activities related to new contracts signed during the third quarter at our West Tennessee Detention Facility, our California Immigration Processing Center, our Midwest Regional Reception Center, and our Diamondback Correctional Facility. Our revised guidance reflects a reduction in EBITDA at these four facilities of $10-$11 million, compared with our prior guidance.

In other words, the reduction in our guidance is essentially attributable to the updated assumptions for the startup activities at these four facilities. These startup activities will also negatively impact Q4 margins. We are currently preparing our 2026 budget and expect to provide financial guidance for 2026 in conjunction with our fourth quarter earnings release in February. However, as Damon mentioned, upon reaching stabilized occupancy at these four facilities, we currently expect our run rate EBITDA to be no less than $450 million. We currently expect to reach stabilized occupancy of the last activation of these four facilities in the second quarter of 2026, so we will not reach a full-year run rate in 2026.

Also, keep in mind, activating facilities is a complex and challenging process with certain factors like the pace of intake and resolution of the legal dispute at our Midwest facility, to name a couple, not always within our control. We still have five remaining idle facilities containing 7,066 beds, and we believe incremental demand for more idle facilities will likely be needed once ICE absorbs the recently contracted beds. With historic funding levels for border security and immigration detention obtained under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, ICE’s publicly stated intention to reach 100,000 detention beds nationwide, as well as growing demand from existing and potential new state government partners, we believe there are numerous opportunities to activate additional idle facilities we own. We also believe there could be opportunities to manage additional bed capacity not currently in our portfolio.

These opportunities would be incremental to the aforementioned run rate EBITDA levels after considering any startup expenses. We plan to spend $60-$65 million on maintenance capital expenditures during 2025, unchanged from our prior guidance, and $14-$15 million for other capital expenditures, increased primarily for pre-planned investments at the newly acquired Farmville Detention Center. Our 2025 forecast also includes $97.5-$99.5 million of capital expenditures associated with potential facility activations and additional transportation vehicles, up from our prior guidance for requests from ICE in connection with the new contracts at the California City and Diamondback facilities. During the first three quarters of the year, we spent $51.6 million on potential idle facility activations and additional transportation vehicles.

Finally, with respect to our capital allocation strategy, we do not believe the price of our common stock reflects the value of the cash flows of our business, particularly considering recent contract wins, and therefore expect to accelerate the pace of our share repurchases in future quarters. Our Q4 guidance contemplates double the pace of the previous quarter. Our share repurchases will take into consideration our stock price, liquidity, earnings trajectory, and alternative opportunities to deploy capital. We expect adjusted funds from operations, or AFFO, which we consider a proxy for our cash flow available for capital allocation decisions such as share repurchases and growth CapEx such as facility activations, to range from $210 million-$219 million for 2025. We expect our normalized annual effective tax rate to be 25%-30%, unchanged from our prior guidance.

The full-year EBITDA guidance in our press release provides you with our estimate of total depreciation and interest expense. We are forecasting G&A expenses in 2025 to be approximately $167 million, excluding expenses associated with M&A transactions. Before we turn the call back to the operator for Q&A, I’d like to turn the call back to Damon for his closing remarks. Thank you, Dave. As you all know, in August, we announced that Patrick will succeed me as CEO effective on January 1, 2026. I’ve had the great honor and the privilege of holding the CEO title for over 16 years, and I am humbled by the opportunity to have served this great company since I started my career as a correctional officer in the summer of 1992. I still clearly remember working my first post, which seems like yesterday.

I never would have, in my wildest dreams, thought that I would be someday the CEO of this great company. It has truly been an amazing ride. As I close out my prepared remarks for my 65th and last quarterly earnings call, I want to express my gratitude to you, our investors, both new and long-term, for your confidence, support, and ideas. Also to our government partners, to my fellow board members, mentors, and colleagues, both current and retired, and all the other people with whom I have had the honor and privilege to work with, many of whom I call very dear friends. My sincere thanks to each and every one of you. I am tremendously excited and very proud of Patrick, and I know he will steer our company to new heights and tremendous success.

Beyond my transition agreement, I do not know yet what the next chapter in my life will bring. I do know it will be shaped by my experiences at CoreCivic, which has ingrained in me a call to continuous public service and improving people’s lives. Best of luck to each and every one of you. With that, I turn the call over to the operator for questions. Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star 11. If your question has been answered and you’d like to remove yourself from the queue, press star 11 again. Our first question comes from Joe Gomez with Noble Capital. Your line is open. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. Good afternoon, Joe. Before I start, let me just say, Damon, it’s been a pleasure working with you, and good luck on your future endeavors.

Patrick, I’m looking forward to seeing you fill Damon’s shoes going forward. Thank you, Joe. It means a lot. You’ve been a tremendous friend and always grateful for your advice and support and perspective. I’m going to miss you, my friend. Same. To the questions. Obviously, in the news is the government shutdown, ICE looking to hire 10,000 people. I think there’s some concern out there that the level and pace of ICE detentions has slowed significantly from where originally people were thinking they would be. I think at one point, 3,000 a day, they were talking about. I just wanted to kind of get your thoughts, Damon, on where the pace of ICE population detentions are for you guys.

Is it meeting your goals, or how far below has it been your expectations, and how you see that maybe playing out the rest of this year? Great question. I’ll probably tag team with Patrick a little bit on this. The shorter answer is that, as you know, we’re a 24/7 essential service for the government. On our side, on the contractor side, I mean, we’re seeing the pace, admissions, discharges, and activity in our facilities pretty much status quo, I mean, pretty much what we expected. In fact, I’d say it’s increased a little bit, not just on the detention side, but we’re also being asked to do a lot more transportation. We are expecting that with the demands and expectations and the priorities for this administration after the inauguration. I’d say even that’s picked up a little bit more than what we expected.

Not quite to your question, but I would say also on the contracting side. Again, we’ve had probably the fastest clip of four contracts in the period of time that I’ve ever seen in the company history with the four that we’ve announced here in the last 90 days. It’s all the activation activities around those four facilities. Obviously, a lot of that’s on our shoulders. I’d say on the government side, clearances, helping people getting situated that are obviously going to be monitors and other support staff that are going to help the mission of these facilities, I’d say none of that has slowed down at all. Patrick, add and amplify that, if you don’t mind. Sure. The only thing that I would add, Joe, is really two things.

One of them is the scale of increase in enforcement activity that has been implemented is really unprecedented. It is of a level that we really have not seen previously. The consequence of that is you’re going to see, I’ll call it, an uneven or non-linear growth path. I would not expect that you’re going to see steady increases progressively. What we do know is our Department of Homeland Security has been very committed to hiring additional officers to help them implement the mission. We’ve seen no indication that there has been any change in terms of policy or policy approach that would cause us to believe that what we’ve experienced more recently is anything other than the natural ebb and flow of ramping up to a scale that, again, we have not seen previously.

As a consequence of that, I think it’s really difficult to predict exact timing. To Damon’s point, we’ve signed four contracts. We’re executing those and ramping them very quickly. We’re going to be bringing those online. Certainly wouldn’t interpret pace as being an indication of any indicator of a lessening of long-term demand potential. Okay. Thanks for that. I don’t know if you can provide a little more color on when you talk about the guidance and updated occupancy projections, we talk about those are less than what you originally were projecting. Same with the assumptions for startup costs, assuming they might be higher than what you were originally projecting. I’m just trying to get a little more color on those comments and how they relate to the updated guidance. Yeah. Joe, I’ll take the second part of that question.

Our updated guidance really reflects the startup activities in Q4 relative to our last guidance. Last guidance, remember, we hadn’t signed the West Tennessee contract. We didn’t sign the Diamondback contract. Neither of those two contracts were in our guidance for the year or the fourth quarter. Incorporating those new contracts into our guidance does result in some operating losses at those facilities, as well as higher staff, continue to ramp up staff before we start receiving detainees. Now, we have started receiving detainees at the West Tennessee facility, but the Diamondback facility is really just beginning its ramp-up. That did take the guidance down in Q4, which I don’t take as bad news. I mean, I’d rather have the contracts with startup activities than leaving the guidance where it was without those contracts. What was the first part of your question, Joe?

We talked about some of the updated occupancy projections. Oh, yes. Yeah. Yeah. Occupancy, we expect that to increase because we are ramping up California City. Our West Tennessee facilities, as I mentioned, are both taking on detainees. I would say that the rest of the core portfolio is at or near capacity. I would not expect a large increase from existing facilities. As we ramp up additional idle capacity, the only opportunity is really to bring on new capacity and activate additional facilities with higher populations. David, maybe I can follow it up with the increased CapEx spend for ICE. What is ICE asking for that is going to increase the CapEx that you were not originally anticipating? Yeah. At Diamondback and Cal City, both asked for renovations to parts of the facility. That was really the increase in our CapEx guidance.

I think it was intake areas. They wanted to expand the intake areas because ICE is a transient population. Typically, you have a higher volume of activity compared with a state population, which is what we had previously at both of those facilities. Okay. One more for me, if I may, on the buyback. You have your leverage goal of 2.25-2.75. I think you said 2.5 at the end of the quarter. We see where the stock price is. You already said you’re looking at getting more aggressive. Would you consider exceeding your leverage goals given where the stock price is on that to even acquire additional shares? Yeah. Let me tell you, how aggressive would you be? My short answer is yes, but I see we’ve got a couple of other people anxious to answer that question.

I’ll flip it over to Damon and Patrick. Joe, we’re all nodding yes. Yes, yes, yes. I mean, you think about it this way, and this is a pretty sweet way to end as a CEO. I mean, we look at our forecast next year, as I said in my script, $2.5 billion forecast in revenue, over $450 million in forecasted run rate EBITDA. You look at the stock price, and that’s ridiculous. I mean, I think absolutely we are looking at this quarter and then going to next year. If the price is going to sit around this level, this is a tremendous opportunity to buy back shares. I’m saying it obviously as CEO. We’ve got obviously the management team here, but I know I’m very confident our board feels the same way.

This will be a conversation we’ll have in the coming days and weeks, not just the aggressiveness of the plan, but also if we need potentially more authorization. Anything to add to that, Patrick? The only thing that I would add is our leverage target has been based on a trailing leverage basis. When you look at the growth that we’re expecting for 2026, it’s one of the fastest growth years year over year that we’ve experienced in a very long time as a company. When you think about that scale, we have to consider trailing leverage, but we can also look at already identified cash flows. It’s awarded contracts that would drive us to a $450 million or greater run rate. It’s not speculative in terms of our ability to achieve that level of cash flow.

Certainly, we have to consider trailing leverage. We’re not going to not think about that. We also do have to prepare that with an expectation for rapid known and cash flow growth that gives us the ability to be more aggressive on the margin. Okay. Great. Thanks for that. Appreciate you guys taking the questions, and I’ll pass it on. Thank you. Thanks, Joe. Thanks, Joe. Thank you. Our next question comes from M. Marin with Zacks. Your line is open. Thank you. I want to follow up on something you touched upon in your scripted remarks. We’re all hearing a lot with the government shutdown about how payments to various entities are not being processed or not being processed as quickly as they were prior to the shutdown. Can you just give us some.

Color on what that means for you in terms of when you finally do collect the cash. In that. You’re expecting? Will it be. A flat lump sum? Will you get interest on that? How will that work for you guys? Yeah. I’ll take that one, M. Thanks for the question. Yes. We expect when the government resumes operations that we will get paid in full for all the services that we’ve provided in the past. I don’t exactly know the mechanics of how they process those. I imagine it goes into a queue. As we submitted our invoices, they’ll be in a queue at ICE and Department of Homeland Security, and they’ll process those invoices according to due date. I don’t have visibility into exactly how they process them. When they do process them, they do pay with interest.

I think that interest is in the low 4% today. That is not something we have to ask for. It is automatic under the federal acquisition regulations of the Prompt Payment Act. We will collect interest with the payments when they resume operations and make their payments to us. Okay. Great. Thank you. You have a lot going on, and there is a lot of noise in the third quarter numbers, as you indicated, with startup costs reactivating idle facilities. You still have a handful of idle facilities after you reactivate the ones that are currently in the process of reopening. In the earlier comments, you did say something about future activations and that you would not be surprised if there were demands that warranted reactivating additional facilities. Is it right to think that there have been any kind of.

Not negotiations, not at that point yet, but any kind of early, early, early discussions about some of these other facilities? Absolutely. Yeah. This is Damon. I’ll take that question. And the short answer is absolutely. If you rewind the last quarter, we were looking at the rest of this year. There was a couple of facilities we didn’t talk about on the call, but we were having conversations. One of those is Diamondback, the one in Oklahoma. Obviously, those things happen discreetly with the partner based on kind of what their needs and expectations and timing and how much capacity and whatnot. We’re having similar conversations today. I think that’s one question that’s important to answer right now because you got the government shutdown, and I think there’s probably an assumption that all that activity is a shutdown. That’s not the case.

We’re still seeing active requests for information on facilities where we could expand, where we’ve got maybe a small allotment of vacant beds that they may want to contract for, and then vacant facilities. We still have people or still have customers indicating interest not only about those facilities, but actively going out, touring, inspecting the facilities, determining how it can meet their mission. All that activity is still very active, even though with the government shutdown. Okay. Thanks very much for the answers. Yes, ma’am. Thank you. Our next question comes from Kirk Ludtke with Imperial Capital. Your line is open. Hello, Damon, Jeb, David, Patrick. Thank you for the call. Good afternoon. Damon, congratulations on a great run. Thank you for. It’s been a real blessing. I appreciate that. And best of luck. I guess with respect to the 100,000 beds.

We’re hearing less or about fewer alternative sites being opened by ICE. But can you just maybe comment on, are you competing with those alternative sites, the military bases, etc.? And if so, how many beds are available at those locations that you think you might be competing with? Yeah. Great question. I think we’ve indicated or have alluded to anyway in the last couple of quarters. We think it’s kind of the all-the-above approach. Clearly, there’s been some activity of both DHS leadership and ICE leadership to look at some of these alternatives for various different reasons. Indicating our value proposition here, last 90 days, again, we signed four contracts with facilities where we had vacant capacity. The value proposition and the location of our facility is obviously very attractive with these new contract awards.

I think to get to 100,000, as I said earlier, it’s going to be a little bit of all-the-above approach. I think it’s also going to be a case of, as they look at our capacity, being more secure, but I think also maybe a little longer-term solution. These alternatives, especially the soft-sided ones where they’re more short-term in nature, again, it’ll just be determined on the mission and the location. Anything to add to that, Patrick? The only thing I would add is 100,000 beds is really a guidepost more than a hard target. It’s going to be really somewhat dependent also on enforcement.

If you were to look at all of the beds available in the sector today and you look at the potential demand opportunity that can result from the higher enforcement-related activity, all of our beds could be used, and you could still have a scenario where many more beds are needed. We have talked on past calls about our having thought about how we might provide capacity in addition to our existing facilities, the 7,000 beds that we have talked about being available. We want to be flexible and nimble and help our partner meet the need that they have at any moment in time. I certainly would not interpret all of our facilities not having been contracted for as an indication that that may not be coming because, again, growth is not going to be linear.

As the number of officers to put in place and out in our communities enforcing the law, you would expect you’re going to see an up-and-flowing demand that will ultimately result in more bed need. I would say from our perspective, we think that it is a both-and solution. Got it. That’s very helpful. Thank you. Have you, staffing issues, any issues there finding people to work at your facilities you’re ramping up? No, we’re having a very strong experience from a hiring perspective. As you can see in the broader economy, there has been some broader economic weakness, and we’re certainly experiencing that as we hire. The backdrop that we’ve encountered as we’ve gone out to activate these facilities has helped us activate very efficiently.

Approaching our staffing targets ahead of schedule in most all cases and really do not see ourselves inhibited by our ability to hire. Got it. Great. Thank you. And then last one, are there any limitations on share repurchases in your credit agreements? No. Great. Perfect. Thank you. You’re welcome. Thanks, Kirk. Thank you. Our next question comes from Raj Sharma with Texas Capital. Your line is open. Yeah. Hi. Good afternoon. Thank you for taking my questions. Hi, Raj. My first question was around how much your guide, your sort of soft guide that you just gave on fiscal 2026. How much of the revenue embedded in 2026, what is the reactivated of the five facilities? How much are they contributing in revenues and in EBITDA to that fiscal 2026 guidance? If you’re talking about the four we just announced in the third quarter, it’s about $321 million.

Yeah, that’s about $320 million in revenue. I would say if you look at ’26 versus ’25. That’s probably about $250 million of incremental revenue because we are generating some revenue at these facilities and did generate some revenue at Midwest Regional Reception Center and Cal City under the letter contracts earlier in the year. Yeah, I’d say the increment in revenue is about $250 million. It’d be hard to estimate. I don’t think we’re ready to put out a number on EBITDA of those facilities. I think it’s fair to say the margins would be comparable to other margins we have for other contracts that we’ve announced, taking into consideration both geography and size of the facility. Right. Is it also fair to say that those margins on the reactivated facilities are higher than the overall company EBITDA margins?

I’d say we’ve got some state contracts that we’ve had for a long time and perhaps haven’t kept up with per diems. In a portfolio of our size, you don’t have all contracts that are as profitable as they would be if you’re entering into a new contract. I’d say on average, across the whole portfolio, when they’re taking into consideration state contracts, local contracts, and so forth, they’re probably slightly higher. Great. Thanks. We’re assuming that these reactivated facilities are definitely all fully functional and normalized mid of 2026. What occupancy levels would you be targeting for mid 2026? I’d say we’re still in the process of preparing our 2026 budget. I wouldn’t put a number out there just yet. I mean, the frame of reference we were at was for 2000, I’m sorry, Q4 occupancy, combined safety at 76.7%.

That includes all of our idle capacity, including the facilities that we’re activating. I could easily see getting in the low 80s and perhaps mid 80s in 2026 on average. Great. That’s super helpful. Just the idle facilities, your 7,000 idle facilities, what level of ICE demand do you see there? Or is it only going to be ICE to reactivate those remaining 7,000? Or do you think there could be some state demand, especially given the federal shutdown impacting operational matters? This is Patrick. Much of the focus in this conversation so far has been ICE because ICE contracted for the four additional facilities that we’re presently ramping. Our pipeline is much broader than just ICE. We are having ongoing conversations with state customers and other federal partners around potential bed utilization. We are not a single customer story.

Again, going back to the outlook that we talked about in terms of our run rate, that’s only reflective of contracts that have already been awarded. When you look at the discussion around EBITDA run rate in excess of $450 million, utilization of any additional capacity would certainly be in excess of that. We think we have opportunities with ICE. I don’t want to diminish that, but we do also have a much broader pipeline and conversations that we’re having with non-ICE partners. Looping back, Raj, on the question you asked regarding revenue, I was talking about the contracts that we announced in the third quarter. Don’t forget, we also have the Dilley Immigration Processing Center. That one became fully ramped as of September.

There’s probably another, I don’t know, $70 million-$60 million in incremental revenue in 2026 versus 2025 since it will be a full run rate basis here beginning in Q4. Damon, back to. Patrick makes an excellent point. I just want to underline one of his comments on the state side. We’ve got probably about half a dozen states that are engaging us. Some of them are existing. Some of them are potentially new ones that are looking for capacity. That’s probably the strongest kind of engagement we’ve had from our state partners or at least state portfolio in probably 12 or 24 months. Absolutely, it’s a story that touches both federal and state opportunities. Great. Thank you. That’s very helpful. I had a question on the. Any indication of rising, given rising labor costs? How are your wage trends tracking across activated facilities?

Do you have rate escalators with ICE or state contracts? We do have rate escalators in many of our contracts, but the wage environment is very much moderating across our markets. If you were to look at the staffing environment that we’re experiencing today, I would say it’s the most favorable that we’ve experienced since before COVID. It is not something that we take for granted. We’re out actively working to hire additional employees. We’re very actively in the market. At this point, we do not see either market pressure or wage pressure that causes us concern. Great. I think just lastly on any cash collection delays. I know that you addressed this question a little earlier due to the government shutdown. I know you mentioned credit line availability.

Could you comment on that again, please, is how long you’re good for and what the working capital impact? Yeah. We’re probably. Yes. So given our revenue from the federal government, it’s probably about $40 million per month. Who knows how long the government shutdown is going to last? Lord help us. We hope it doesn’t go through all of November. If it does, I know we’ve got a very supportive bank group. We do have an accordion feature on our bank credit facility, so we could always exercise that. I’ve been in contact with banks as I always am in contact with our banking group, and I know they would be very supportive. Great. Thank you. Thank you for taking my questions. Congratulations. Yeah. Thanks. Yes, sir. Thanks, Raj. Thank you. Our next question comes from Greg Gibas with Northland Securities. Your line is open. Great.

Good afternoon, guys. Thanks for taking the questions. Damon, wanted to wish you luck on your future endeavors. Yes, sir. Thank you very much for that. Let me know if you know anybody that’s hiring. We know about you. Hey. Hey, I was going to ask about capital allocation, but really appreciate your commentary on accelerating share purchases given the stock’s valuation. I had a few kind of modeling-related questions. I guess first. Maybe Dave, to what degree do you expect startup costs from the ramping up facilities to carry into the first half of 2026, if at all? There definitely would be some carried over into 2026 because we do not have Diamondback is, I think, the last facility expected to complete stabilized occupancy, and that is in Q2.

Now, our Midwest Regional Reception Center, we’re kind of on hold pending the resolution of the legal matter, so don’t know how long that will extend. We’re optimistic that we can get that favorably resolved in the fourth quarter, but don’t really know and don’t have complete control over the timing of that. There’ll be a little bit of startup in Q1. As I think about startup, when I talk about startup, I’m also talking about an operating loss of the facility. We will be generating revenue because, like at Cal City, we’re already accepting detainees in West Tennessee as well. That will flip to profitability. I would imagine at least at those three, Midwest aside, sometime during Q1. Yeah, probably during Q1. Okay. That’s fair. And probably fair to say the majority of the.

I guess, impact of these startup costs for those four awards in Q4. I’m sorry, what was the question? How much is it in Q4? I guess I was just kind of curious. The majority, I guess, of the impact from those startup costs is recognized in Q4? Yeah. Yeah. Yes. More so. Yes. Exactly right. Yep. Makes sense. Great. I guess I would just ask, what is a fair EBITDA run rate exiting the year, excluding those one-time and startup costs? I think last quarter, you previously spoke to expectations of close to $100 million run rate ending the year. Wondering if any assumptions have changed around that. No. No assumptions have changed other than adding a couple of new contracts because the $100 million did not include our West Tennessee facility, did not include our Diamondback facility.

Diamondback facility is a 2,160-bed facility, so a large facility. Yeah, I mean, I don’t, I would. It’s going to be, again, we gave the soft guidance of no less than $450 million once they reach stabilized occupancy. That’s probably the best number I could give you at this point. Yep. Makes sense. Yeah, that’s what I was asking kind of prior to those awards. Great. I guess just to clarify from your previous commentary, you were saying that about $250 million or so of the $320 million expected to be recognized in 2026, excluding Dilley? No, no. That was the increment in 2026 over 2025 because we recognize some revenue from those activations in 2025. I was talking about the four facilities that we announced in the third quarter. That revenue is probably $250 million, 2026 over 2025.

And then another $60 million if you include the Dilley facility, incremental revenue 2026 over 2025. Perfect. Makes sense. Thanks very much, guys. You’re welcome. Yes, sir. Thank you. Our next question comes from Ben Briggs with StoneX Financial. Your line is open. Good afternoon, guys. Thank you for taking the call and the questions. And Damon, congratulations on a very successful career. And I hope you enjoy a well-deserved time off before whatever it is you decide to do next is. Thank you, sir. I appreciate that. Yes, sir. Great. The vast majority of mine have been asked and answered. I think one that I would get in here is I know you referenced kind of a longer-term $450 million. Adjusted EBITDA, call it run rate. Obviously, as you guys have discussed on the call, there are CapEx investments that are required upfront.

As you sign contracts that result in that longer-term increased EBITDA. Do you know, and I mean, I know you may not have an exact number, but any kind of range or just the best way to think about what the CapEx costs kind of all in an aggregate to get there are going to be, or is it just too much of an unknown with not all the contracts finalized and just too many moving pieces? Yeah, that’s a really good question. Again, let me just talk through a little bit. Our guidance for 2025 was $97.5 million-$99.5 million. There will probably be a carryover of another $20 million or so in 2026. That does include CapEx associated with some facilities that we have not announced new contracts on.

If you recall at the beginning of 2025, we began, we leaned forward on CapEx because we wanted to prepare all of our facilities to accept detainees as quickly as possible. That number that I just gave you all in would, I will not say it will cover every one of our facilities. Whenever we activate a facility, there is always some stocking of equipment that we have to add in addition to the hard infrastructure renovation type assets. Not sure if that answers your question, but it is probably $150 million-ish all in for all facilities. Okay. No, that does answer the question. It gives good context around it. I appreciate that. Thanks, guys, very much. You are welcome. Thank you. Our next question comes from Daniel Furtado with PhillyFin. Your line is open. Hey, good afternoon, everybody. Thanks for taking the question.

I was a little bit late on the beginning, but did you give any or are you willing to give any update on PECOS? We did not say anything about that. There is really no update today. Again, we always continue to have a dialogue with not only our partner with ICE, but also with Target about what the needs are there in the Southwest, nobody in Texas. No real update to share today. Okay. Great. My follow-up is simply this discussion about the share repurchases. I know this is clearly not trying to put you on the spot, but have you given any thought to potentially a tender considering what the stock price has done and your desire to repurchase shares? Yeah. Probably would not be appropriate to go into kind of the weeds of what we discussed with both the management team and the board.

I guess the message is that we clearly think the stock’s undervalued based on the forecast. We’ll be looking at every opportunity to deploy capital and buy back shares. Always looking at potentially different ways to do it and maybe more efficient ways. I wouldn’t say anything more than that. We clearly see the opportunity. Okay. I can respect that. Thanks for taking my questions. Yes, sir. Thank you. Our next question comes from Edwin Groshond with Compass Point Research and Trading. Your line is open. Good afternoon. Damon, congratulations and enjoy your retirement. I guess my question kind of focuses on you saw a lot in the press. Changes at ICE management. This seems to be the third swing at it. You’ve mentioned the call. The hiring of new agents, which appears that that’s going to take some time.

Can you just discuss, as ICE appears to get more aggressive or gets more agents, how much impact that has on your facilities and how quickly it improves activation or even if you can give some sense of bed count? Yeah, that’s a great question. And I’ll probably tag team with Patrick a little bit on this. As Patrick alluded to earlier, it’s been, and I shouldn’t say just this year, it’s really kind of our business. It’s a little lumpy, and I think that’s probably the case in this situation with ICE. On their side, they’re looking at, yeah, additional 10,000 agents. They’re looking also at lawyers, judges, other support staff to help with the mission. Obviously, that’s going to impact the enforcement operations both on the interior and on the Southwest border. In turn, obviously, that’s going to impact detention.

I would say, as you look at kind of the last 60, 90 days, I think they have been going very aggressive on hiring. It does take some time because we appreciate it on our side to get them through training, get them through the screening process, and get them to where they’re able to go out and affect the mission of ICE. I think as that continues to kind of ramp up, and again, I describe it as lumpy. As they got kind of more bandwidth on their side to do more enforcement operations, then obviously, that’s going to impact the need for detention capacity. The conversation is just real time. It’s been like that for basically the last year.

They’re telling us kind of what the needs are, where the priorities are, where the capacity potentially is going to be needed as they kind of ramp up operations. Obviously, we’ll move on a parallel path to meet the need if we’ve been given the opportunity to provide a solution. Anything to add to that, Patrick? The only thing that I would add is that I think it’s important to note that as we open a facility during activation, all beds aren’t immediately available on day one. We have ramp schedules that we have built into our contracts at a pace at which we believe we can safely accommodate ramps and population. As we continue to open new facilities, we’re seeing those beds utilized at a pace that’s consistent with what we initially expected.

I think to the point that Damon just made, I think what you’re going to see is a little bit of ebb and flow. More beds have been contracted for both with us and with others. Those beds are progressively being utilized. Absorption is occurring, but there are beds available. As you see further step up in enforcement, you would see further bed need manifest. It is not a linear growth path either for populations or for enforcement or for contracting, but the direction appears to be very much intact. As we provide beds on schedule, they’re being utilized. Great. I appreciate that. I know you mentioned earlier in the call surge capacity.

Is that surge capacity available as activation is occurring, and then once activation is up and running, the surge can then leak into the new facilities, or is that separate? Capacity generally is consistent in terms of the ebb and flow of what we might see on a surge basis versus an activation. New beds being brought online are going to be utilized. There are still going to be times at our facilities, particularly depending on the field office, where surge beds may be needed. It is going to be somewhat geography-dependent, and it is going to be somewhat facility-dependent in terms of whether surge capacity would be used, when it would be used. It is still available, in addition to the new beds that we would be bringing online. Just my last one on this is, there has been a lot of discussions about deportations.

You mentioned the judges, which I appreciate. There’s going to be work to do mass deportation. Are you seeing in your model yet? Are deportations having an impact on detentions, or is detention still running ahead of deportations, i.e., intake is greater than outflow? There is variation as enforcement occurs. It really is very dependent on the field office, the country of origin that the individual is being transported to. I would say there’s not really a universal answer to that because it really is dependent on where the enforcement action occurs, where the individual is placed. The agreement that we have in place with the country of origin, all of those are going to impact the amount of time that someone would spend in detention. We do see a strong motivation for.

Speed of deportation, but certainly, we see a lot of variation as individuals manage their way through the court process. All right. My apologies. This is my last one. I guess there was a lot of talk about ICE was tending to move people to different regions because of legal actions that’s happening. Have you seen that, or is most of the business still happening in the region where the people are picked up? I guess what I would say is, and this has historically been the case. Some customers have very tight geographic footprints. For many states, what you find is they want to stay within the border of that state. For some federal agencies, they want to stay within a particular district. In the case of ICE, we’ve always seen movement across the country.

I’ve not seen broadly what I would describe as purposeful intent to move folks around the country for that reason. We do see lots of movement around the country, which is really driven by the staging aspects of managing populations and aggregating individuals in certain locations in advance of deportation. Okay. That was great. I appreciate your time. Thank you for taking my questions. Yes, sir. Thank you. Our next question comes from Jason Weaver with Jones Trading. Your line is open. Hey, guys. Thanks for the time. At this point, just a couple for me. I’ll try to be quick. Looking past your idle capacity and the facilities that are in various stages of reactivation now, can you update us a bit on what you’re seeing or looking for in the long end of the pipeline to add ICE beds?

That is, if we’re trying to move to 100K capacity or greater. Yeah. I’ll tag team with Patrick on this. This is Damon. Part of that conversation has been ongoing where ICE will say, "Hey, we’ve got a certain need for capacity today in a certain region, but in the next, say, year or two years, we might have a need for more capacity." The way we look at it, and obviously, it’s the most efficient way to do it, is to look if we’ve got a base of operations in a certain location, can we add capacity. Both short-term and long-term? It is a two-way conversation.

ICE says, "Hey, we may have a little bit of a higher population for a period of time for 12, 24 months." That would lend us to say we probably do not want to do a very large capital investment to meet that need. We will look at more kind of short-term solutions that we can maybe add to a facility and kind of leverage the base operations. Those conversations are ongoing. It is kind of alluded back to my earlier comments in what I said in my script, which is where we can either expand capacity in existing facilities and/or go to a third party like Target where they can meet the need either with a standalone or, again, maybe add capacity to an existing operation. It is kind of all the above approach. Okay. Thank you. That is helpful.

Just as it pertains to Midwest Regional, do you have any upcoming hearing dates or events scheduled where we might see some developments there? Yeah. There are a couple of hearings. I do not have the exact dates in front of me, but there are a couple of hearings here in the next probably, I think, 30-45 days. I think there are at least a couple before Christmas. Got it. All right. Thanks for that. Like I said before, congrats to Damon and Patrick on their transition. Thank you so much. Thank you. Take care. Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I would like to turn the call back over to Damon Hininger for closing remarks. Thank you so much. This has been a really fun call. Thank you for all the well wishes.

As I kind of wrap up, 16 years of service as CEO, almost 33 years as a member of this great company. I’m deeply grateful for all of you on the call and also previous investors that have given me a lot of support and guidance over the years. I also want to say to every single employee in our company, 14,000 strong, and also the ones that have worked with us previously, I am deeply honored and grateful to work alongside you all during these 33 years. You all have inspired me in so many different ways and have made me a better person and have made this a better company. Really, going into this year, it’s given us a very strong 2025.

I mean, this year, it is really breathtaking, the amount of activity we’ve seen the organization to meet the needs of not just one customer. Also, we’ve talked a lot about ICE, but also other federal partners and a lot of activity on the state side. 2025 has been a great year, but boy, as I said earlier, next year with a forecast of $2.5 billion in revenue, over $450 million in annual run rate in EBITDA, those would be two record numbers for us as an organization. Again, thank you for the organization, for the company employees, and also for our customers to give us that trust and confidence to provide that type of service to have these types of milestones. With that, we adjourn. Enjoy the rest of your day. Thank you for calling in today. This concludes the program. You may now disconnect.

This article was generated with the support of AI and reviewed by an editor. For more information see our T&C.