New Era Energy & Digital (NASDAQ:NUAI) held its first-quarter earnings conference call on Monday. Below is the complete transcript from the call.
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Summary
New Era Energy & Digital reported significant progress on their Texas Critical Data Centers (TCDC) project, transitioning from formation to execution phase.
The company raised $120 million in equity and secured a $290 million credit facility with Macquarie, ending April with over $80 million in cash to support Phase 1 of TCDC.
Management highlighted partnerships with Stream Data Centers and Apollo, focusing on a partner-led model to reduce execution risk.
Operational highlights include acquiring additional land, clearing liabilities, and progressing in permitting and site readiness tasks.
Management expressed strong confidence in funding Phase 1 without significant dilution and emphasized concurrent advancement of multiple project work streams.
Full Transcript
OPERATOR
Thank you for standing by and welcome to New Era’s first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. Currently, all participants are in a listen only mode. After the speaker’s presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press Star 11 on your telephone. To remove yourself from the queue, you may press Star one one again. I would now like to hand the call over to Lincoln Tan from Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Lincoln Tan (Investor Relations)
Thank you Operator and good afternoon. My name is Lincoln Tan, Investor Relations for New Era. Thank you for joining New Era’s first quarter fiscal 2026 business update call. Joining me today are Will Gray, Chairman and CEO, Charlie Nelson, President and COO, and Ted Warner, Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I’d like to remind everyone that today’s call is being recorded and will be available on the Investor Relations section of our website. For those dialed in by phone, you can elect to ask a question through the moderator after our prepared remarks. Please note that during the course of this call we may make forward looking statements. These statements reflect our current views and expectations and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied. Please refer to slide 2 of the accompanying presentation and our SEC filings for more information. So with that, I’ll now turn the call over to Will Gray. Thank
Will Gray (Chairman and CEO)
you very much and appreciate the introduction. Good morning everyone and welcome. You know, first we want to thank everyone for participating in the New Era’s Q1 earnings call. Because the numbers in the 10Q still largely reflect the legacy natural gas and helium business, we see our current valuation as being tied directly to our data center project. So management will use today’s call to provide a business update on TCDC Texas Critical Data Centers, including what we’ve accomplished since our last update in March and what we’re working on now and what milestones we expect in the coming months, it is our view that the company has moved essentially from platform formation into a much more execution focused phase. We’ve simplified the structure around TCDC, raised a significant amount of capital, signed an LOI with a new development partner, strengthened the team and made progress across several work streams that we think are extremely important to getting the project ready for the next stage. So the goal for today is to walk you through that progress in a practical way. All start with a high level picture of exactly what has changed since our last update. We will then walk through the site, the power plan and what we mean to talk about when we say Phase one Readiness TED will cover capital structure, liquidity and how we’re thinking about funding our Phase one. Then we’ll open it up to questions, get started and before that will Yep.
Charlie Nelson (President and COO)
Again, hey, appreciate it Charlie. And again, just like Lincoln mentioned previously. Before we begin, I’d ask everyone to review the forward looking statements and disclaimer language in the presentation. And let’s go to slide three. Charlie, this is where we really get to the core of what we’re trying to show today. If you compare where we’re at now versus our last update, the picture looks materially different. So just a few months ago the market was looking at shared ownership, the shared AI note overhang lien complexity and uncertainty around near term funding. And that’s not the same picture that we have today. First off, TCDC is now free of the overhang related to the Sharon AI transaction. We’ve cleaned up that short term, that large short term liability, removing what we believe to be the largest overhang on the stock. Second, we brought in stronger institutional counterparties both on the capital side and on the development and execution side. Third, we have a much cleaner, accessible and less dilutive funding path ahead of us. After raising 120 million in equity and closing on a $290 million credit facility with Macquarie, we ended April with more than $80 million in cash on hand, which combined with the funding flexibility from the Macquarie facility, provided sufficient liquidity to support New Era’s equity contribution for TCDC Phase 1 and beyond. Fourth, while the priority itself hasn’t changed, we’ve wanted to get the lease done for some time. The path to getting there is now far more defined as we have begun working closely with our new development partner on power permitting and leasing. And finally, I’d like to point out that the 54 acre corridor acquisition is another good example of that. And we don’t look at that as just adding a little bit more land. It gives us the flexibility around direct power solutions, it helps with interconnection and overall infrastructure design, and it gives us more control over how the site is laid out as we look towards phase one readiness. So for us that’s a practical step forward and it’s not just an acreage headline, it’s a very meaningful thing. Summary these core changes have put us in a stronger position to obtain full suite of permits that we need, move our stream JV to close, advance power related work streams, and ultimately sign the hyperscaler lease that we’re after. Additionally, our financial health, coupled with the current helium and Hydrocarbon markets leave us in a better position to evaluate strategic alternatives for our legacy business assets. And with that, let me turn it over to Will.
Will Gray (Chairman and CEO)
Hey, thanks Charlie, that was a great update there. So again, let’s look at the leadership team that built to match the execution needs. And again, this slide’s really about reinforcing what the team’s about, who we have in place today and how does that match the phase of the businesses, how we’re entering. I’ve talked before about Charlie and Ted, but I think it’s worth revisiting briefly how the leadership structure fits our story today. Especially because this is still a relatively new story for many investors. And for those investors, we very much welcome you and look forward to providing more information. So my role continues to be centered around sponsorship of the platform, management of local relationships in Ector county obviously, which is the Permian Basin here in West Texas where I’m born and raised, energy relationships and helping drive the broader direction of New Era wouldn’t be here without Charlie. Charlie has been here since day one when he joined us as an independent board member, then essentially moved over in the executive capacity as of February this past year leading operations and executing. And that includes the practical work required to move TCDC from concept towards development, readiness and ultimately construction. We believe as midstream and power expertise creates a unique advantage for New Era amongst our peers as it relates to behind-the-meter data center project execution. Again, that’s a key here folks. Again behind the meter power execution. And I think that’s something that we are definitely going to be centering on more towards the future. And Ted, who joined us in March has just been one of our rock stars today. It’s just important because this is very much a finance story. I think we all understand the complexity and the need for capital in this market. His background in capital formation and digital infrastructure financing with many of our peers has already resulted in a complete financial transformation of our company and has essentially positioned us to be able to fully invest alongside in Phase one and beyond with minimal dilution. It will serve us well in the remainder of 2026 as we work towards transformative announcements that will require deep expertise in financing data center development. And finally, we welcome Andy Cazaza. I’ve known Andy for quite some time and very much pleased that he joined our team. So definitely the newest addition. He adds depth corporate integration, governance and execution experience against the types of counterparties and structures we are now working with. His expertise as a former energy CFO bolsters our strength in financing and accounting and please note that we do continue to actively pursue top talent in development, legal, engineering and accounting. You know, with the focus on adding key executives with hyperscaler backgrounds and relationships. So the point here is not simply that we’ve added people. That’s great, don’t get me wrong, but that’s, this is the leadership team that’s putting the foundation that reflects what the business needs right now. Operations, project finance, corporate execution, strategic direction. As we move from formation towards execution, the next question then is how do we actually execute from here? And that’s really what the next slide’s about. And Charlie’s going to walk us through the partner based approach while we’re taking, taking a shot here at TCDC and why we think it matters from an execution standpoint.
Charlie Nelson (President and COO)
Just on everyone’s line, Slide six is where we’re at right now. And it really speaks to something that I’ve talked about before, which is our partner LED model. You know, we’ve been consistent from the beginning. We are not trying to build every piece of this project internally. We also don’t try to boil the ocean. The way that we’re approaching TCDC is by working with the right specialist partners across key parts of the project. And that covers development, capital, power, engineering and manufacturing. At the development operating level, we have Stream Data Centers. Stream is a leading US data center development operating platform backed by Apollo Global Management, one of the largest alternative asset managers in the world. They’ve been around for, you know, Stream’s been around for a long, long time in this space legacy operator and you know, this platform has significant expertise and demonstrating a track record of developing, financing and delivering large scale data center campuses for hyperscales across North America. And that’s why we went with them. This is extremely important because it means we’re not trying to invent the execution model ourselves. And we are not looked at as a first time developer in the eyes of our potential tenants. This is something we feel helps reduce friction and execution risk just kind of across the board. We’re also pleased to onboard a bunch of new investors and financing partners to help support and grow the platform just across the board. And Ted will cover that in a little bit more detail as he goes through our broader funding strategy. And beyond that, we’ve assembled additional capital partners around energy storage behind the meter, power design, engineering and modular manufacturing, which we believe is the future of the data center space. And all of this is important if you want to move a project like this forward efficiently and with less execution risk. For me, this slide isn’t just about logos. This isn’t what we call a NASCAR slide just slapped with logos. It’s about how we’re executing. And this partner led model is how we intend to move the project forward in a practical way. And you know, with the right counterparty is responsible for the different parts of the project which they know best. We view this as a huge risk off standpoint. It also helps to explain why a number of these work streams can move together in parallel. In a more traditional development model, you might finish one step and then move on to the next. Our approach is to advance all of these pieces of the project at the same time. We call ourselves maestros of an orchestra. What this does is that once these key commercial milestones are in place, we’re not starting from zero on design, power, financing and site readiness. It all comes together at the same time. That’s how we’re thinking about the execution of tcdc. That’s how it’s been done in the industries we’ve been in before. Really. That leads into the next slide, which is the project itself. With that, I’ll hand it off to Will.
Will Gray (Chairman and CEO)
Yeah, thanks Charlie. And again, you know, this is kind of goes near and dear to my heart. So today our TCDC remains our flagship execution priority. You know, Today we own 438 acres in Ector County, which is again part of the Permian Basin. And also please note that we’ve entered into the definitive agreements to acquire the previously announced additional 54 acre corridor. TCDC sits in the Permian Basin energy corridor. Again, Midland, Midland, Odessa at the heart of the Permian, adjacent to generation assets operated by Vista and Calpine. So our thesis has been easiest place to build power as we already exist. And that continues to be one of the key things that makes this asset stand out. So from our perspective, that advantage shows up in a few practical ways. It supports speed to power, it gives us more flexibility around direct power solutions, it helps with interconnection and broader infrastructure design. And it gives us a site with the size and continuing continuity that needed to support phase expansion over time. Now, the long term expansion potential towards the 1.4 gigawatt is clearly important and that remains part of the broader TC DC story. But near term the focus is much more specific than that. The focus is Phase one and the focus is getting the commercial and development work streams around Phase one lined up right away. So this slide is really here as a reminder. This is a large, well located power advantage site. And the work we’re doing now is about putting that site in position to Move forward once the key commercial pieces are in place. Moving on to slide seven here. This is another slide that many of you have seen before, so I’m not going to over explain it. This …
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