Image source: The Motley Fool.
Nov. 4, 2026
Need a quote from a Motley Fool analyst? Email pr@fool.com
Ionic Digital Inc. (NASDAQ:IOND) reported a strategic transition toward becoming a high-performance computing and artificial intelligence data center developer, supported by a 32% year-over-year revenue increase. Management reported that the company's primary focus is commercializing the remaining 500 megawatts of capacity at Ward County and Midland, while maintaining a debt-free balance sheet with $628 million in total liquidity. The company is pivoting its operations from Bitcoin mining toward digital infrastructure, expecting to move its Midland sites off mining over the next six to 12 months. Management confirmed its full-year 2026 guidance, noting that cash rent from existing leases began in Aug. 2026 and is expected to reach an annualized run rate of $250 million following the delivery of 89 megawatts of incremental capacity.
Operator: Good day, and welcome to Ionic Digital's Third Quarter 26 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speakers' presentation, there will be a Q&A session. To ask a question, you would need to press *11 on your touch tone telephone. Please note this call is being recorded. I would like to turn the call over to Hannah Stewart, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Andy Stewart: Good afternoon, and welcome to Ionic Digital's Third Quarter 26 Earnings Call. With me today, we have Chief Executive Officer, Andy Stewart and Chief Financial Officer, Chris Hickman Before we begin, a brief reminder. Statements made on today's call, in our presentation and in our press release contain forward looking statements. Actual results may differ materially. These statements are subject to the risks described in the Risk Factors section of our prospectus in our subsequent filings with the SEC, which you should read in full. We undertake no obligation to update these forward looking statements except as required by law.
For additional information on non GAAP financial measures discussed on today's call, please refer to the reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP measures. These reconciliations are available in today's earnings release and investor presentation, both of which can be found on the Investor Relations section of our website. With that, I will turn the call over to Andy. Thanks, Andy. Good afternoon, everyone. We know there is been quite a bit of conversation on the latest political cycle in Texas, We will make sure to touch on that later. But I will start today with our results released this afternoon.
Our third quarter was in line with our expectations I am pleased with the progress we are making on our top priority, which is putting the remaining capacity at Ward County and Midland under contract. There are a number of initiatives we are working on to achieve that goal. The ERCOT process for Ward County, the land work in Midland, and working with prospective customers on the scope and design they need. We made solid progress in all 3 during the quarter, and I will speak to each in just a moment.
When we spoke on our first earnings call in August, we had just completed our direct listing energized the first data hall at Ward County, and started collecting cash rent on the in scale lease. Those milestones provide a strong cash flowing foundation and in the 3 months since, our conversations with prospective tenants have sharpened our view on what customers value most. Customers choose a site today, we believe they are weighing 3 things. Whether the power will be there on time, whether the developer is reliable, and increasingly, the strength of the developer's balance sheet. We believe Ionic offers all 3.
Before moving on, I would like to spend a moment on what we have seen in the market since August. Demand for AI capacity to be strong, but this quarter we began to see how far apart announcing capacity and energizing it can be. Power timelines have moved on a number of projects, ERCOT's process has pushed tenants to look much harder which sites have a real path to power. We believe that scrutiny works in our favor. Our 466 megawatt request at Ward County received provisional classification under baseload pathway b in ERCOT's batch zero process and our Midland sites are already energized.
At Ward County, we already have 23 gross megawatts under contract with EnScale, And beyond that, we have a pipeline of approximately 500 gross megawatts of near term grid power to bring them to market across Ward County and Midland. We also have the flexibility to fund this development with a debt free balance sheet approximately $630 million of liquidity, and a financeable cash flowing lease on 34 megawatts with a lease guaranteed by NVIDIA for the first 5 years and Microsoft as the ultimate customer. Lastly, we have built a team with decades of experience designing, and contracting data centers.
Today's leading GPU platforms are pushing power densities into the hundreds of kilowatts per rack range and moving to direct to chip liquid cooling. Our development team brings deep mechanical and electrical engineering expertise along with hands on experience delivering and operating mission-critical facilities. We are leveraging that experience to anticipate and manage risk. Turning now to the landscape in Texas. Yesterday's election brings a new administration to Austin in January. The governor elect has said she intends to pause new data centers until the legislature sets new rules. We do not know yet what exactly that will look like. What we do know is where our project sits.
As I mentioned, ERCOT provisionally classified our Ward County expansion as baseload pathway B. That pathway is for existing projects that have already achieved initial energization. And that distinction could help set us apart from new projects. We executed an agreement with our TSP in 2021 for 700 megawatts. it is been carried in transmission planning projects since 2023, and our TS has since made transmission upgrades to its system partially underwritten by our 700 MW. Advancing our project would ensure those investments are recovered as planned rather than burdening other ratepayers.
We will work constructively with the incoming administration, the legislature, and local officials as the rules get written. as we continue to support the responsible development of data centers in Texas. Of the incremental capacity expected at Ward, 89 megawatts are already contracted with EnScale, which will add full year run rate GAAP revenue of $72 million at triple net terms when the power is delivered. That leaves 377 gross megawatts available for development at Ward. We have already had numerous conversations with interested customers. In the coming weeks, we plan to launch a formal targeted marketing process for that capacity. As we previously disclosed, ENSCO holds a right of first refusal on this capacity.
However, I want to be clear. It is a right of first refusal not a call option, and it does not lock us into a specific price. EnScale can retain the capacity only by meeting or exceeding every term of the best offer we receive. Before ERCOT's verification process began, we had expected our marketing process to be a little further along. While the audit has shifted the timeline a bit, we have not slowed down on predevelopment work, including test fits and vendor planning. That work allows us to move quickly once a contract is signed. Our vision has always been to develop Ward County into a high performance data center campus with high quality counterparties.
Turning to Midland, we have 4 sites, 112 megawatts of energized grid power today,, ranging from 12 to 50 megawatts each, with immediate access to power and a variety of-- we believe this opens these sites to a broader set of customers with a wider range of use cases. Most of our work at Midland this year has been around the land itself, preparing each site to support a long term data center development rather than a mining operation. We have made meaningful progress, and based on our conversations with prospective tenants, we still expect to move these sites off Bitcoin mining over the next 6 to 12 months. We will continue to operate with urgency, but also with discipline.
Available grid power in 2027 is scarce, We believe taking the time to get the right counterparty on the right terms will create the most value for shareholders. That brings me to how we are evaluating these opportunities. We look at every opportunity the same way:. The return on the capital we invest and the total value it can create. Relative to our cost of capital and the risk we take on. In assessing that risk, we look closely at the quality of the counterparty, the length and credit support of the contract, and protection against construction cost overruns. The structure we choose for each site is a big part of that equation.
In a powered shell, as shown on page 4 of the latest investor presentation, we deliver the building and the power and the tenant funds that fit out. In a turnkey or built to suit structure, we also deliver the mechanical, electrical, and plumbing in exchange for higher rent. We work collaboratively with our customers to turn high level requirements into a verified fixed basis of design. If the customer is still defining its needs, we start from reference designs we have already developed. Locking in the design before we build takes more time upfront.
But it is 1 of the ways we reduce risk on schedule and cost. it is also why we have been deliberate about when we commit and what we announce. As customers, vendors, and partners look harder at the people behind the project, we believe that experience matters more today than ever. Our team has deep experience with both models, and being able to offer either 1 is an advantage in our conversations. Finally, beyond Texas, our longer term strategy is focused on developing sub-100 megawatt sites in and around major metros, where we expect inference and enterprise AI demand to grow. As AI moves from training models to running them, demand is shifting towards inference and adjunctive workloads.
These workloads need different sized data center developments, typically 25 to 75 megawatts but in all cases below the local utility's large load threshold. Many enterprise customers are also looking for sovereign solutions that keep proprietary data under their control. that is the market we intend to serve, and it is a natural extension of what the team has done for decades. Before I hand it to Chris, a brief word on shareholder engagement.
Engaging with our shareholders is an important part of how we run IONIQ, and we believe we are well aligned with them on our strategy to become a pure play high performance computing and AI data center developer, choosing the best risk adjusted opportunities and successfully executing on them to maximize long term value. Our Board and management team share that focus and it guides every capital allocation decision we make. Today, that means capturing the significant value we see in our 500 megawatts at Ward County and Midland that we expect to commercialize. As I wrap up, I would come back to where I started.
Our top priority is putting the remaining capacity at Ward County and Midland under contract and the work we did this quarter moved us meaningfully closer to that. We have contracted cash flow and revenue, a power position that is held up under a much closer review and a balance sheet that lets us be selective. and a team with the experience to execute. I believe that combination positions Ionic to create significant long term value for shareholders. And with that, I will turn the call over to Chris.
Chris Hickman: Thanks, Andy, and good afternoon, everyone. As we prepare for potential development across our sites, we are well positioned with a clean balance sheet and significant liquidity. But first, I will start with our third quarter results on page 5. Total revenue in the third quarter was $49 million with digital infrastructure leasing contributing approximately 90% or $44 million and Bitcoin mining contributing $5 million Gross profit was $39 million and adjusted gross profit $44 million for an adjusted gross margin of 89%. That margin is driven by our Digital Infrastructure segment with margins of 99%, reflecting the triple net structure of the EnScale lease in which the tenant is responsible for operating costs taxes, insurance, and maintenance.
Our Mining segment was approximately breakeven at the gross margin level reflecting higher power costs from typical late summer seasonality. We expect mining margins to continue near breakeven levels. Turning to expenses. G&A was $26 million in the quarter. That included $12 million of nonrecurring costs associated with our direct listing and $5 million of noncash stock based compensation expense. Excluding those 2 items, G&A was approximately $9 million in the quarter. We remain disciplined on overhead, while ensuring we have the capabilities to execute against our contracted base in our growth pipeline. We reported net income of $17 million for the quarter, or $0.38 per diluted share, 2 large non cash items mostly offset each other.
First, a $73 million gain on the fair value of our Bitcoin, and second, a $66 million charge from the increase in fair value of the warrants issued in our June private placement. Adjusted EBITDA was $35 million with a 71% margin. Year to date, adjusted EBITDA was $108 million Capital expenditures were $7 million in the quarter, primarily related to equipment for the ongoing substation expansion at Ward County. While year to date CapEx is only $14 million we expect capital spending for our substation upgrade and predevelopment work at Ward County to increase in the fourth quarter and extending into 2027.
For the full year 2026, we are reaffirming our prior outlook as shown on Page 6 and continuing to expect at the midpoint revenue of $192.5 million comprised of digital infrastructure leasing revenue of $175 million and Bitcoin mining revenue of $17.5 million The midpoint of the expected range for adjusted EBITDA remains $140 million and capital expenditures remains between 45 million and $60 million Given year to date results, we expect cryptocurrency mining revenue to be near the high end of the range although we expect minimal contribution to margin as we no longer are investing to upgrade our mining equipment as part of our strategy to pivot the remaining sites into high performance data centers in 2027.
We look forward to providing our 2027 guidance alongside fourth quarter 26 results early next year. Turning to page 7, Of the $135 million of digital and infrastructure leasing revenue in our 2026 outlook, approximately $30 million is cash rent, and the balance is noncash revenue from straight line accounting treatment of the lease. Cash rent began on August 1, and we collected approximately $7 million in the third quarter. We expect cash rent of approximately $23 million in the fourth quarter approximately $30 million for the full year 2026, and $135 million in 2027 reaching an annualized run rate of $183 million by February 2028 before escalators kick in.
This timing does not depend on when the data halls become operational for the end customer, However, EnScale's first data hall is energized and operational and the remaining buildings are advancing. Once the 89 megawatt expansion is delivered, it is expected to add approximately $7 million of annualized revenue bringing the total cash revenue run rate to approximately $250 million across 23 megawatts before escalators. Moving to the balance sheet on page 8. Recent market volatility has reinforced the importance of balance sheet strength disciplined capital allocation and flexibility.
We ended the quarter with no debt outstanding, $381 million in cash and 2.95 thousand Bitcoin valued at $247 million for total liquidity of approximately $628 million With development spending expected to ramp in 2027, we have begun converting some of our Bitcoin to cash. Since the end of the quarter, we have sold approximately 25% of our holdings, or 7.37 Bitcoin for net proceeds of approximately 62 million On a pro forma basis, that brings our cash to $443 million and our remaining Bitcoin to $185 million based on September 30 prices. As we have said, Bitcoin is part of our liquidity today, but it is not a long term strategic holding strategy.
We intend to continue to monetize it to fund development and other strategic initiatives, with timing driven by our expected capital needs. Looking ahead, our balance sheet gives us flexibility in how we fund the next phase of growth. Our existing lease is triple net and cash flowing with approximately $1.8 billion of remaining contracted revenue. And rent guaranteed by NVIDIA for the first 5 years. Once the incremental 89 megawatts are delivered, in 2027, the remaining contracted revenue grows to approximately $2.5 billion Together, we believe this provides ample financing capacity to support future development.
For that development, we will set the financing structure once a tenant is signed, It will depend on the contract, the counterparty, and the terms we negotiate. We will stay focused on protecting our balance sheet and raising capital responsibly. To sum up, cash is ramping as scheduled, and with substantial liquidity and no debt, we are excited to be pursuing our next opportunities from a position of strength. With that, Michelle, we can open the line for questions.
Operator: Thank you. Star 1. If your question has been answered and you would like to remove yourself in the queue, press *11 again. Our first question comes from Derek Whitfield with Texas Capital. Your line is open.
Derrick Whitfield: Good afternoon, and thanks for taking my questions.
Chris Hickman: Sure. Hi, Derrick.
Derrick Whitfield: Wanted to start with political environment. as that is clearly what is driving the market today? Well, I realize this is just happened, but as you guys kind of think about the change in administration, do you expect ERCOT will honor its previous commitment to finalize batch zero decisions by December 10th?
Andy Stewart: Thanks for the question. We really do not know. It would happen prior to the new administration taking over. So there is high likelihood, high probability that they continue on with their path. And determine that. What happens in January, I think, is still very much to be determined.
Derrick Whitfield: Fair enough. But importantly, 1 thing just. I think we highlighted this, in our prepared remarks. We had not disclosed previously is that ERCOT designate us as batch zero pathway b. Which is an important distinction and 1 shows that we are. Our site is already energized. it is not a new site. it is an existing site. And 2, the pathway b is a higher priority level, within ERCOT's overall framing. Yep. Very clear, and I understand you are in a really good spot from that perspective. For my follow-up, I wanted to ask just on the market environment. Has that changed your focus or approach with potential tenants? Given the higher financing costs we are experiencing?
And the risk of IPOs for Frontier LLMs being pushed out.
Andy Stewart: No. I think it comes all the way back to our consistent focus on risk adjusted returns. And if we are going to undertake a $3.54 billion turnkey data center development in Ward County, we are gonna have to have a really strong credit counterparty in order to do that. So that has always been the case and the focus for us. Given the level of capital that would be required there.
Derrick Whitfield: Sure. Thanks, guys.
Andy Stewart: I appreciate it. Thanks, sir.
Chris Hickman: Thank you. Thank you.
Operator: Our next question comes from Gregory Lewis with BTIG. Your line is open.
Gregory Lewis: Yeah. Hey. Thank you, and good afternoon, and thanks for taking my questions. I mean, I guess I want to talk a little bit about the outlook for Texas. You know, hey, the election is the election, but it seemed to us at least that you know, an you know, the Midland opportunity had been you know, you know, gaining momentum regardless of what was gonna happen in batch zero just simply because you were getting you know, some loads maybe that people thought were gonna be. Baseload became studied. So just kind of curious over the last 60 days, has that at all changed your outlook for the Midland grid connected capacity that you have.
Andy Stewart: No. I think we have been bullish on the opportunity at Midland and only more bullish over the last 30 or 60 days? As word got out, as we mentioned earlier on, we could not kind of take all these sites to market given some of the cleanup we had to do. But our team has got a lot of that groundwork done now. And we have had a lot of really strong conversations with many different kinds of counterparties as well. There is interest across a spectrum. it is not just kind of Neo Cloud interest. I think gain. Or, which gains a lot of the market hype.
So, yeah, we have only become a little bit more bullish on our ability to monetize the Midland sites. Alright. Super helpful.
Gregory Lewis: And then and then just as we think about as you continue to build out the business, clearly, we have you know, a lot of. A strong position in Texas. But I guess a couple things. How should we think about the opportunity for IONIQ to kind of build its power portfolio beyond, you know, you want to call it, however you wanna frame it, beyond Texas, or beyond the Southwest. Just kinda curious. How you are thinking about that and just given those opportunities, is that something we should start to expect over the next couple of quarters?
Andy Stewart: I would say in 2027, yes. But I cannot tell you exactly when in 2027. And the reason is that we continue to be focused on monetizing Ward County and Midland. We joke internally that every time we kind of see an interesting acquisition, something else pops up, whether it is the ERCOT process or customer conversations on that kind of ability to monetize those. So while we still remain committed to our long term strategy on developing adjunctive inference sites in and around major metros. Our focus right now is on monetizing what we have at hand. Alright. Thank you very much.
Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from John Peterson with Jefferies. Your line is open.
John Peterson: Oh, great. Thank you. At the 377 megawatts in Howard County, you mentioned on slide 3 that you expected to be energized by late 2027, but I mean, I guess that we are late 26 right now and you are still marketing the site, like, realistically, when could that site actually turn into top line revenue for you guys?
Andy Stewart: Yeah. So we are doing everything we can to get that revenue on as soon as possible. I think that given the counterparties we are talking to, the size and complexity of the data centers that are required to be built, that is a. that is an early 2028 monetization to be realistic and practical. We very much focus on. Obviously, we wanna get the contract signed. We wanna have all the development done, but we are gonna be very pragmatic in terms of getting that contract executed to make sure we do not come to a situation where there are material cost overruns or material delays in the RFS state.
When we sign a contract and tell our shareholders about it, we wanna be able to have absolute confidence that is what we are gonna deliver. So as a result, that extends that timeline just a little bit. Yeah.
Chris Hickman: And I would say that, John, this is Chris. You know, I think that kind of creep into 2028 is you know, tied with the turnkey development. You know, there is still, you know, visibility to getting a PowerShell done by the end of the year. So being that both options are still on the table with where we are with conversations with our customers, you know, we are not abandoning the 2027, and we are. Our focus is on trying to make sure that we mitigate gap between when the power shows up and when that contract is commercialized and revenue generating.
And because we still believe we can get a power shell structure there, that is where that late 27 comment on that slide comes from.
John Peterson: Okay. And then just, you know, given all the volatility in the capital markets, particularly the project financing market, is that shifting how you may have thought about how you want this lease to be structured? Or are thinking anything different today than you might have a quarter ago of what you need to do to make sure you could finance a build and kinda protect yourself.
Chris Hickman: Well, we have a tremendous, you know, starting point with our balance sheet, and so we are really excited about that. And so we. I would not say that it changes necessarily. How we view it because we have plenty of capacity with a debt free balance sheet and, you know, over $100 million of liquidity as our starting point. And a financeable existing lease with the EnScale lease. it is on the 234 megawatts given the NVIDIA guarantee and the Microsoft offtake. So we are starting from a great spot. The cost of capital has certainly changed. But we look at this with a long term. With a view on long term cost of capital under long term ownership.
As well. And we believe that with the right counterparty as well, cost of capital, you know, is certainly much more stable and durable than some of the riskier customers that are in the market right now.
John Peterson: Makes sense. Thanks for the color. Appreciate it. It. Yeah. Thanks, John.
Operator: Thank you. Our last question comes from Joseph Vafi with Canaccord Genuity. Your line is open.
Joseph Vafi: Hey, guys. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my question. Just 1-- can we get an update? 1 thing around Ward County and around your Midland sites, I am not really up to speed on is some of your community involvement, community relations there, be helpful just to understand how you are interacting with the community and how they are you know, interacting with your sites there. Thank you very much.
Andy Stewart: Yeah. No. Sure. Thanks for the question. We have engaged significant community outreach and anticipate doing more. We have met with local county officials, the local county judge, state representatives that are still in office, in the next term. And I. Our message has always been that we are the operators that do things the right way. That we wanna make sure that we have a community with us that they have a seat at the table, and can we. You know, really, we can make sure we hear their voice. We will frankly be doubling down on that community outreach going forward as well. We think it could be a.
Not only a differentiator for how we are viewed, but importantly, increase our ability to get these deals executed done, done well. So we are spending more and more time on that right now, investing in it We have brought in a number of different advisers that are certainly helping on that front as well. And that will be a kind of a core part of our mission going forward.
Chris Hickman: And, Joe, the other thing I would add is that, you know, the message that we are delivering to the local is that we are building long term infrastructure that is going to be a part of the community for a long time. You know, we have met with school superintendents and other school officials as well to help them understand what is coming into the community and, you know, they simply just did not even know what a. What was in a data center. And so spending time with. You know, throughout the entire community to educate and share what is coming and to find ways to engage with them over a very long period of time.
To bring new skills to those schools out in West Texas is resonating well. And it is something the industry needs to continue to take ownership of and educate the communities in which we operate. And we have done that, and I think. And we will continue to do so.
Andy Stewart: Great. Thanks, Andy. Thanks, Chris.
Joseph Vafi: Much appreciated. Yeah. Thanks, Joe.
Operator: Thank you. This concludes the Q&A session. I would like to turn the call back over to Andy Stewart for any closing remarks.
Andy Stewart: No. Thank you, Michelle. Thank you, everyone, for joining us today. We appreciate your questions and your ongoing involvement and interest in IONIQ. And we are excited for the months ahead and to execute on our strategy and drive long term shareholder value. So thank you very much for joining.
Operator: Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect. Good day.
This article is a transcript of this conference call produced for The Motley Fool. While we strive for our Foolish Best, there may be errors, omissions, or inaccuracies in this transcript. Parts of this article were created using Large Language Models (LLMs) based on The Motley Fool's insights and investing approach. It has been reviewed by our AI quality control systems. Since LLMs cannot (currently) own stocks, it has no positions in any of the stocks mentioned. As with all our articles, The Motley Fool does not assume any responsibility for your use of this content, and we strongly encourage you to do your own research, including listening to the call yourself and reading the company's SEC filings. Please see our Terms and Conditions for additional details, including our Obligatory Capitalized Disclaimers of Liability.
The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.