RISK FACTORS
You should consider carefully the following risks, together with the other information included or incorporated by reference in this prospectus supplement and the accompanying prospectus, before making a decision to participate in an offering for the sale of the notes. We cannot assure you that any of the events discussed in the risk factors below will not occur. If they do, our business, financial condition or results of operations could be materially and adversely affected. In such case, the trading price of our securities, including the notes, could decline, and you might lose all or part of your investment.
Risks Relating to our Business
In addition to the risks set forth below, see the risk factors set forth in GATX Corporation’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2019 (the “Annual Report”), beginning on page 11, in GATX Corporation’s Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q for the quarters ended March 31, 2020, June 30, 2020 and September 30, 2020 (collectively, the “Quarterly Reports”), beginning on pages 37, 45 and 47, respectively, for a discussion of certain material risks relating to our businesses.
The global COVID-19 pandemic has had an adverse impact on our businesses and financial performance, and the duration and extent of the pandemic could prolong or increase the adverse impact. We are unable to predict the extent to which the pandemic and measures taken in response to the pandemic will adversely affect our personnel, operations, commercial activity, asset values, financial position or liquidity in the future.
We depend on continued demand from our customers to lease or use our transportation assets and services and on our customers’ ability to pay for leased assets and services. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has caused the slowdown of economic activity around the world (including a decrease in demand for a broad variety of goods and services), disruptions in global supply chains, a dramatic reduction in air travel, and significant volatility and disruption of financial markets, and we expect these impacts could continue for the foreseeable future. There has been reduced demand for leasing of certain railcar types and for aircraft spare engines, as well as downward pressure on lease rates and renewals, and asset disposition activity across our segments, which adversely affects our financial performance. Prolonged weakness in certain sectors of the global economy may make it difficult to lease certain types of our transportation assets that are returned either at lease end or due to customer bankruptcies or defaults. Additionally, there have been a number of requests from certain railcar- and aircraft spare engine-leasing customers for payment deferrals and rate restructurings, and we and our RRPF affiliates (as defined below) have made such accommodations for certain of those customers. The pandemic continues to threaten the solvency of airline operators who lease aircraft spare engines and increase the risk of their bankruptcies. We also face ongoing operational challenges from the need to protect employee health and safety, and have encountered and will continue to encounter ongoing workplace disruptions, temporary closures of our facilities, and reduced productivity, resulting in increased costs and adverse challenges for our rail operations. The pandemic has caused restrictions on the movement of people, raw materials and goods, including the need to limit employee travel, temporarily close facilities and offices, and implement work-from-home policies for employees. In particular, our remote work arrangements for employees, coupled with stay-at-home orders and quarantines, pose challenges for those employees and our IT systems, and extended periods of remote work arrangements could strain our business continuity plans, introduce operational risk, including cybersecurity and IT systems management risks. The situation surrounding COVID-19 is fluid, and if financial markets become disrupted or volatile, we could face heightened risks related to our financing activities, including limited availability of funding or increased funding costs, which could adversely affect our business, financial position, and results of operations.
Because the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic consequences are uncertain, rapidly changing, and difficult to predict, the pandemic’s impact on our operations, financial performance, and liquidity, as well as its impact on our ability to successfully execute our business strategy, remains uncertain and difficult to predict. Further, the ultimate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our operations and financial performance
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