Lineage, Inc. (LINE) Business
This page reproduces the company's own Item 1 Business text from the linked SEC filing. It is filer text, not grepcent analysis, scoring, or investment advice.
Informational only - not investment advice. See Disclaimer.
Item 1. Business
Overview
We are the world’s largest global temperature-controlled warehouse REIT, with a modern and strategically located network of properties. Our business is competitively positioned to deliver a seamless end-to-end, technology-enabled, customer experience for thousands of customers, each with their own unique requirements in the temperature-controlled supply chain. As of December 31, 2025, we operated an interconnected global temperature-controlled warehouse network, comprising approximately 88 million square feet and 3.1 billion cubic feet of capacity across 501 warehouses predominantly located in densely populated critical-distribution markets, with 326 in North America, 89 in Asia-Pacific, and 86 in Europe. We have a well-diversified and stable customer base and currently serve more than 11,000 customers that include household names of the largest food retailers, manufacturers, processors, and food service distributors in the industry. For the year ended December 31, 2025, we generated $5.4 billion of revenue, $0.1 billion of net loss, $1.7 billion of net operating income (“NOI”) and $1.3 billion of Adjusted EBITDA. For definitions of NOI and Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (“EBITDA”) and reconciliations of each of these non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measure, refer to the section titled “Non-GAAP Financial Measures” in Item 7. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations of this Annual Report.
Recent Acquisitions, Greenfields, and Expansions Highlights
During the year ended December 31, 2025, we acquired four cold storage warehouses and other related assets from Tyson Foods for $256 million. Additionally, we entered into an agreement to design, build, and operate two fully automated cold storage warehouses, with Tyson Foods as the anchor customer. In the second half of the year, we broke ground on the construction of one of these fully automated warehouses in Texas. In 2025, we also completed a new greenfield warehouse in Bremerhaven, Germany, and were near completion of a notable expansion at our Hobart, Indiana cold storage facility, which began operating in early 2026.
Our Business Segments
We view, manage, and report on our business through two segments:
•Global warehousing, which utilizes our high-quality industrial real estate properties to provide temperature-controlled warehousing storage and services to our customers and which represented approximately 86% of our total NOI for the year ended December 31, 2025; and
•Global integrated solutions, which complements warehousing with supply chain services to facilitate the movement of products through the food supply chain to generate cost savings for customers and additional revenue streams for our company and which represented approximately 14% of our total NOI for the year ended December 31, 2025.
Global Warehousing Segment
The backbone of our business is our mission-critical network of sophisticated, modern, and strategically-located temperature-controlled warehouses.
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Facilities in the Global Warehousing Segment
The following table provides information regarding the temperature-controlled warehouses in our global warehousing segment that we owned, leased, or managed in each of the regions in which we operated as of, or for the year ended, December 31, 2025.
| Region | Number of Warehouses | Cubic feet (in millions) | Percent of total cubic feet | Pallets positions (in thousands) | Average economic occupancy | Average physical occupancy | Revenues (in millions) | Segment NOI (in millions) | ||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| North America | 307 | 2,191 | 71.4 | % | 6,783 | 79.8 | % | 71.8 | % | $ | 2,898 | $ | 1,129 | |||||||||
| Europe | 86 | 638 | 20.8 | % | 2,715 | 83.6 | % | 81.9 | % | 687 | 228 | |||||||||||
| Asia-Pacific | 89 | 238 | 7.8 | % | 1,004 | 81.6 | % | 77.6 | % | 365 | 127 | |||||||||||
| Average/Total (1) | 482 | 3,067 | 100.0 | % | 10,502 | 81.0 | % | 75.1 | % | $ | 3,950 | $ | 1,484 | |||||||||
| (1) Excludes 19 warehouses in our global integrated solutions segment. We categorize warehouses as part of our global integrated solutions segment if the primary business conducted in those warehouses is within our global integrated solutions segment. |
As of December 31, 2025, the cubic-foot weighted average age of our portfolio was approximately 22 years, which we believe is significantly younger than that of the broader temperature-controlled industry. In addition, many of our warehouses may operate in a way that is functionally younger than their age given the substantial investments or refurbishments we have made that do not factor into the age calculation in areas such as maintenance, automation, energy efficiency, and sustainability. We believe we also have the largest automated temperature-controlled portfolio with 83 automated warehouses, 25 of which are fully automated and 58 of which are semi-automated.
Our Warehouse Types
As of December 31, 2025, we owned, operated, leased, and managed multiple types of temperature-controlled warehouses across our global network, which we group into four types: distribution, public, production advantaged, and managed warehouses.
•Distribution centers are warehouses that typically store products for multiple customers often in or near difficult to duplicate metropolitan, infill, or port locations.
•Public warehouses are warehouses that typically store products for multiple customers usually outside metropolitan and infill locations.
•Production advantaged warehouses are warehouses adjacent to or near customer production facilities.
•Managed warehouses are warehouses owned or leased by the customer for which we manage the warehouse operations on their behalf.
| Warehouse Type | Cubic Feet (in millions) | Pallet Positions (in thousands) | Number of Warehouses | Segment NOI(in millions) (2) | Percentageof Total NOI (2) | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Distribution | 2,139 | 7,021 | 290 | $ | 1,113 | 75.0 | % | ||||||
| Public | 540 | 2,139 | 139 | 186 | 12.5 | % | |||||||
| Production Advantaged | 270 | 1,099 | 40 | 158 | 10.7 | % | |||||||
| Managed /Other | 118 | 243 | 13 | 27 | 1.8 | % | |||||||
| Total (1) | 3,067 | 10,502 | 482 | $ | 1,484 | 100 | % | ||||||
| (1) Excludes 19 warehouses in our global integrated solutions segment. We categorize warehouses as part of our global integrated solutions segment if the primary business conducted in those warehouses is within our global integrated solutions segment. | |||||||||||||
| (2) For the year ended December 31, 2025. |
Our broad network of warehouses is weighted towards high population density markets and port locations, with a weighted average population density of approximately 3,000 persons per square mile and 248 port warehouses across our network. We define a warehouse as a port warehouse if it is within 30 miles of a port that performs commercial or trade-related activity.
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Geographic Diversification
We believe our geographic diversification provides additional stability through exposure to various markets and balancing different seasonality profiles. The United States comprised 68% of our global warehousing segment revenues for the year ended December 31, 2025, and within the United States, we are present in 36 states. Our portfolio includes locations in top metropolitan statistical areas with high population density, ports with significant global trade, transportation hubs with significant domestic trade, and critical food production areas.
Commodity Diversification
We store a wide variety of frozen and perishable food and other products in our temperature-controlled warehouses, such as seafood, packaged foods, proteins, fruits and vegetables, and dairy, at all stages of production from processing of raw materials to assembly of finished products. The diversity of the product mix in our temperature-controlled warehouses helps insulate us from commodity volatility, shifts in consumer preferences, and other macro-economic forces. The following chart sets forth information concerning the types of commodities that our customers store in our warehouses based on a percentage of our global warehousing segment revenues for the year ended December 31, 2025.
Commodity Type as Percentage of Global Warehousing Segment Revenue
Our Customer Contracts
Our global warehousing segment revenues are generated from storing frozen and perishable food and other products and providing related warehouse services for our customers. Storage revenues relate to the act of storing products for our customers within our warehouses. Warehouse services fees relate to handling and other services required to prepare and move customers’ pallets into, out of, and around the facilities. We utilize several types of contracts with our customers for use of space within our warehouses, depending upon the individual needs and characteristics of each customer. Refer to Item 7. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations in this Annual Report for detailed descriptions of our typical contractual arrangements.
Occupancy of our Warehouses
Economic and physical occupancy of an individual warehouse is impacted by a number of factors, including the type of warehouse (i.e., distribution, public, production advantaged, or managed), specific customer needs in the markets served by the warehouse, competitors in the market, timing of harvests or protein production for customers of the warehouse, the existence of leased but unoccupied pallet positions, and the effect of weather or market conditions on the customers of the warehouse. On a portfolio-wide basis, economic and physical occupancy rates and warehouse revenues generally peak between mid-September and early December in connection with the holiday season and the peak harvest season in the northern hemisphere. Economic and physical occupancy rates and warehouse revenues on a portfolio-wide basis are generally the lowest during June and July.
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Throughput at our Warehouses
The level and nature of throughput at our warehouses is an important factor impacting our warehouse services revenues. Throughput refers to the volume of inbound pallets that enter our warehouses plus the volume of outbound pallets that exit our warehouses, divided by two. Higher levels of throughput drive warehouse services revenues in our global warehousing segment, as customers are typically billed transactionally for these services.
Ownership of our Real Estate
As of December 31, 2025, we owned approximately 80% of our global warehousing portfolio as a percentage of square feet, including real estate for which we possess bargain purchase options and buildings on sites where we have ground leases, and we leased or managed approximately 20% of our global warehousing portfolio as a percentage of square feet.
Our Global Integrated Solutions Segment
Our global integrated solutions segment provides our customers with solutions to move products through the food supply chain. We operate several critical and value-added temperature-controlled business lines within our global integrated solutions segment, including, among others, transportation and refrigerated rail car leasing. Within transportation, which is the largest area within our global integrated solutions segment, our core focus areas are multi-vendor less-than-full-truckload consolidation, drayage services to and from ports, over-the-road trucking, and freight forwarding. We also provide foodservice distribution in select markets and e-commerce fulfillment services. For the year ended December 31, 2025, transportation and refrigerated rail car leasing together accounted for approximately 57% of our global integrated solutions segment revenue.
Our Competitive Strengths
We believe we are the premier technology-enabled temperature-controlled warehousing REIT in the world, as evidenced by the following competitive strengths:
We are the global leader in a fragmented industry with meaningful scale and network benefits.
We are the largest temperature-controlled warehousing company globally by cubic feet of storage space, including in some of the world’s largest developed markets, such as the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Continental Europe, Australia, and New Zealand.
Approximately 95% of our global warehousing segment revenues are from countries in which our local network of temperature-controlled warehouses is the largest, as measured by cubic feet of capacity. The interconnected nature of our global warehouse network aligns with the global nature of many of our customers, allowing us to provide warehousing services to many of them across multiple geographies. On average, our top 25 customers utilize approximately 22 of our facilities per customer, and seven of our top ten customers use our facilities in multiple countries. Importantly, we believe customers equate the Lineage brand with service, quality, and safety around the world, which provides an advantage over local competitors.
We believe that our network and the economies of scale in our business drive operational leverage and allow us to invest in customer service and technology, which, in turn, attracts more customers. With a larger customer base, we believe that we can leverage our resources more efficiently, supporting strong profitability. Moreover, our large customer base enables us to gather and analyze vast amounts of data. We believe that this data-driven approach empowers us to continuously refine our operations, improve productivity, and lower operating costs, creating a “win-win” scenario for both our customers and Lineage.
We believe that it would be difficult and costly to replace or replicate our network of temperature-controlled facilities given the high and rising value of industrial land, difficulties in obtaining land and zoning entitlements and approvals, and the significant and increasing construction costs of temperature-controlled warehouses. We have a deep sales pipeline via the largest existing customer base and sales group in the industry, a recognized and respected brand among customers, the broadest suite of temperature-controlled services through our global integrated solutions segment, our innovative technology, extensive development experience, a broad industry knowledge base, and a flexible balance sheet and favorable cost of capital. In addition, we believe that our skilled and experienced team of approximately 24,000 team members provide a differentiated service that would be difficult to replicate, as many of them are trained to operate in a highly-specialized environment while complying with stringent food safety requirements.
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Our high quality portfolio is located in highly desirable and strategic locations around the world.
Our cubic-foot weighted average facility age is approximately 22 years, which we believe is significantly younger than that of the broader temperature-controlled warehousing industry. Moreover, our portfolio includes 83 fully- and semi-automated warehouses, which we believe is the most of any cold storage provider in the world, making our network the most technologically advanced in our industry. We believe that modern warehouses are more desirable to our customers because of their increased operational efficiency and enhanced ability to meet today’s most sophisticated customer needs.
We have a robust presence in key metropolitan statistical areas and ports throughout the United States, with a larger number of warehouses in such locations relative to our largest competitor, which drives a significantly higher weighted average population density of approximately 3,000 persons per square mile.
We have a particularly strong presence in top-tier U.S. markets, including New York/New Jersey, Los Angeles and Southern California, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Kansas City, Denver, Philadelphia, Miami, Atlanta, Boston, the Bay Area and Northern California, Seattle and the Pacific Northwest. We consider these U.S. markets to be key geographies, as we believe they have among the highest industrial real estate values and lowest cap rates in our industry.
For the year ended December 31, 2025, 75% of our global warehousing NOI was from distribution centers and approximately 45% of our global warehousing NOI was from warehouses located near ports, many of which are in the key distribution markets. This solidifies the mission-critical nature of our portfolio in highly desirable locations for imports, exports, and local consumption and distribution. We believe our facilities are strategic to our customer base with locations that serve as critical hubs within their supply chains.
Our business is highly diversified across geographies, commodities and a high-quality, loyal customer base.
Our business profile is highly diversified, which reduces risks to our cash flows from potential headwinds linked to any one facility, market, commodity, food consumption channel, or customer. We operate 501 warehouses globally, with no facility accounting for more than 1.4% of revenues during the year ended December 31, 2025.
We offer a broad range of warehousing services and integrated solutions around the world for a variety of customers with complex requirements in the food supply chain. As of December 31, 2025, we served more than 11,000 customers around the world across numerous commodity categories and with complex requirements in the food supply chain. Approximately 33.0% of our total revenue for the year ended December 31, 2025 came from our top 25 customers. Our customer base was highly diversified, with no customer accounting for more than 3.6% of revenues for the year ended December 31, 2025.
The stability of our business is further supported by long-term contracts with most of our largest customers by revenues in our global warehousing segment. These long-term contracts often include minimum storage guarantees that generate minimum or fixed storage revenues regardless of whether the underlying pallet positions are occupied. As of December 31, 2025, 46.1% of Lineage’s storage revenues were subject to minimum storage guarantees.
Our customer base is loyal, with a weighted average customer relationship, including relationships with legacy companies we acquired, of over 30 years across our current top 25 customers based on revenues for the year ended December 31, 2025. The relationship lengths include periods where a customer was a customer of acquired companies prior to their acquisition. We believe this loyalty is driven by:
•the mission-critical role we play in our customers’ cold chain;
•the expansive and interconnected nature of our warehouse network;
•the locations of our warehouses and the services we offer;
•the comprehensive suite of integrated solutions that we offer to our customers; and
•excellent customer service and innovative technologies.
Through a combination of our vast warehouse network, integrated solutions, innovative technology, and dedicated team of supply chain professionals, we strive to deliver the highest quality of service to our customers, tailored to their specific product and location needs. Our commitment to customer satisfaction is evident in our long-standing partnerships with some of the world’s largest and most critical food producers and retailers, as well as a reputation as a trusted strategic partner in the food supply chain industry.
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Our complementary, value-added global integrated solutions segment drives customer value, retention and growth.
In addition to our temperature-controlled warehousing operations, we offer a comprehensive suite of value-added integrated solutions that we believe are highly complementary and valuable to our warehouse customers. These services deepen our customer relationships by providing an “all services under one roof” experience and promoting cross-sell opportunities. Given the majority of our customers’ supply chain costs come from product movement versus storage, this integration provides a value-added benefit to warehousing customers of reducing transport costs while enabling us to generate additional revenue on the same product stored.
Our highly synergistic platform differentiates us from our competitors, supports a strong win rate with new business, enhances customer loyalty, and increases the value of our warehousing business.
We believe we are an innovative industry leader driving disruption with differentiated technology.
In a traditionally analog, fragmented, and family-owned industry, we believe that our innovation and large-scale deployment of cutting-edge technology provides a comprehensive service offering for our customers that enhances our competitive position relative to our peers, while driving industry-leading growth and margins. We have invested heavily into transformational technology initiatives, which include developing, acquiring, and deploying both proprietary operating systems and third-party platforms, migrating workloads to the cloud, implementing SaaS-based tools, rolling out next-generation software-defined wide-area network (“SD-WAN”), and upgrading our core human capital and financial ERP software. These initiatives are strategically designed to standardize, integrate, and enhance the technological framework across our enterprise. In addition, our deliberate and forward-thinking focus has allowed us to create what we believe is the largest automated portfolio in the industry with 83 fully- and semi-automated warehouses backed by innovative proprietary software and an in-house automation team. Due to the increasing demand for automated solutions from our customers, the higher construction cost of automated warehouses, and the complexity of implementing automated solutions, we expect the growth of automation in our warehouse network to be a key differentiator for Lineage over time.
We use a standardized and disciplined approach to apply our best practices to integrating acquired companies. This has been a core part of our strategy since our inception. We seek to integrate our network onto our common technology systems to standardize operations and increase productivity. As of December 31, 2025, approximately 97% of our global warehousing segment revenue for the year ended December 31, 2025 was integrated on our human capital and financial ERP software. As of December 31, 2025, approximately 67% of our global warehousing segment revenue for the year ended December 31, 2025 flowed through one of our four Core WMS, excluding facilities leased to customers and managed warehouses. We expect increased penetration of our four Core WMS throughout our network to drive operational productivity, reduce general and administrative expenses, and accelerate our ability to deploy digital technology solutions network-wide. As of December 31, 2025, all of our global warehousing segment revenue was reporting on metricsOne, a proprietary operating KPI dashboard that provides enhanced visibility into our operational execution, labor, safety, and financial performance.
We have developed Lineage Link, a proprietary customer visibility platform that empowers customers to actively manage their inventories, orders, shipments, and transportation appointment scheduling across our warehouse network, which seeks to drive incremental NOI through increased efficiencies for customers and Lineage. Through December 31, 2025, Lineage Link had been rolled out across approximately 74% of our network, as measured by global warehousing segment revenues for the year ended December 31, 2025, and we are in the process of further growing its penetration. We believe these technologies will support customer retention as we improve our responsiveness to our customers’ complex and evolving needs. We are in the initial phases of deploying proprietary operating systems and third-party platforms to seek to drive NOI yield, operational productivity and process automation across our warehouse network and thereby drive margin improvement.
Our specialized warehouse execution system, LinOS, is engineered to boost our operational efficiency. It employs unique, patented algorithms to optimize task allocation among team members and strategically prioritize tasks within our warehouses. Currently operational in select automated facilities and piloted in select conventional warehouses, LinOS shows significant potential for extensive deployment across our warehouse network.
Additionally, our general and administrative spend currently includes substantial growth and technology investments, which we refer to as transformational technology G&A, such as the development and subsequent deployment of our technology operating systems. Once fully integrated, we believe we will benefit from operating leverage, as these new investments are spread across our growing portfolio.
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We have a strong and flexible balance sheet, and we have demonstrated access to debt and equity capital to support growth.
As of December 31, 2025, 92% of our debt is unsecured and 83% of our debt is fixed or interest rate hedged, and our total liquidity, including cash on hand and available revolver capacity, is $1.9 billion, supporting our external growth strategy. Additionally, our Revolving Credit Facility provides flexibility in funding our greenfield and expansion development pipeline and future acquisition opportunities, while our owned real estate provides us flexibility to access various financing options that may not be available otherwise and, in turn, allows us to access financing markets with the goal of minimizing our cost of capital. We may also attempt to access property-level secured debt, bank debt and the unsecured bond market, in each case across multiple currencies and geographies, which would provide us with capital-raising flexibility to fund our operations. Substantially all of our assets are unencumbered as of December 31, 2025, which we believe provides us with the ability to upsize our facilities while maintaining future flexibility. We intend to preserve a flexible capital structure with an investment grade profile. We believe that our balance sheet flexibility and strength will allow us to continue expanding our business and pursue new growth opportunities.
Our Growth Strategy
Our objective is to maximize stockholder value by growing our business to expand solutions for our customers, creating opportunities for new and existing team members and driving innovation across our business and the supply chain to create efficiencies and increase sustainability. Our self-reinforcing strategy includes:
•Growing our same warehouse NOI and free cash flow through numerous organic business initiatives we have developed over many years. This helps delever our balance sheet and creates capacity for new investments.
•Having our strong cash flows and our tax efficient REIT structure help to create an efficient and attractive cost of capital to support our inorganic growth.
•Deploying our capital into a deep pipeline of investments within our existing facilities, accretive greenfield and expansion development projects, and acquisition opportunities at returns in excess of our cost of capital.
•Using our organic business initiatives and driving operational and administrative synergies to seek to grow our same warehouse NOI and cash flows post investment.
Same Warehouse Growth
We expect to organically grow our warehouse business through the following business initiatives:
Maximize our same warehouse NOI growth through occupancy and commercial optimization initiatives.
We seek to grow our same warehouse NOI through occupancy and commercial optimization initiatives. Our occupancy initiatives are highlighted by a focus on optimizing physical warehouse occupancy and improving economic occupancy through increased use of minimum storage guarantees, while our commercial optimization initiatives are enabled by customer profitability tools and allowing us to align rates charged to customers with our cost to serve.
•Optimizing Physical Warehouse Occupancy Through Increased Utilization. Increases in warehouse physical occupancy generate high flow-through to NOI due to operational leverage. We seek to optimize physical occupancy in our existing warehouse network by winning new customers, expanding our business with existing customers, and more efficiently matching customer profiles to the best available pallet positions in our markets. We support these initiatives with a team of sales and customer account management people who are focused on using the Lineage network to solve customers’ supply chain needs.
•Increasing use of Minimum Storage Guarantees to Improve Economic Occupancy. We believe that transitioning certain customer contracts from on-demand, as-utilized structures to minimum storage guarantee structures will drive greater consistency of our NOI by increasing revenue predictability and enabling us to better manage our labor force while meeting customers’ needs. This strategy helps maintain our storage revenues during periods of lower inventories matching ongoing revenue streams with fixed warehousing costs while allowing customers to reserve space to meet their needs. We believe that implementing minimum storage guarantees will continue to boost recurring revenue and enhance stability of cash flows, while allowing customers to plan for periods of increased need by reserving capacity and ultimately enabling a better temperature-controlled warehousing experience for our customers.
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•Commercial Optimization Initiatives. We employ three main types of customer contracts: warehouse agreements, rate letters and tariff sheets. We also earn rent under lease agreements pursuant to which we lease a portion of a warehouse or an entire warehouse. Warehouse agreements and rate letters generally provide us with some flexibility to pass on rate increases to customers during the term of the contract. Warehouse agreements and rate letters often also include mechanisms to adjust rates for inflationary cost increases and customer profile changes, while tariff sheets are short-term in nature and can generally be updated upon 30 days advance notice. We are generally able to translate industry-wide rent increases into storage rate increases to customers, and our various rate adjustment mechanisms generally allow us to pass on both storage and handling rate increases to customers as necessary to account for inflation in operational costs such as wages, power, and warehouse supplies as well. Additionally, we have been refining an array of tools to evaluate relative customer profitability so that we are allocating our warehouse space to the customers that value it the most.
•Aligning Rates with Cost to Serve. We are deploying technologies such as a third-party contracting and invoicing platform to professionalize our commercial optimization capabilities across our company. We are driving standardization of rates across our warehouse network as well as seeking to implement standardized billing practices so that we are adequately compensated for all services performed. Incremental cost to serve charges capturing previously unbilled services are anticipated to support NOI growth as these initiatives are implemented across our warehouse network. In addition, to deliver the best service and most efficient cost to serve, we seek to closely monitor agreed-upon customer profiles in our contracts and make pricing adjustments as necessary to compensate for variances.
Further implement productivity and cost containment measures to grow same warehouse NOI.
We seek to grow our NOI by reducing our operating expenses with a specific emphasis on two of the largest cost drivers facing the temperature-controlled warehouse industry: labor and energy.
•Labor Productivity. Labor and benefits represent the largest variable cost of operating a temperature-controlled warehouse. We employ multiple strategies to maximize labor productivity, such as our focus on lean operating principles and our emphasis on team member retention. The implementation of lean operating principles drives operational excellence, which we believe leads to greater productivity and consistency over time, resulting in better customer service and better operating results in certified warehouses. We anticipate the implementation of these operating principles will support NOI growth as we significantly expand internal certification in our portfolio from 93 warehouses certified out of 501 total warehouses as of December 31, 2025. We internally certify warehouses based on their progression across six categories—culture, standardized work, visual management, problem solving, just-in-time, and quality process. Our focus on labor retention through total rewards, market wage benchmarking, team member onboarding, and training leads to increased tenure and reduced turnover, which generally increases productivity, reduces recruiting costs, and has knock-on benefits in other areas of the warehouse, such as reduced maintenance expense and claims, as well as better customer service.
•Energy Efficiency. We seek to maximize energy efficiency in our warehouses through the application of best practices, implementation of the latest technology and generation of alternative sources of energy. Our best practices include energy hedging strategies and a centralized energy and sustainability team that deploys these initiatives across our network to drive standardization and minimization of energy waste. The technologies we deploy to optimize energy efficiency include variable frequency drives, advanced refrigeration control systems, rapid close doors, motion sensor technology, LED lighting, and flywheeling. Our approach to generating alternative sources of energy is primarily through the deployment of onsite solar, onsite battery capacity, and onsite generators. Our focus on energy efficiency in our portfolio helps us to manage our operating costs and drive NOI margins and growth while also supporting our sustainability initiatives.
Transform the industry through our data science driven approach to warehouse control and design.
Our productivity and process automation initiatives are supported by our in-house data science team, which provides data-driven business intelligence and innovations to maximize operational efficiencies, revenues, profitability, energy efficiency, and cash flows. Our innovations have yielded 169 patents issued and 134 patents pending as of December 31, 2025, in such areas as facility design, methods and mechanisms for operating facilities, refrigeration and thermodynamic designs and cold-rated instrumentation. These innovations offer numerous ways to potentially grow our NOI, including through optimization of our conventional racking systems, algorithms that better allocate tasks in the warehouse and improvements in electricity consumption
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for blast freezing. We believe that many of these innovations have now been successfully piloted and can be rolled out to other similar use cases.
Capital Deployment
A cross functional network optimization, data science and automation team has overseen major greenfield and expansion projects. We have spent significant time and cost to establish a team of experts in construction, energy, automation, and innovation, and we believe our development process and expertise, together with our robust pipeline of facility expansions and greenfield development, has the potential ability to drive future growth and ongoing value to our stockholders.
Our acquisition strategy targets profitable businesses with strategic, high-quality assets that complement our network and customers’ needs. These businesses often present opportunities to accretively deploy capital and recognize revenue and cost synergies.
We intend to continue our track record of accretive capital deployment through the following business initiatives:
Invest in potentially accretive projects across our existing facilities to enhance same warehouse growth.
We continually evaluate opportunities to drive organic growth within our existing facilities through accretive capital deployment into high economic return on capital opportunities, such as re-racking projects to increase pallet capacity, installation of opportunity chargers, solar projects to improve energy efficiency and the addition of blast cell capacity. In addition to potentially generating incremental revenues and NOI, return-on-capital projects are intended to enhance our facilities’ ability to best serve our customers’ needs with the most advanced and customized solutions available.
Execute on our greenfield and existing facility expansion initiatives.
Because of our reputation for delivering innovative new development projects and the benefits of participating in our industry-leading warehouse network, customers often choose to partner with us for their largest and most important projects. In addition, we have spent considerable time and investment establishing an in-house warehouse network optimization team comprised of warehouse design, automation, and construction experts. We expect our development expertise will continue to support our growth as we realize the returns on our recently completed greenfield and expansion projects and deliver on our industry-leading pipeline of greenfield development and expansion opportunities.
•Recently Completed Greenfield and Expansion Projects. Since January 1, 2023 through December 31, 2025, we completed the following greenfield and expansion projects:
| Recently Completed Projects | Square Feet (in millions) | Cubic Feet (in millions) | Pallet Positions (in thousands) | Total Cost(in millions) (1) | Year Ended December 31, 2025RevenueLess OperatingExpenses(in millions) | Weighted Average Targeted NOI Yield | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15 | 2.5 | 113 | 382 | $757 | $34 | 9% | ||||||
| (1) Includes approximately $6 million of remaining spend. |
No assurance can be given that our weighted average targeted NOI yield range will be achieved.
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•Industry-Leading Pipeline of Greenfield and Expansion Opportunities.
•Under Construction Pipeline. As of December 31, 2025, we had the following greenfield development and expansion projects under construction:
| Under Construction Projects | Estimated Square Feet (in millions) | Estimated Cubic Feet (in millions) | Estimated Pallet Positions (in thousands) | Estimated Total Cost (in millions) | Remaining Spend (in millions) | Year Ended December 31, 2025RevenueLess OperatingExpenses(in millions) | Weighted Average Target NOI Yield | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9 | 1.9 | 144 | 443 | $1,095 | $679 | ($3) | 10% |
No assurance can be given that we will complete any of these projects on the terms currently contemplated, or at all, that the actual cost or completion dates of any of these projects will not exceed our estimates or that the targeted NOI yield range of these projects will be consistent with our current projects.
Our proprietary technology and unique approach to automation enables us to provide customers with truly customizable solutions to address their warehouse needs. All of our development projects are designed in-house based on actual customer data and profiles. Unique to our industry, we have developed proprietary automation control software that helps us optimize our automated warehouse operations. For new developments, because we own our own software, we can select the best hardware regardless of manufacturer, to build what we believe are the most cost-effective and most advanced automated warehouses in our industry. We intend to continue our leadership in temperature-controlled warehouse automation through development of next-generation automated warehouses as part of our pipeline. We anticipate approximately 89% of the total added pallet positions of our warehouses under construction as of December 31, 2025 will be fully automated. Automated warehouses generally produce a lower cost to serve and lower resource consumption, presenting an attractive solution to our customers and positioning us well to win new business and grow our cash flows from operations.
•Future Long-Term Pipeline. As of December 31, 2025, we owned approximately 1,513 acres of undeveloped land or “Land Bank” in addition to the owned land included in our under-construction pipeline. Our Land Bank has an estimated cost to replace as of December 31, 2025 of approximately $459 million based on broker inquiries, comparable land sales, and our internal estimates. We continue to evaluate strategic opportunities for future greenfield development and expansion opportunities in markets with attractive growth prospects and in partnerships with our customers.
| Estimated Land Bank (in acres) | EstimatedSquare Feet(in millions) (1) | EstimatedCubic Feet(in millions) (1) | EstimatedPallet Positions(in millions) (1) | Estimated Costto Replace(in millions) (2) | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| North America | 1,292 | 16.6 | 688 | 2.3 | $ | 326 | |||||
| Europe | 182 | 2.8 | 102 | 0.3 | 81 | ||||||
| Asia-Pacific | 39 | 0.6 | 21 | 0.1 | 52 | ||||||
| Total | 1,513 | 20.0 | 811 | 2.7 | $ | 459 | |||||
| (1) Square feet, cubic feet and pallet positions reflect potential capacity undeveloped land can support through future greenfield development and expansion based on typical warehouse designs. | |||||||||||
| (2) Estimated cost to replace is based on broker inquiries, comparable land sales, and our internal estimates as of December 31, 2025. |
Capitalize on strategically attractive and financially accretive acquisition opportunities.
The temperature-controlled warehousing sector remains highly fragmented and is generally comprised of many family-owned and independent companies that may lack the capital, technology, customer relationships, development expertise, technical knowledge, and management sophistication that we possess. While new supply of temperature-controlled warehousing capacity has come online in recent years, we believe that there remain select markets with opportunities to continue to execute on our proven acquisition strategy, which targets profitable businesses with strategic, high-quality assets that complement our warehouse
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network and customers’ needs. In addition to operating businesses, there also remain real estate opportunities to acquire triple-net-leased facilities and execute sale-leaseback transactions with customers and other cold storage operators.
•Status as an Acquirer of Choice Supports Strategic Acquisition Opportunities. We believe we are an acquirer of choice in the industry, as demonstrated by our long history of executing strategic acquisitions through direct sourcing and long-term relationships with their owners. We have extensive experience acquiring cold chain companies of all sizes. In the last 18 years through December 31, 2025, we have executed 126 acquisitions with nearly two-thirds of those proprietarily sourced, with the remainder coming to fruition through successful bidding in advisor-led sale processes. In addition, we believe we enjoy multiple advantages when participating in sale processes, including our prolific transaction experience, track record of quickly closing transactions, and our flexible balance sheet.
•Multiple Levers to Drive Value Creation Post Acquisitions. As described above in our other internal and external growth strategies, we can drive value creation through multiple levers, including revenue growth, cost efficiencies, deployment of capital and implementation of technology. Our proprietary integration playbook includes over 500 steps to completion and has been refined throughout the last decade to develop a consistent and successful game plan for acquisition integration. As acquisitions are incorporated into the Lineage network, the opportunity set for deploying these strategies grows. We have a standardized and disciplined approach to integrating acquired companies while bringing acquired team members into the Lineage family. Through this approach and an open mindset to learn and adopt best practices of newly acquired businesses, we can seek to capitalize on growth opportunities beyond the acquisition date.
Seasonality
We are involved in providing services to food producers, distributors and retailers whose businesses, in some cases, are seasonal. On a portfolio-wide basis, economic and physical occupancy rates and warehouse revenues generally peak between mid-September and early December in connection with the holiday season and the peak harvest season in the northern hemisphere. Economic and physical occupancy rates and warehouse revenues on a portfolio-wide basis are generally the lowest during June and July. The diversification of our business across different commodities mitigates, in part, the impact of seasonality as peak demand for various products occurs at different times of the year (for example, demand for ice cream is typically highest in the summer while demand for frozen turkeys usually peaks in the late fall). Our southern hemisphere operations in Australia and New Zealand also help balance the impact of seasonality in our global operations, as their growing and harvesting cycles are complementary to North America and Europe. Each of our warehouses sets its own operating hours based on demand, which is heavily driven by growing seasons and seasonal consumer demand for certain products.
Power Costs
The temperature-controlled warehouse business is power-intensive. Keeping food products refrigerated or frozen requires substantial amounts of power and managing power costs is a priority for us and our customers. Power costs accounted for 8.8% of our total global warehousing segment cost of operations for the year ended December 31, 2025. We seek to maximize energy efficiency in our warehouses through the application of best practices, the latest technology, and alternative energy generation.
•Application of Best Practices: Certain jurisdictions and regions in which we operate, including Texas, Illinois, the Northeast United States, Europe, New Zealand, and Australia, have deregulated market-based electricity exchanges. To manage our exposure to volatile power prices, we have entered, and may continue to enter, into arrangements to fix power costs for all or a portion of our anticipated electricity requirements. The durations of these forward contracts are generally one to three years. In addition, we employ a centralized energy and sustainability team that we deploy across our network to promote standardization and minimization of energy waste.
•Modern Technologies: The technologies we deploy to optimize energy efficiency include variable frequency drives, refrigeration control systems, rapid close doors, motion sensor technology, LED lighting and flywheeling. Further, we believe that automated warehouses can significantly reduce energy intensity as compared to conventional warehouses. Select recent examples within our network indicate reductions of approximately 22% as measured by kWh usage per pallet position in automated warehouses relative to conventional warehouses in the same metropolitan areas.
•Alternative Energy Generation: We are also focused on generating alternative sources of energy through on-site solar, battery storage and linear generators. Our energy strategy allows us to buy power at a cheaper cost and
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monetize carbon credits to offset energy costs. Through solar systems at our facilities, we had installed capacity of 222 megawatts of solar energy as of December 31, 2025.
In addition to maximizing energy efficiency, when appropriate we seek to pass through increases in power costs to our customers.
Trademarks
The name “Lineage” and the Lineage logo are registered trademarks. We have established considerable goodwill with customers under this brand name and believe its reputation in our industry is a strong competitive advantage.
Regulatory Matters
General
Many laws and governmental regulations are applicable to our properties and changes in these laws and regulations, or interpretation of such laws and regulations by agencies and the courts, occur frequently. Although we incur costs to comply with applicable federal, state, local, and foreign provisions relating to governmental regulations, including environmental regulations, in the ordinary course of our business, such costs have not materially affected, and are not presently expected to materially affect, our capital expenditures, earnings, or competitive position.
Environmental Matters
Our operations are subject to a wide range of international, United States federal, state, and local environmental laws and regulations in each of the locations in which we operate, and compliance with these requirements involves expertise, significant capital expenditures, and operating costs.
Most of our warehouses utilize anhydrous ammonia (“NH3”) as a refrigerant. Anhydrous ammonia is classified as a hazardous chemical regulated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) and various other agencies in the locations in which we operate, and an accident or a significant release of anhydrous ammonia from one of our properties could result in injuries, loss of life, and property damage. Releases of anhydrous ammonia may occur at our warehouses from time to time due to routine maintenance or an unanticipated mechanical failure. Our warehouses also may have under-floor heating systems, some of which utilize chemicals such as ethylene glycol; releases from these systems could potentially contaminate soil and groundwater. Although we cannot predict the extent of our liabilities as a result of such incidents, we expect any related product damage claims to be covered by insurance, subject to applicable deductibles. Our warehouses have risk management programs required by U.S. Department of Labor Occupational Safety and Health Administration (“OSHA”), the EPA, and other regulatory agencies.
Food Safety Regulations
Most of our warehouses are subject to compliance with federal regulations regarding food safety. Under the Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002, the United States Food and Drug Administration, or the FDA, requires us to register all warehouses in which food is stored and further requires us to maintain records of sources and recipients of food for purposes of food recalls. The Food Safety Modernization Act, or FSMA, was signed into law in January 2011 and significantly expanded the FDA’s authority over food safety, providing the FDA with new tools to proactively ensure the safety of the entire food system, including for example, new hazard analysis and preventive controls requirements, food safety planning, requirements for sanitary transportation of food, increased inspections, and mandatory food recalls under certain circumstances. Since the adoption of FSMA, the FDA has issued many new food safety-related final rules, some of which impact our business. The most significant new rule which impacts our business is the Current Good Manufacturing Practice and Hazard Analysis and Risk-Based Preventive Controls for Human Food rule. This rule requires a food facility to establish a food safety system that includes an analysis of hazards and the implementation of risk-based preventive controls, among other steps. This is in addition to requirements that we satisfy existing Good Manufacturing Practices with respect to the holding of foods, as set forth in FDA regulations. The USDA also grants to some of our warehouses “ID status,” which entitles us to handle products of the USDA. As a result of the regulatory framework from the FDA, the USDA, and other local regulatory requirements, we subject our warehouses to annual third-party food safety audits. Our third-party food safety audits are conducted by certified providers, including SAI Global, AIB International, Mérieux Nutrisciences, ASI, and NSF, following the one of the following schemes: Good Distribution Practices (“GDP”) or a Global Food Safety Initiative (“GFSI”) scheme, such as Safe Quality Foods (“SQF”) or Brand Recognition through Compliance Global Standards (“BRCGS”) audit programs.
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Occupational Safety and Health Act
Our properties located in the U.S. are subject to regulation under OSHA, which requires employers to provide employees with an environment free from recognized hazards likely to cause death or serious physical harm and includes regulations related to exposure to toxic chemicals, excessive noise levels, mechanical dangers, heat or cold stress, and unsanitary conditions. In addition, due to the amount of anhydrous ammonia stored at some of our facilities, we are also subject to compliance with OSHA’s Process Safety Management of Highly Hazardous Chemicals standard and OSHA’s ongoing National Emphasis Program related to potential releases of highly hazardous chemicals. The cost of complying with OSHA and similar laws enacted by states and other jurisdictions in which we operate can be substantial.
International Regulations
Our international facilities are subject to many local laws and regulations which govern a wide range of matters, including food safety, building, environmental, health and safety, hazardous substances and waste minimization, as well as specific requirements for the storage of meat, dairy products, fish, poultry, agricultural, and other products. Any products destined for export must also satisfy the applicable export requirements.
Other Regulations
Our properties are also subject to various federal, state, and local regulatory requirements, such as fire and safety requirements. Failure to comply with these requirements could result in the imposition of fines by governmental authorities or awards of damages to private litigants. We believe that our properties are currently in substantial compliance with all such regulatory requirements.
Insurance
We carry insurance for the risks arising out of our business and operations, including coverage on all of our properties in an amount that we believe adequately covers any potential casualty losses. However, there are certain losses that we are not generally insured against or that we are not generally fully insured against because it is not deemed economically feasible or prudent to do so. In addition, changes in the cost or availability of insurance could expose us to uninsured casualty losses. In the event that any of our properties incurs a casualty loss that is not covered by insurance (in part or at all), the value of our assets will be reduced by the amount of any such uninsured loss, and we could experience a significant loss of capital invested and potential revenues in these properties.
Competition
In our Global Warehousing segment, the principal competitive factors are warehouse location, warehouse and yard size, space availability, warehouse type, design/layout, number of temperature zones, types of service, degree of automation and price. For refrigerated food customers, transportation costs are typically significantly greater than warehousing costs and, accordingly, location and transportation capabilities are major competitive factors. The size of a warehouse is important in part because customers generally prefer to have all of their products needed to serve a given market in a single location and to have the flexibility to increase storage at that single location during seasonal peaks. Some food producers and distributors attend to their own warehousing and distribution needs by either building or leasing warehouses, creating a private warehousing market which may compete with the public warehouse industry. Many customers, including those for whom private warehousing is a viable option, will select distribution services based upon service level and price, provided that an appropriate network of related storage facilities is available. In this segment, we compete with Americold, NewCold, and local operators which vary by geography, such as US Cold, Interstate Warehousing, FreezPak Logistics, Nichirei, Constellation Cold, Conestoga, Congebec, and Magnavale.
In our Global Integrated Solutions segment, competition is highly fragmented by service offering and geography, and we do not believe that we have a single global competitor across offerings and geographies. In temperature-controlled transportation, the principal competitive factors include service, capacity and rates. In refrigerated rail car leasing, the principal competitive factors include car reliability, car thermal performance, repair and maintenance capabilities, and price. Our main competitors in temperature-controlled transportation include Americold, US Cold, and CH Robinson, while in refrigerated rail car leasing, our main competitor is Trinity Rail. Examples of other significant local competitors include DFDS, Wolter Koops, Primafrio, Erb Transport, and Midland Transport.
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Human Capital Resources
We are committed to creating a work environment which supports the growth and success of our team members. We have employees located throughout the world. As of December 31, 2025, we employed approximately 24,000 people worldwide.
The geographic distribution of our team members as of December 31, 2025 is summarized in the following table:
| Region | Number of team members (in thousands) | Percentage of workforce | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| North America | 17 | 70.9 | % | ||
| Europe | 5 | 20.8 | % | ||
| Asia-Pacific | 2 | 8.3 | % | ||
| Total | 24 | 100.0 | % |
As of December 31, 2025, fewer than 5% of our approximately 16,000 team members in the United States were represented by various local labor unions and associations. Globally (including the United States), approximately 15% (based on team members for whom we are able to ascertain union status) or 22% (assuming that the entire 8% of our team members for whom we are not able to ascertain union status due to applicable privacy or freedom of association laws are represented by labor unions and associations) of our total team members were represented by various local labor unions and associations.
Safety and Wellbeing
At Lineage, “safe” is our first value. The safety of our team members is our number one priority. Our team members receive safety training and conduct emergency response drills throughout the year to equip them with the knowledge and tools that will allow them to conduct their daily tasks safely. Our team members are provided with personal protective equipment appropriate for the performance of their job functions. Lineage has robust safety and compliance policies and programs, and we track safety and compliance metrics throughout the year. Our total global recordable incidence rate (“TIR”) for the year ended December 31, 2025 was 3.6, as compared to an average TIR of 4.2 across applicable sector industries, based on the most recently published data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. TIR is a measure of occupational health and safety based on the number of recordable safety incidents reported against the number of hours worked based on the OSHA record-keeping criteria (injuries per 200,000 hours).
Lineage prioritizes near miss reporting and has a Behavioral Based Safety (“BBS”) Program throughout the network as well as deploys wearable technology at high-risk operations to monitor and reinforce safe working behaviors by actively addressing observations, as well as providing constructive feedback to address “at risk” behaviors.
Because our most valuable asset is our people, we are constantly looking to give team members the wellbeing support they need with the goal of having a healthier and more engaged workforce. Through our comprehensive health and medical benefits, including our Team Member Assistance programs that offer holistic mental health and other benefits to team members and their families, team members have access to a wide range of care options. We look at wellbeing from a holistic perspective inclusive of physical and mental wellness and prioritize psychological safety in addition to physical safety.
Inclusion and Belonging
The range of our team members’ experiences, backgrounds, and perspectives is fundamental to our culture and supports our ability to innovate and operate effectively. We are committed to fostering a working environment in which team members, customers, and community partners are treated with dignity and respect. We seek to identify, reduce, and eliminate barriers that may limit full participation or advancement, and we recruit, hire, and promote talent based on skills, knowledge, experience, and performance. We are an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants and team members receive consideration without regard to race, color, national origin, ancestry, religion, genetic information, physical or mental disability, marital status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, veteran status, political affiliation, physical appearance, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law.
We regularly evaluate compensation practices to assess equity across roles and levels and address identified pay disparities, as appropriate. We also invest in team member development through a range of formal and informal learning opportunities designed to support professional growth, leadership development, and continuous improvement. Our commitment to inclusion and belonging is further reflected in our Employee Resource Groups (ERGs), which are open to all team members and serve as forums for connection, learning, and engagement across the organization. These groups help strengthen our culture, inform business practices, and support talent development. Our approach to inclusion and belonging is grounded in our six core values — safety,
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trust, respect, innovation, boldness, and servant leadership — which guide how we develop our people, collaborate across teams, and recognize contributions throughout the organization.
Total Rewards
We provide programs and benefits designed to attract, retain and reward high-performing team members. In addition to salaries or hourly wages, our compensation programs, which are market-based, can include performance incentives for front-line workers, annual bonuses, share-based compensation awards, paid time off, retirement savings programs, healthcare and insurance benefits, health savings accounts, flexible work schedules, employee assistance programs, comprehensive wellbeing programs, tuition assistance, and team member recognition programs. To foster a stronger sense of ownership, aid in retention, and align the interests of our team members with our stockholders, we provide restricted stock units to eligible team members through our broad-based equity incentive programs.
Business Conduct and Ethics
We believe that a strong culture is the foundation of a strong company. At Lineage, our values define who we are and connect us to one another and to our work. We are striving to be the standard for honest, ethical, and responsible business in the temperature-controlled warehouse industry. Our Code of Conduct is available in the languages in which we conduct business and addresses global regulatory topics through three substantive sections: acting respectfully and responsibly in the workplace; working ethically with customers and stakeholders; and supporting our surrounding communities and protecting our planet. Our Code of Conduct includes policy statements on psychological safety, human rights, human trafficking, and a statement on our commitment to fair labor practices. We provide calls to action in each topic section as well as learning aids to help bring our Code of Conduct to life. We provide an Ethics Hotline, which allows anonymous reporting where permitted by law and is administered by our corporate compliance & ethics and human resources teams. We take all reports to our Speak Up Resources seriously and evaluate all claims, conduct internal or external investigations as appropriate and implement remediation plans if necessary. Our corporate compliance and ethics committee and audit committee are regularly briefed on reports received and have access to reports made through our Ethics Helpline.
Through our global online learning management platform, we provide code of conduct training in multiple native languages so that our team members understand our expectations and how to apply these standards to their work. We also maintain an anti-discrimination and anti-harassment policy that includes mandatory harassment training for team members. We do not tolerate any form of racism, sexism or injustice within our facilities or across our organization.
Available Information
Our internet address is https://www.onelineage.com. The contents of our website are not incorporated by reference into or considered to be part of this Annual Report. We make our Annual Report, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K, and all amendments to those reports filed or furnished pursuant to Section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, available free of charge through our website as soon as reasonably practicable after we file such reports with, or furnish such reports to, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”). The SEC maintains a website at www.sec.gov that contains reports, proxy and information statements, and other information regarding issuers that file electronically with the SEC.