Fjord Defence Group ASA (DFENS) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, and welcome to Aquila Holdings Q2 2024 Earnings Presentation. My name is Nils Haugestad, and I'm the company's interim CEO and CFO. For this quarter, we had multi-client revenues of $0.8 million. The fair value of the multi-client library stands at $27.9 million. The fair value of the investment portfolio is at $6.6 million, and available liquid funds at $8.2 million, and we had a cash loss for the quarter of $0.6 million. The net asset value at the end of the quarter is NOK 1.68 per share. Subsequent to the quarter end, recall here we had the Annual General Meeting on the 23 May, where we resold to delete 5.1 million shares that had been purchased by the company through its buyback programs. That share capital decrease has now been registered. And as a result, the company has reduced its outstanding number of shares to 234.7 million shares, with a par value of NOK 1 per share. In addition to that, on the 10 June, we announced the second buyback program for NOK 5 million, and that is currently ongoing. And as over the 16 August, the company held 17.1 million owned shares, which represents 7.3% of the shares outstanding. On the multi-client portfolio, we have two surveys. As you'll recall, we have the Utsira North Sea survey, which sits in the books at the moment at $22.6 million. The Gulf of Suez survey is in our books of $5.3 million. With respect to the Utsira survey, the main focus now has been on the reprocessing of the survey, which is being done with Viridien, which is the new name for CGG and TGS. We are expecting to see late sales from the reprocessed data in the second half of 2024. It's important to note that some of the early late sales that we will see will, in large part, go to cover costs for the creation of the reprocessed product. The reprocessing is otherwise being completed according to plan and on cost. And we expect that the final product should be delivered at the end of August or September. With regards to Egypt, the financial conditions in the country appear to be improving, and that's, of course, very helpful. It's been a very difficult time. We believe that the E&P activity in the Gulf of Suez is going to be positively impacted by the improved financial or fiscal stability in the country, and in particular, the access and open trading of USD. We still believe there's uncertainty in regards to timing of late sales. But on the margin, it's an improved outlook. On the financial assets, this is the ocean bottom node operation that we sold to Max as Fairfield, now TGS in March of 2022. There is an earn out here, with a cap of $12 million over 3 years. So this runs out in March of 2025. There is a floor payment of $1.5 million, which is subject to some milestones and adjustments to that. There are no associated costs to Aquila with respect to any earnout structure here. The book value is at $2.0 million. And so we will assess the book value depending upon how the prospect look over the next 8 months or so. On the investment side, the fair value of the investment portfolio is $6.6 million. There are two primary assets, Capsol Technologies, which is $5.8 million and then Dolphin drilling, which is at $0.5 million. The net asset value, the multi-client library is by far the largest asset at $27.9 million, or on the right-hand side, you'll see that NOK 1.36 per share. The other seismic assets, which is the earnout at $2 million that represents $10 or NOK 0.10 per share. The investments at $6.6 million then represent NOK 0.32 per share, and then other current assets of NOK 0.13 and total liabilities of the negative NOK 0.23 is what takes you to the total net asset value of NOK 1.68 per share. Looking at the income statement, we'll see the revenues of $0.8 million. There is an increase in the fair value of investments of $0.8 million. Cost of sales for the period is $1.0 million, which is primarily related to the Utsira reprocessing. SG&A for the period, $0.3 million, and that's kind of in line with expected run rate. Amortization of multi-client of $1.6 million, again, in line with normal amortization, takes us to an operating loss of $1.4 million and a profit or loss for the period of negative $1.4 million. On the balance sheet, multi-client library, again, $27.9 million, and then the financial asset, which is the earnout of $2 million. So those two together represent about 76% of the total assets sold, by far, the largest portion of the balance sheet. Investments of $6.6 million, other current assets of 0.7%. And then cash on hand of $1.9 million, taking us to total assets of $39.2 million. On the equity and liability side, we have equity of $34.4 million, minor trade payables of $0.1 million. We have the taxes payable of $2.3 million that you'll recall relates to the previous operation in Egypt, and other current liabilities of $2.4 million and again, approximately $2 million or $2.1 million of that relating to taxes in Egypt. So the largest portion of the last two posts is taxes or accruals for taxes in Egypt. That gives us an equity ratio of 87.8% available liquid funds of $8.2 million and as mentioned, net asset value of NOK 1.68 per share. On the cash flow side, we have zero cash flow from operating activities. We have $0.2 million negative on the investment activity, which was an incremental investment in Dolphin Drilling. We have a cash flow from financial activities, so minus $0.1 million, which is a repurchase of own shares, takes us to a net change in cash of negative $0.2 million, which has then the cash from $2.1 million down to $1.9 million at the end of the quarter. On the outlook side, we believe oil prices will stay in the range that it's in now, which is a historically high range, and this is, in large part, a result of continuing growth in demand, which is not expected to decline over the foreseeable future. Exploration activities will continue, and this is both near field, but we're also now seeing exploration in new areas and new prospects, and we believe that, that trend will continue. The economic uncertainty in Egypt remains, but the situation appears to be improving, and we believe that this will be to the benefit of the Gulf of Suez survey. We highlight again that multi-client late sales remain lumpy and unpredictable, and this is a general trend in the segment. The demand is driven by licensing round and the particular schedules of the oil companies. But we still, of course, believe that the underlying multi-client value is attractive. We do continue to review strategic transactions for the company, and we'll continue to do so. And we also look at distributions to shareholders, either via share repurchases or evaluate dividends if that should be desirable. And this is an ongoing discussion. As mentioned before, we have the $5 million share repurchase program that's underway now. That's the end of our prepared remarks. If there are any questions, please feel free to contact us, and we look forward to speaking with you soon. Thank you so much.