Stainless Tankers ASA (STST) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, and welcome to the Stainless Tankers ASA Q4 Results Presentation. I'm joined by Irene as well. This time around, we're actually using a new IT system for the presentation, so please forgive us if there are any glitches, and I apologize for the appalling music that you had to listen to while you were waiting for us to start. We are trying to amend that. The new look screen is slightly different for Q&A, but I think you will see somewhere on your screen an "Ask A Question" button, which is fairly simple, and I see a few of you have managed to do so already, so it can't be that complicated. Type a question in there, press send, and we will try and get to those at the end of the presentation. So I think with no further ado, let's just quickly run through the agenda. I'll give you the highlights, our view on the current market and a bit of outlook. Irene will take us through a more detailed financial review. We'll then pause for the Q&A and see how much of that we can get through. And in the presentation, which has been published, we have an appendix there with the Q4 financial statements, which we didn't intend to present. But if there are questions on those, we will gladly take those questions as they come about. So moving to the highlights. The fourth quarter NAV is estimated at NOK 87.3 per share, and that is after a cumulative dividend having been paid of NOK 14 per share. The total return in dollar terms since inception, including the dividends, is 86%. Now Q4 itself, the EBITDA was $8.8 million on net revenue of $15.3 million with a net income just under $4 million. The earnings in the pool earnings, the time charter equivalent, TCE, pool earnings in Q4 were slightly lower than we have experienced during the course of the first 3 quarters of 2024 and came in at about $19,000 per day. The market rates in the quarter have remained weak in January and February, actually slightly weaker than the fourth quarter figures, and we're averaging round about $18,000 a day in January and February. We are seeing higher rates already being booked in March and the impact of the pool's charter coverage -- sorry, COA coverage is beginning to be seen during the March bookings, which we expect to be in excess of $20,000 a day, and we are keeping that average for the remainder of 2025. Our 3 year projection on fleet growth remains at round about 2.5% and our 3 year outlook on fleet growth -- sorry, on demand growth also remains at the 3% level. You'll note this morning that we have declared the same dividend as before at $0.275 per share, approximately just over NOK 3 per share. This is giving an annualized yield of 22%, and the dividend will be paid on or about the 14th of February. We remain positive, and we expect earnings to come back up above the $20,000 a day level. And the dividends, we intend to keep the same dividend level throughout this year. Irene will give further update on the sale of Monax and Mamotas and the return of capital from those, which we will not decide upon final amounts until the ships are sold, which will -- second one will not be until April. But I think just worthy of noting now that during the course of 2025, we have 5 special surveys out of the remaining 7 vessels, and that is a high level of capital expenditure and potential cost risk that we need to consider. NAV performance since inception. The chart on the left, you may be used to now is actually looking at the -- in the blue, light blue bars, the book value per share, the dark blue bars being the NAV per share and the line being the 86% total return coming in at [ 186 ] on the index basis being the dollar NAV per share. Looking at the gap chart since inception for the development of NAV, our net IPO proceeds were $4.73. That has been added to from operating profit of $1.64, increase in vessel value overall of $2.6, and when we reduce that by the dividends paid out at $1.3, we end up at the current market-based NAV for December 2024 at $7.69 per share. Looking at the markets, I think that it's very clear from the chart on the left of this slide that we saw quite a dramatic falloff in Q4 in the market 1 year time charter rates, and we see that slight lag of the falloff also, therefore, falling through to the pool results, dipping below the $20,000 a day range in the -- during the course of fourth quarter 2024. We've had a slight pickup again in early part of January, late December and then flattened again during February. And the pool forecast, as I mentioned earlier, is still expected to be in excess of $20,000 a day for the remainder of the year. There are a fairly high level of deliveries expected during 2025. However, we expect a slow recovery as the reversal of OPEC cuts and increasing refinery runs absorb more of the tanker capacity that's out there. I think the key issue that we've got at the moment is geopolitics, and I think I'm sure all of us in the shipping world and in the shipping investment world will be scratching our heads at the moment, particularly just listening to the news overnight from the new U.S. President as to what his intentions are with regard to Gaza. Really throws a lot of things into a lot of turmoil and creates a lot of uncertainty and definitely difficulties in trying to assess what the impact is on the shipping markets. I think specifically, one of the key drivers is going to be the impact of sanctions. And we feel that beyond doubt, the U.S. is going to increase the scope of sanctions. In January, they actually included 180 specifically named vessels and associated entities into the sanction's scope. This did have an immediate impact of increasing rates in the product tanker and the crude tanker environment. And of course, the product tanker environment has a big knock-on impact to the chemical tanker markets. Outside of the sanctions side of things, I think there is a lot of uncertainty at the moment over trade tariffs, which have a big impact on the chemical tanker, but potentially a big impact on the tanker and chemical tanker sector as well as the Red Sea situation. And the Red Sea situation can be both positive and negative. Clearly, with Red Sea and Suez closed to most commercial traffic, there is longer distances required to transit around the Cape and that is positive for ton-mile demand. One of the negatives of that being closed, that transit route being closed, is that it makes it very hard to move from one basin to the other basin, i.e., move out of the Atlantic to Pacific or vice versa. With the Red Sea and Suez potentially opening up again, it allows for more freedom of movement between the different basins, and therefore, if one basin is outperforming another, it allows for much more freedom of movement from one to the other, but has a negative of slightly reducing ton-mile transits. Clarksons; I'll come on to the Clarksons slide in just a minute that they've looked at the impact of Red Sea. But I think that we're slightly too early to tell at the moment what the impact on trade tariffs is actually going to be until there is more certainty as to what's actually going on. But I think one of the things to remember and looking back in the previous Trump administration when we saw trade wars developing there, one of the key things to remember in any of these trade tariff situations is that the demand for most of the goods which are traveling on the high seas is fairly inelastic. So, one of the consequences of putting tariffs on any produce is that it may, therefore, not go to where it was originally intended to actually go to, but it most likely will go somewhere else. And I think that, that needs to be borne in mind. So when you're looking at any of these tariffs, one shouldn't just, if you like, look at the first degree impact of commodity X not moving from A to B. You then have to look at the same, well, where will commodity X move from, from A to C and whether or not A to C is a larger distance factor. And equally there, one has to look at B to say if they're not going to get that commodity from place A, which other place do they get that commodity from? And again, that may be further ton-mile implications for the shipping movements. So it's not as straightforward as it may seem as just a sort of first degree impact. You have to sort of consider what happens next, both for the producer and for the consumer. But I think as we move forward through the quarter and definitely by next quarter's presentation, I hope that we've got a bit more insight and analysis as to what's going on in geopolitics and can give better answers to some of the obvious questions, which must be on your minds. Sorry, I've missed a slide. Sorry, I haven't. Sorry I've already done this. Sorry, I'm getting to grips with the system myself. Slide 7. As I mentioned here, we've shown on the left-hand side here a chart produced by Clarksons Research, which I think is just interesting to share not just from the point of view of Stainless Tankers, but I think just more looking at the Red Sea, Suez Canal situation and how it impacts across shipping. This is Clarksons' view for demand growth for 2025 only, bearing in mind our demand growth projections that I've given you round about 3% are for an 18 month forecast. And Clarksons looking at 2025 show not a major, but an impact on chemical tankers if the -- if there is an immediate and complete resolution to the Red Sea-Suez Canal issues in that their demand growth scenario for 2025 would move from slightly above 2% to round about 1%. I mean, not saying that isn't a significant impact. But when you look at container shipping or look at product tankers, clearly, the impact there is potentially to create negative demand growth in a situation where the Red Sea and Suez were to fully or indeed even partially reopen. I think that's just quite an important point to remember overall. Chemical tankers aren't as badly impacted by that reduction in demand if the Suez Canal reopens fully as other areas of shipping. I think looking at the freight rates, I think that we've seen this -- undoubtedly that we've come down during the course of the fourth quarter, flattening out towards year-end, maybe a slight fall further from that during January and February, which we are already seeing stabilize and are already seeing better rates being booked into March. The 18 month outlook on fleet growth still supports our positive view. Increased deliveries in 2025, as can be seen in the chart, the red line representing the year-on-year growth during 2025, we estimate round about 4%, averaging 3% over the next 3 years. Scrapping, we think will continue. There were a couple of ships scrapped last year in 2024. We see that going up in 2025, predominantly as an impact of the aging of the fleet and slightly poorer freight rates, particularly in the current quarter. 15 new vessels came into the fleet in 2024, and the order book across the chemical fleet is currently representing 12% of the total fleet. As I say, our 3 year view forecasts annual fleet growth of just under 3%, fairly equal to our forecast demand view over the same period. I think with that, I will pass over to Irene for any comments she wishes to make on the overall financial performance, and at the same time, if you wish any questions on that or indeed on the financial statements that are included. If you post those, we'll consider those after Irene has finished her piece. So, Irene, over to you.

Thank you, Andy. As Andy said, we will move on and provide an update on our performance for the quarter. During this period, all our vessels were actively trading in the Womar pool. However, we experienced a slight decrease in utilization, which fell to 97.9% compared to 99.2% in the third quarter. This decline reflects the impact of the 11 off-hire days incurred for minor incidents during the quarter. Net revenue for the quarter was $15.2 million, which was impacted by the lower pool earnings averaging to $19,000 as the market weakened. Our net income was $3.8 million, reflecting a 19% decrease from $4.7 million in the third quarter, primarily driven by the decline in the revenue. Our free cash flow -- our free cash balance, excluding all restricted cash balances and the capital reserve accounts was $1.7 million and net outstanding loan balance was $74.2 million. Moving on to the fleet's value. The fleet's book value at the end of the quarter was $132.3 million. The fleet's market value, which was based on the gross sale prices for Monax and Mamotas and the average valuations for the remaining vessels, which were obtained by VesselsValue and Steem1960 as of the year-end was $35.6 million higher than the net book value. Based on these market values, which totaled to $167.9 million, our LTV stands at 44.2% and our NAV at $103.8 million or $7.69 per share, equivalent to NOK 86.7 (sic) [ NOK 87.3 ] per share. Looking ahead and as already mentioned in the introduction, 5 dockings are planned within 2025 with the first vessel being dock [indiscernible] and expected around mid of February. At this stage to highlight that the docking costs are anticipated in the region of $1.3 million to $1.5 million per vessel, and this cost and the budget will be finalized closer to each event. Additionally, the closing of the sale of Mamotas is expected in late February, around 27th of February; and for Monax in mid-April. The amount of surplus sale proceeds and the method of return will be determined by the Board after the last vessel is delivered to its buyer, so around mid -April. This amount will be returned to the investors following the delivery of both vessels. Finally, the Board of Directors has approved a dividend of $3.71 million, $0.275 per share, unchanged from the previous quarter. And it is expected to be paid on or about February 14. We have now concluded our presentation, and we can move on to the Q&A session for any questions you may have.

Irene, thanks very much for that. I think I'd just add, I mean Irene has mentioned there, our current budgets for the forthcoming dockings. Clearly, that's a range and it's quite a wide range. Quite a lot of the costs for the docking will depend upon the location of the dockings as to whether or not they are done in the Med region or are done in the Far East region. And again, quite a lot of that may also depend upon the issue I mentioned earlier if whether or not the Red Sea and Suez is open to actually ease that transit from one basin to another basin. So that's why there is still some uncertainty on the budgeting for the dockings as well as finalizing the specification for the actual works to be done during those. So there is still a fairly large variable, and clearly docking 5 out of the 7 remaining ships in the fleet is a very hefty concentration during the course of 2025, which is not prevalent in 2026, which I think is the good news behind it. So, we will determine when we finalize those budgets and the second of the 2 Monax and Mamotas vessels is sold, we will discuss with the Board the amount to be returned to investors, which will most likely be done via a special dividend during the course of Q2. And I think related to that, we've had a number of questions in as to what is the time line for potentially further asset sales? Are we considering selling -- other sales? How realistic is our NAV? if we got an offer to sell today, would we, et cetera? Questions along those sorts, which I think are very good and very sensible questions. And I mean, clearly, by selling Monax and Mamotas and returning surplus cash to investors, I think we're giving a very clear message that we're sticking with exactly what it says on the tin, that we started out by doing, that the intention here is a limited life full payout vehicle and that we are going to sell vessels at the correct time and we are going to return money to investors. Now given whether or not we should be doing that now or we should be holding on to the ships for longer, clearly depends upon our view on the market. And whilst I agree with a couple of the questioners who have said that values are strong at the moment, why aren't we selling more vessels? I think it's not just as simple as looking straight at the asset pricing, that one also needs to be considering the yield that the current freight market is giving on those assets. And even at pool earnings rates in the region of $18,000 a day as we have witnessed in December, January and early Feb, that is still generating an EBITDA yield on an unlevered basis of about 20% on the current value of the asset. So one of the things we do and which we are reporting to the Board, and we are tough to look at the whole time is an ongoing wholesale analysis to actually determine whether or not the potential decline in asset values is greater, more negative than the potential benefit of holding a very high-yielding asset in that current freight and value environment. So that's something we're considering the whole time and that is one of the key areas that we will look at in determining when is the correct time to be selling the assets, which may not be at the highest value if we're actually earning high yield on those assets. And I think that that strategy was actually proven by the action that we took last year in selling Monax and Mamotas, whereas had we sold the ships at a higher value in the late autumn, as the ships were quoted at that time, if that was achievable, we would have actually produced a lower return to investors than we have done by holding onto the ships and earning on them through April, even at slightly lower rates. We've actually generated more value for investors by holding onto them and selling at a slightly lower level because of the earnings which have attributed to the vessels during that time. So, yes, we are considering what to do with the remainder of the fleet over the coming years and we monitor it on an ongoing basis and we'll make decisions at the appropriate time as to when we feel it is correct to be selling and therefore, returning more money to investors. Associated with that, there is a question on our confidence behind the NAV calculation. The ships are valued by independent brokers. The vast majority of the NAV is clearly the value of the ships. The values that we had for Monax and Mamotas in the fleet were very close to the values that we've ended up selling them at. In other Tufton managed vehicles, which have been going for a lot longer than Stainless Tankers has been, we look at this very closely, and our average sale and purchase realization over the last 8 years at Tufton has actually been 6% in excess of the most recent NAV of any assets that we are managing. So we have confidence in our NAV calculations. And as I say, we look at that in conjunction with the wholesale analysis, looking at the yield to try and determine when the best timing is to exit, and we'll continue to do that. A question on March pool bookings. The answer there is that March is currently booked at about 20%, and it is in excess of $20,000 a day. So I think that, that is confirming our feelings that the market is coming back towards us a bit in March. Having said that, the earlier bookings in a quarter are normally at slightly higher levels than the average for the quarter, but we are, at the moment, slightly in excess of $21,000 a day. So, I think we are on track for our current projections. A question on product tankers moving into the chemical market trades and vice versa. Yes, the answer is there is an overlap of the more sophisticated product tankers moving into the lesser sophisticated chemical tanker trade and therefore, cannibalizing some of that. And clearly, we look very carefully at what's happening in the product tanker trades on the supply side and on the demand side to try and determine whether or not we're at that crossover level, if you like, where the chemical tanker trades potentially get damaged by influx from the product tanker trades. We discussed this quite extensively earlier in the week at our Board meeting together with representatives from the Womar pool. And their feeling at the moment is that although the product tanker market is not fantastic just now, that it hasn't reached a level where we would see an influx of product tankers into the chemical side. I think there's a question asking if we're considering new acquisitions. I mean, clearly, I think the answer there is no, we're not because we're a limited life vehicle, and the intention is to realize these investments over the next 2 to 3 years. So no, we will not consider new acquisitions. We are not trying to grow the fleet. And I think there was an associated question as to why preference for Japanese ships. The Japanese build the best stainless steel carriers. That's a fairly simple one. So I think that that answers most of the questions that we've had. If there are any further questions on the financial figures or on the accounts, I'd be pleased to take them. But in absence of that, I think we will -- I think we'll call it a day, unless there are any other questions. I'll just wait for a minute because I'm aware this gets very awkward. There is a delay in what I say to actually you hearing it. So I'm purposely stalling just for a few seconds so that if there are any further questions, you have the opportunity to post them. I'll take that as a no then. Okay, thank you very much indeed. We will get back to work and to continue to manage your fleet to the best of our ability, and we look forward to talking in a quarter's time. By the way, I have during the call and -- as has Irene, during the course of the quarter, answered quite a lot of questions, [ answering ] quite a lot of questions coming from various investors. I'm very happy to continue to take questions directly if you wish to ask us any during the course of the question -- during the course of the quarter. There is a question, so at what stage is the fleet too small to continue? I don't think there is. The vessels are part of the Womar pool. So the commercial management of the ships is in a much, much larger quantum in any event. I mean, they are 9 ships out of 40. So I mean, I don't think it really matters. Many pool participants only have one vessel in the pool. Our overheads are very, very small. Clearly we'd consider that. But I don't really think there is a stage at which the fleet is too small to continue. Okay. I think with that, we will call it a day. Thank you very much indeed for your time and attention this morning.