Earnings Labs

StealthGas Inc. (GASS)

Q3 2013 Earnings Call· Fri, Nov 22, 2013

$9.68

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

] Thank you for standing-by. And welcome to the StealthGas Q3 2013 Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question-and-answer session. (Operator Instructions) I must advice you that this conference is being recorded today on Friday the 22nd of November, 2013. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Harry Vafias, CEO. Please go ahead

Harry Vafias

Management

Thank you and good morning everyone. Welcome to our conference call and webcast to discuss the results for the third quarter and nine months 2013. I’m Harry Vafias, CEO of StealthGas, and I would like to remind you that we’ll be discussing forward-looking statements in today’s call and presentation. And regarding the Safe Harbor language, I would like you to refer to Slide number 1 of the presentation as well as to our press release in our third quarter results. With me today is Harry Charogiannis, our CFO, and if you need any other information on the call or the presentation, please contact Charogiannis or myself. Before I start with the slides, I would like to comment on the results we released today. As expected during the third quarter, we faced the same seasonal variations that we did during the second quarter. Also we found new charters for some of the vessels that had come off their charters we were left with five of our older ships operating in a seasonally weak summer spot market thus reducing our overall utilization. In addition there were increased cost of the vessels that we will drydock during the summer due to the trading areas and the technical issues that were involved. Let’s start the presentation with Slide number 2. During the last call we got questions regarding the use of the process from our follow on offering I said back then that it would take some time to put the money at work. Today I can say that we have laid the foundation for the expansion of the Company. After having taken delivery of five modern second hand vessels already we now have contracted 15 ecotype LPG ships to be delivered to us over the next 22 months. This will signify a major…

Harry Charogiannis

Management

Thank you, Harry. Good morning, everyone. So, let me continue the presentation with slide number four, the financial highlights for the third quarter and nine months of 2013. With an average of 40.6 vessels owned and operated in the third quarter, compared to 37 last year. Our revenues came in at $29.7 million, lower than last year’s $30.4 million. This decrease was primarily due to the softness of the spot market which coincided with the expiration of employment contracts relating to the older vessels in the fleet. In this environment, those vessels transition period to be higher entailed increased repositioning time and decreased overall utilization which was partly offset by the revenues earned, by the additional of vessels which commenced operation during 2013. Our voyage costs decreased to $2.9 million from $3.5 million due to the lower utilization for vessels in the spot charter in 2013 period. Our operating expenses increased to $9.9 million from $7.7 million last year, this was primarily the result of the increase in the number of vessels operated in the 2013 period, including both of vessels were added to fleet and the two vessels that came off variable charters and which we operated under time charters during the third quarter of 2013. We also had drydocking cost of $1.1 million compared to $0.3 million for the same period of last year. One vessel entered and completed drydock and two more vessels have entered drydocking late during the second quarter, completed the drydocking during the third quarter. In the same period in 2012, only one vessel was drydocked. Interest in finance costs were $1.9 million compared to $2.5 million last year, a reduction due to lower interest rates and lower outstanding loan balances. Our net income for the quarter was $4.1 million compared to $6.6 million…

Harry Vafias

Management

Slide number 7 demonstrates our fleet employment profile and provides you with the earnings visibility of our fleet; in terms of charter types out of a fleet of 42 vessels we have 14 of these on bareboats, 25 on time charters and three in the spot market. With the summer now behind us we have started seeing the markets strengthening and as a result we have fixed some of our oldest vessels that faced some idle time during the summer on time charters, like the Gas Kaizen initially on a six month charter then back-to-back on another charter for one more year. The Gas Crystal our oldest ship that we extended for six months. The Gas Ice the second oldest ship that we also extended for one year, the Gas Arctic that we extended for three months and the Gas Emperor that we charted for one year. This includes the interest for the charting of older ships should be viewed as a positive sign for the 15 modern eco vessels that will be joining our fleet over the next 21 months, modern vessels are in higher demand and can command higher day rates on their older counterparts not only because of their eco features. For 2013, 90% of voyages are fixed 64% for '14, 31% for '15 with the number of charters extended to 2017. We continue to seek opportunities to improve our vessels on medium and long term charters and we'll try to keep the same levels of charter coverage going forward. Our relationship with the world’s largest and most stable energy companies, energy traders and industrial companies of the highest credit divisions minimizes our counterpart risk. This is very positive that we have secured contracted revenues of approximately $183 million. Slide No. 8. This slide illustrates Stealth Gas’s…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. (Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from Urs Dür from Clarkson Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Urs Dür - Clarkson Capital Markets: Good afternoon guys. I wasn’t able to just adds-up able to find the presentation online so maybe I looked in the wrong place but I got most of it down on paper. But you mentioned if you can just remind us 64% short of coverage for next year?

Harry Vafias

Management

Yes. Urs Dür - Clarkson Capital Markets: And for 15?

Harry Vafias

Management

31. Urs Dür - Clarkson Capital Markets: 31, excellent. Operating expenses, I was estimating a bit too low there and you did point out that you have new ships online. Is there any element of operating expense that you can I mean I know for lack of a better term just sort of indicate a run rate what it’s going to look like in the fourth quarter. Are there new expenses involved or prices going up things like that what’s the outlook there and then operating expenses particularly fourth quarter if you have some idea?

Harry Vafias

Management

As you know we, I think compared to other companies running similar ships especially private companies we have the lowest running cost especially compared to our European comparable companies. No, I mean for the fourth quarter we don’t expect something big. I suggest that when you take our yearly running cost a safe that is to increase these on a per vessel basis by 4% or 5% to be on the safe side obviously into 2016 when we’re going to have other new building ships in the water I guess for those ships you should use slightly lower running cost because brand new ships obviously have less running cost than 10 or 15 year old ships. Urs Dür - Clarkson Capital Markets: Great, now that’s helpful. And just on dry bulk, drydocking for fourth quarter and next year, what’s the outlook there?

Harry Vafias

Management

We have one, I was trying to calculate. We have one for the fourth quarter and for 2014 we have three or four. Urs Dür - Clarkson Capital Markets: Okay, excellent. And then the charter rates that you guys were able to achieve it’s great that you extended the charters and it’s great that you have more charter coverage, what’s that charter market look like, is it slightly higher than what you had been able to do, is it in line, is it lower?

Harry Vafias

Management

As I’ve said during the call in the second quarter, when you fix a 22 year ship, 22 year old ship for period the rate doesn’t really matter. I think it’s a fantastic success. But we did fix it because as you know very well all these companies that we referred to do not take ships above 19 years of age for period. So just that we fix so many ships on short to medium term charters for us is a fantastic success. Urs Dür - Clarkson Capital Markets: No, I agree with that. The age of the shipping getting a charter deserves credit for that. I was just wondering what kind of rate to look at but if you point out. And your point is taken.

Harry Vafias

Management

Is not anyway if I told you the rate it wouldn’t be represent this because obviously rate for the 20 year old ship has nothing to do with the rate for a five year old ship. Urs Dür - Clarkson Capital Markets: Well, then can you give us a little indication of what the market might look like if you had to open five year old ships right now?

Harry Vafias

Management

Just to make you understand to put to reverse your question if you see 20 or 22 years old ships getting fixed that means that if you had a five year old it would be snapped in a second. There is a shortage of modern vessels for charter and that’s why these charters couldn’t find modern ships and have to take some of our older ships. So we are very happy about that. Urs Dür - Clarkson Capital Markets: Okay, that’s fair enough indication, that’s all I got. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from Justin Yagerman from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Justin Yagerman - Deutsche Bank

Analyst

While I appreciate that you guys did get the ships chartered and that's a fairly healthy market right now. I think that we kind of need to get an understanding just given the opacity of this market, and that it's harder for us to see the charter activity. A relative idea of where our current charter rate is for these vessels. If were to charter a five year old for a year right what do you think you could achieve in the market place?

Harry Vafias

Management

The average size of our fleet which is 5,000 cubic meters for one year I would say 9,500.

Justin Yagerman - Deutsche Bank

Analyst

9,500, and when I think about without giving an exact rate of the 22 year old ships, but I mean a relative discount on that age of the ship. What do you typically expect to see from the marketplace? I mean is it as low as 50% of market or is it somewhere higher than that?

Harry Vafias

Management

I would say 30% to 35%, but as I said these are V-shaped, so it’s only small part of our fleet, thank god. And by fixing them out is not like we're going to make so much money out of them, we won't face the waiting time and idle days that we had faced mainly in the second quarter and a bit in the third quarter.

Justin Yagerman - Deutsche Bank

Analyst

Understood and certainly it was a thing to get fixed. But I guess it leads me to my next question which is you guy are playing in a market now where you are seeing new entrants coming in with fresh liquidity and shinier ships that are probably going to be out there. How do you think about your fleet, obviously you have got new ships coming on that will take your average age down. But these older ships that will drag on earnings in the quarter; do about getting rid of them and using that capital to help refresh the fleet?

Harry Vafias

Management

Firstly I'll have to slightly disagree; we don't see new ships coming in so just cover that point. The shinier ships that are coming in are our ships, number one. Number two, yes of course we see a decent buyer but once the ships of course we will sell them. But if the ships can't be fixed on period as we just proved why should we scrap the ships and get nothing basically.

Justin Yagerman - Deutsche Bank

Analyst

Fair enough. And then maybe we could talk a little bit about the S&P market right now. Where is pricing for new builds of you guys were going to go to yards and when are deliveries and then a little bit of color on the second hand market would be helpful.

Harry Vafias

Management

So let's start from the easy part the second hand market. The second hand market is basically non-existent; there is no modern ships for sale. Whatever ships, modern second hand ship came in the market in 2013 we bought it to put it simply. For new buildings with our latest new building acquisitions we have nearly taken away all the 2015 births. So if somebody will as to order I guess we'll to swallow 2016 delivery prices are steady to increasing for an average size ship 5000 CBM Japan only, we would never go to China. Price would be high teens 20 million subject to specifications.

Justin Yagerman - Deutsche Bank

Analyst

That's helpful and then maybe lastly I think you said that you had initial agreements or I am trying to see commitments on ten of the 15 vessels from a bank debt perspective. What are you seeing in terms or quote from the banks on rate there and when would you expect to be completed on all 15 vessels from a financing standpoint.

Harry Vafias

Management

To put this simply we announced the new buildings a month ago, and two weeks after we had commitment for 10 ships. I don't think any company on a bilateral basis with so many banks has agreed that fast financing, because it’s not syndication, its separate one-to-one ships to banks. So we have done 10, I think we're going to have 15 done by the next 60 to 70 days.

Justin Yagerman - Deutsche Bank

Analyst

And where are you seeing pricing come in on the debt.

Harry Vafias

Management

The region LIBOR plus 80 to 90.

Justin Yagerman - Deutsche Bank

Analyst

That's in line. Thanks, I appreciate the time Harry.

Harry Vafias

Management

No worries, my pleasure.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from Chris Snyder from Sidoti and Company. Please go ahead.

Chris Snyder - Sidoti and Company

Analyst

First question is, I know the order books kind of are still very attractive that has creeped up a bit, it's about 9.2% I think is on the slide. Is that all from your ordering? Or has there been other orders out there as well?

Harry Vafias

Management

Good question, yes the majority is our orders but of course we have not done all the orders worldwide, there has been some orders from other players a couple of Japanese and one Singapore and backed by U.S. investors.

Chris Snyder - Sidoti and Company

Analyst

It's helpful. My second question is, I know this has been kind of touched on but can you maybe just give us a little clarity on, maybe for the new build vessels that you are going to take, kind of where you see the rates in that market compared to a year ago kind of. If you look at the rates you guys are earning on a year-over-year basis it's not an apples-to-apples comparison, you have had some of these old chips come off contract on market, so if you kind of give us some color there?

Harry Vafias

Management

If we forget the older ships and the summer idle days, I would say that from last year the increase has been 5%.

Chris Snyder - Sidoti and Company

Analyst

Okay, that's helpful. Thanks again for the time.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. We have no further questions from the phone lines, please continue.

Harry Vafias

Management

We have now reached the end of the presentation. We would like to thank you for joining us at our conference call today and for your interest and trust in our company. We look forward to having you with us again at our next conference call for our fourth quarter results in February 2014. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you all for participating, you may disconnect.