Ole Hjertaker
Analyst · BTIG. Please go ahead
Thank you and welcome all to SFL's second quarter conference call. I will start the call by briefly going through the highlights of the quarter. And following that our CFO, Aksel Olesen will take us through the financials and the call will be concluded by opening up for questions. Before we begin our presentation, I would like to note that this conference call will contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as expects, anticipates, intends, estimates, or similar expressions are intended to identify these forward-looking statements. These statements are based on our current plans and expectations and involve risks and uncertainties that could cause future activities and results of operations to be materially different from those set forth in the forward-looking statements. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ includes conditions in the shipping offshore and credit markets. For further information, please refer to SFL's reports and filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The announced dividend of $0.25 per share represents a dividend yield of around 10.5% based on closing price yesterday and this is our 66th quarter with dividends. Over the years, we have paid more than $27 per share in dividends or $2.3 billion in total and we have a significant fixed rate charter backlog supporting continued dividend capacity going forward. The total charter revenues of $158 million was in line with the first quarter with more than 90% of this from vessels on long-term charters and less than 10% from vessels employed on short-term charters and in the spot market. All customers are current on the charter payments and we have good cash flow visibility into the current quarter. The EBITDA equivalent cash flow in the quarter was approximately $121 million and last 12 months, the EBITDA equivalent cash flow has been approximately $481 million, demonstrating the stability. With a very large proportion of long-term charters and the fact that all customers are current with charter payments, the underlying business remained robust and cash position was more than $150 million after a payment of a bond loan in June. In addition we had $35 million in marketable securities at quarter end. Our fixed rate backlog stands at approximately $3.4 billion after recent vessels acquisitions, charter extensions, and vessel sales providing cash flow visibility going forward. We have been cautious in the light of the uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 outbreak. But in May we acquired a new build VLCC with long-term charter. The net purchase price was $65 million, which is significantly below current broker estimates for VLCC resales effectively providing SFL with a very attractive risk profile. Our chartering counterparty, the Landbridge Group has secured a three-year sub-charter to an oil major providing good cash flow visibility. There are purchase options for the charter during the charter period first time after three years and at the end of the charter, there is a purchase obligation. The net contribution after debt service during the first three years is estimated to more than $4 million on average with full cash flow effect from this quarter. We have been active extending charters on our existing fleet. And so far this year we have added $172 million to our charter backlog on existing vessels. $38 million was linked to an extension agreed in the second quarter for seven container vessels we extended by another 4.5 years. And with a large fleet of assets, there will always be acquisitions and disposals and two of the vessels on charter to the Hunter Group has been repurchased by them. The Hunter deal was designed to give us a very high return on low-risk profile in exchange for flexibility on Hunter's part. This is a good example of a cost of capital arbitrage where we could utilize our premium access to low-cost funding and at the same time give flexibility that Hunter was willing to pay for. Delivery took place earlier today and net cash to us is $23 million after repayment of the associated financing, and there is one vessel remaining with Hunter in our fleet after that. We have also been active in the financing market over the last months and have addressed most of the financing maturities this year. Terms have been attractive, and we have seen lower all-in interest costs than ever before despite the general market volatility. We believe part of the reason for this is the consistent performance of SFL the last 16 years and our ability to source capital from a much wider market than most other maritime companies. During the second quarter, we refinanced four large container vessels at historical low interest costs. We [sought] [ph] $50 million of non-recourse financing on the new VLCC we acquired, and we repaid the Norwegian kroner denominated bond loan due in June from our cash position. The COVID-19 pandemic has caused massive disruptions in most transportation markets and for offshore assets. As early as January, we implemented a robust emergency management plan, with a goal of ensuring the health and safety of our crew on board the vessels and onshore while maintaining our business operations as efficiently as possible. In addition to our own requirements, all crewing managers are following the guidance issued by the World Health Organization and the International Chamber of Shipping to ensure that the proper protocols are in place on board the vessels. We are hosting regular meetings with all crewing managers in all our sectors to discuss and handle any issues, in particular challenging facing our crew and safe operations as they arise. While we have good and strong protocols in place on board our vessels during the normal ship and port operations, our biggest concern is with crew changes. The logistics challenges of testing and moving people across border safely without infection are enormous. And in many countries and ports, such movements are not even allowed. This means that we have had to postpone crew changes and extend the contracts of many of our seafarers over this period after the outbreak. While they have shown great understanding of the situation, there are many individuals who have suffered due to this and we acknowledge their vital contribution in these challenging times. In addition to crew transfers, we have also experienced some delays at shipyards in connection with dry dockings and scrubber retrofitting of vessels. Of the 85 vessels, currently only three are idle, and we have seen some improvements in the market in several of the segments recently. After all, the vessels more exposed to near-term market developments, represent less than 10% of our charter revenues and the 90% fixed rate revenues, are more insulated to short-term market movements caused by FX that we could not predict. Despite the impact of COVID-19 on global trade, all our counterparties are current on charter hire payments with good visibility for the current quarter as mentioned before. But we will, of course, continue to closely monitor developments in our customers' end markets in order to be able to react quickly to any potential business disruptions. Following the recent charter extensions, our charter backlog now stands at approximately $3.4 billion. And of this more than $420 million has been added in the last 12 months. Over the years, we have changed both fleet composition and structure, and we now have 85 assets in our portfolio and no vessels remaining from the initial fleet in 2004. We have gone from a single asset class, charter to one single customer, to a diversified fleet in multiple counterparties. And over time the mix of the charter backlog has varied from 100% tankers to nearly 60% offshore at one stage, to container being the largest segment now with 55% of the backlog. We do not have a set mix in the portfolio; focus is on evaluating deal opportunities across the segments and try to do the right dissections from a risk-reward perspective. Over time, we believe this will balance itself out, but we try to be careful and conservative in our investments. And not just invest, [because] [ph] money is burning in our pockets. With the exception of two car carriers that are currently idle in the shipping space, all our other assets are generating cash flow. Some segments like the dry bulk market and containership market have also improved over the last few months. The offshore market, however, remains very challenging. We have three rigs on charter to Seadrill and two of the rigs are harsh environment units working in the North Sea. West Linus is sub-chartered to ConocoPhillips on a very long charter until the end of 2028. And West Hercules a semi-submersible is sub-chartered to Equinor until next year. In addition there are some options for Equinor for extended employment. The third rig, West Taurus is idle and laid off in Norway. Seadrill is paying the agreed charter hire on all three rigs and we continue reducing the debt on the rigs as per schedule. This means that we have reduced debt by nearly 30% since Seadrill filed for Chapter 11 in 2017. Seadrill has disclosed that it is currently engaged in discussions with its lenders to provide operational flexibility and additional near-term liquidity. We believe it will be in all stakeholders' interest to have a financially stronger counterparty and we are in a constructive dialogue with Seadrill. I can unfortunately not comment anymore on this right now. But given our fleet composition most of our cash flow comes from shipping assets and unlike most other companies with a financing profile in the maritime world nearly two-thirds of our cash flow comes from vessels on time charter and only one-third from bareboat chartered assets. Our strategy has been to maintain a strong technical and commercial operating platform in cooperation with our sister companies in the Seatankers Group. This gives us the ability to offer a wider range of services to our customers from structured financing to full-service time charters. But more importantly, we also believe it gives us unique access to deal flow in our core segments. And with that I will give the word over to our CFO, Mr. Olesen who will take us through the financial highlights for the quarter.