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TORM plc (TRMD)

Q4 2018 Earnings Call· Tue, Mar 12, 2019

$32.09

+2.62%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to today's TORM's Annual Report 2018 webcast. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. During the presentation, we will have a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Alternatively, you can submit questions at any time via the webcast. To submit a question, click the Q&A icon in the lower left hand corner of your screen, add your question in the open area and click then to submit. I must advise you that this webcast is being recorded today, Tuesday, the 12th of March, 2019. And I would now like to hand the webcast over to Mr. Christian Søgaard. Thank you. Please go ahead. Christian Søgaard-Christensen: Thank you, and thank you to all dialing in, and welcome to TORM's conference call for our full-year of 2018 results. As mentioned my name Christian Søgaard and I'm the CFO of TORM's. As usual, we will refer to the slides as we speak, and at the end of the presentation, we will open up for questions. Turn to Slide 2 please. Before commencing, I would like to draw your attention to our usual Safe-Harbor Statement presented on the slide. Slide 3, please. I will now hand over to my corporate center who is Executive Director, Jacob Meldgaard as we turn to the presentation for the full-year 2018 results on Slide 4, please.

Jacob Meldgaard

Analyst

Thank you, Christian, and thank you all for dialing in. In 2018 TORM's results were impacted by a challenging progress in the market. I’m however please that from commercial and operational performance during the year continuously has came among the best within all peer group and that we have been able to secure people and renewed effective terms through three new building contracts and more than 20 committed to our installations, while at the same time maintaining a strong capital structure and low [premium] (Ph) rate. In 2018, we realized a positive EBITDA of US$121 million and a loss before tax of US$3 million equivalent to US$0.48 per share. TORM's return on invested capital for the year was slightly positive at 0.1%. Illustrating our continued focus on maintaining a solid balance sheet, the net loan to value was 53% at year-end versus 56% percent at year-end 2017. The available liquidity was US$406 million. In a challenging Park Mega Market, TORM realized an average TCE rate of US$12,982 per day in 2018. However, towards the end of the year and going into 2019, the market had shown a significant recovery and as of 5th March this year, we had covered 85% of our first quarter of 30 days at an average TCE rate US $18,522 per day. We believe that there are positive dynamics present in the market to support a sustained recovery, and I will discuss the market in further details on the following slides. During 2018, we have continued our fleet renewal activities and took delivery of four at our two newbuildings, and taken order for additional three MR newbuildings bringing the remaining new building program up to nine vessels. During the year, we also sold four older units. We will continue from time-to-time to sell older vessels in…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] And your first question comes from the line of Jon Chappell, Evercore ISI. Your line is now open.

Jonathan Chappell

Analyst

Thank you operator, good afternoon. Jacob and Christian I wanted to touch on this last couple of slides that Christian went through and also 11, next some of Jacob’s comments on the market. So having this cycle of liquidity is a luxury and when you see the type of outlook you have laid out for the product tanker market, it seems that it will build as oppose to [indiscernible] and so if you take the last slide with the massive discount to your NAV, how are you thinking about the most efficient use of capital and liquidity over the next years. If you do enter an upturn in the market, is it growth, is it return to capital shareholders, how do you kind of balance keeping a strong balance sheet with some of this disconnect in the equity market relative to the outlook in the shipping markets?

Jacob Meldgaard

Analyst

Jacob here, thanks Jon. So, clearly, yes, we are right in our belief around the future, we need to think about the distribution and we have a policy that we have agreed with our Board a number of years ago that we are taking to which is that we will be distributing back either by David and or share buybacks 25% to 50% of our net earnings on our semi-annual basis. So let's just registration take - that the current market persisted we would then be looking at in early in August to be a distributing back 25% to 50% of the results of the first half. And clearly in the current environment, you can ask yourself how much would then be paid back in cash and how much would be drawn in terms of share buyback for the Company. And then that would leave a significant amount obviously still to have fees renewal and there of course we need to think about this brochure as a growing concern where we are depleting year-by-year to compare the rule of thumb if you look at it, my thinking around this is that we are depreciating about a US$120 million of value on yearly basis. So you would be thinking along the lines of it you could find the right type of investments that would be sort of yearly reinvestments programs just to stand still.

Jonathan Chappell

Analyst

That is interesting and that answered the second part of my question. As it seems that if you do return to the 25% to 50% of payout, there is positive cash, the remaining 50% to 75% then would be focused on fleet renewal as oppose to accelerating here debt repayment, to and you are pretty happy with the amortization schedule where it stands today?

Jacob Meldgaard

Analyst

Yes. Christian Søgaard-Christensen: That is correct, yes.

Jonathan Chappell

Analyst

Second question is on Slide 12, it's a really interesting chart on the positioning of the fleet. And without giving away too many commercial secrets, as you talk about the impact on the market - expected impact in the market in second half of this year as the global [bunker] (PH) prepares to IMO 2020. Do you have a kind of a strong lean as to where you think, it will most benefit the product tanker markets? Is it an Atlantic basin event, is it probably global event, when you look at the bounce. How do you think about positioning for what could be a real disruptive factor in the market? Christian Søgaard-Christensen: That is a very good question, John, and we actually do have an opinion around it but it is something where, I would say, if there is any secret sauce elements that are not comfortable sharing here that would be our forward looking. I think we have been very concerned in giving you here insight as well analysis on how we optimize our earnings on geographical optimization. Going forward, yes, we have the opinions around it, but it is something that we are refining, it’s something that is moving and then we will not be - forward looking statements making any statements around. Having said that, we look forward to sharing with you, how it will be looking in the quarters to come.

Jonathan Chappell

Analyst

Yes. Perfectly understandable. Then if I may just add one more quick one. Just to be clear, the scrubbers that you already agreed upon. I assume, especially given your joint venture, they will all be installed in the ships back in the trading market by January 1, 2020. The options on the 2018. When do you feel you will need to exercise those to have them back in the trading fleet by the turn of the year? Christian Søgaard-Christensen: So given that we have intimate of course understanding of the production of the scrubber inside of the joint venture. I think we can say that we are closing up to the final rating on that.

Jonathan Chappell

Analyst

Okay, that is fair. Thanks very much here, that is very much question. Christian Søgaard-Christensen: Thanks.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. No further questions over the phone line. [Operator Instructions] We have one question over the phone line now. And next question comes from the line of Dan Togo, Handelsbanken. Your line is now open.

Dan Togo Jensen

Analyst

Thank you and good afternoon. Just one question, as the [indiscernible] I think negatively on approaching this throughout 2018. How does that look in 2019 delivery schedule for group? Thanks.

Jacob Meldgaard

Analyst

Dan Jacob here, thanks for that. Yes. So I think there are two things to bear in mind. The delivery [indiscernible] is relatively front load. So it's here in the first and second quarter that you have the predominant part of the order book. So we are sort of eating ourselves through that portion and at the same time food tanker rates have come up considerably from the low points of where what that was real cannibalization taking place in the second and the third quarter of last year. So I think that in combination, that gives some comfort to that by second half of this year, the number of deliveries are 60% lower than in the first half of this year and at the same time the freight rate environment generally has improved. So that leads to - that is in general more favorable conditions at least to have a less tendency to cannibalize something.

Dan Togo Jensen

Analyst

Okay. Very helpful. Thank you.

Jacob Meldgaard

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And there are no further questions at this time, please continue.

Jacob Meldgaard

Analyst

So we had a couple of question from the web that was just asking [Indiscernible]. Christian Søgaard-Christensen: So we have - as we can [indiscernible] here and there is one plans for more disposal ramping up over the vessels, so here generally in the product tanker space the driving age is around 25 years of age, we have no vessels that are of that vintage, a piece of that would be no plans in scrapping of vessels, disposals of vessels. As alluded last year we sold a four older vessels in the second half of the year and so far we have sold one here in 2019 and we have taken those efforts our around 18 years and we will at an ongoing thing be looking at how we can manage our fleet, so by virtue of selling off older units and taking on younger units. The second question is what free cash flow will come from [Indiscernible] and how much will come from the - investments in 2020. So here what we think about it is that based on our assumptions on the spreads between compliance fuels and highs sulfur fuels oil and also on the relative uses that we can have of our scrubber that in essence on an MR the payback time is around two to 2.5 years on a scrubber fitted MR. So that is the way we look it from that investment. And no further breakings from the [Indiscernible].

Jacob Meldgaard

Analyst

Good. With this, we are concluding the earnings conference call for the full-year results for 2018. We will host our Annual General Meeting on 11th of April, 2019 and release our Q1 results on 14 of May, 2019. So thank you for dialing in.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may all disconnect.