Euroseas Ltd. (ESEA) Q1 2020 Earnings Call Transcript
Published at 2020-05-27 16:35:08
Thank you for standing by ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Euroseas' Conference Call on the First Quarter 2020 Financial Results. We have with us today, Mr. Pittas, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; and Mr. Aslidis, Chief Financial Officer of the company. 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 advise you that this conference is being recorded today, Wednesday, May 27, 2020. Please be reminded that the company announced it's results with a press release that has been publicly distributed. Before passing the floor to Mr. Pittas, I would like to remind everyone that in today's presentation and conference call, Euroseas will be making forward-looking statements. These statements are within the meaning of the federal securities laws. Statements in today's conference call, that are not historical facts included among other things, the expected financial performance of Euroseas business, Euroseas ability to pursue growth opportunities, Euroseas expectations or objectives regarding future and markets current expectations, and in particular, the effects of COVID-19 on the financial condition and operations of Euroseas, and the container industry in general, may be forward-looking statements, as such as defined in Section 21A of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. Matters discussed maybe forward-looking statements which are based on current management expectations that involve risks and uncertainties that may result in such expectations not being realized. I kindly draw your attention to Slide 2 of the webcast presentation, which has the full forward-looking statements, and the same statement was also included in the press release. Please take a moment to go through the whole statement and read it. And I would now like to pass the floor over to Mr. Pittas. Thank you, sir. Please go ahead, sir.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you all for joining us today for our scheduled conference call. Together with me is Anastasios Aslidis, our Chief Financial Officer. The purpose of today's call is to discuss our financial results for the three months period ended March 31, 2020. Let's now turn to Slide 3 to see our income statement highlights. For the first quarter, total net revenues were $15.4 million. Net income was $2 million, and net income attributable to common shareholders after $160,000 dividend and Series B preferred shares was $1.8 million or $0.32 gain of share, basic and diluted. Adjusted net income attributable to common shareholders for the period was $1 million or $0.17 per share, basic and diluted. Adjusted EBITDA was $4.1 million. [Technical Difficulty]. Please turn to Slide 4 for details of some of our recent developments. During the second half of 2019, the company acquired eight vessels in total with an average age of 12.5 years, and total capacity of 25,600 teu, thus increasing the fleet by more than 70% in number of vessels, and more than 100% in terms of total teu capacity. In addition to the various routine operations, there were two noteworthy events related to our fleet [ph] so far in 2020. First, we sold the motor vessel Manolis P for scrap, with targeted delivery period in the first half of April 2020. Unfortunately, the sale was not completed due to the closure of the scrapyards related to COVID-19 lockdowns. We are in dispute with the buyers over the sale, which is being dealt through arbitration in London. The vessel will however be sold for scrap when the scrap jobs reopen, probably to a new buyer. Secondly, as already reported in January 2020, the motor vessel EM Oinousses suffered an engine room fire, luckily with no effect to our crew. This has been temporarily repaired and we have decided to scrap the vessel a few months earlier than initially envisioned, as soon as scrapyards reopen in order to avoid costly repairs. The COVID-19 pandemic has come center stage in the world since March 2020 with economic effects influencing world trade and demand for shipping. This slowdown is expected to result in reduced charter rates and earnings in the remaining of 2020. With that respect, we have started discussions with our banks to defer some of our 2020 loan repayments to ensure that we have sufficient liquidity in the near-term. Anastasios will provide you more information later on. Please turn to Slide 5 where you can see our current fleet profile after the latest additions. We now have 19 vessels which include 14 feeder container ships and five intermediate container carriers with 661,000 deadweight tons and 51,000 teu capacity, average weight to average age by teu of 16.5 years. As mentioned earlier, Manolis P and EM Oinousses are in the process of being scrapped as soon as scrapyards open. Please turn to Slide 6 for our chartering, operational and drydocking highlights. Upto now we have been able to renew most of the charters that have expired over the first months of the year at rates generally a little bit lower than their last charters, and without facing idle times except the Akinada Bridge, the Ninos and the Hydra with each faced about 15 days of idling. Only the EM Spetses which opened up early May has not yet found new employment. I will not go through the complete list of new charters achieved, but you can see them all on Slide 6. Slide 7 shows our vessel employment in graphical form as well. As of May 25, we have about 57% coverage for the remainder of 2020 based on the minimum durations. Please turn to Slide 8; over the last five years, our operational and fleet utilization has been in excess of 98.9%. Euroseas has an outstanding safety and environmental record but at the same time the company is managing to keep costs low, despite running lowest fleet than the other listed companies. For the first quarter of 2020, operational fleet utilization was 96.2%. Practically, all the drop is attributed to the fire on Oinousses. The commercial fleet utilization rate in the first quarter of 2020 was 99%. The graph from the page compares daily cost excluding drydocking since 2011 with our peers. Overall, our costs achieved are among the lowest of the public shipping companies. Please turn to Slide 10 to discuss the containership market highlights of the first quarter. Time charter rates in the first quarter for feeder and intermediate size vessels ranging from 1,000 to 5,600 teu vessels drew a negative picture as shown by the Contex index. The 1,700 to 4,250 teu sizes fell at about 10%. The bigger ships also fell but a bit less. April and May figures are even lower and the number of idling vessels is rising. According to Clarksons; the 1,700 teu geared vessel fell from an average of $8,500 in Q4 to $7,770 in Q1, and currently stands at $6,200. The 2,500 teu geared vessel fell from an average of $10,130 in Q4 to $9,370 in Q1, and currently stands at around $7,500 per day. Whilst the 4,400 teu gless vessel fell from an average of $13,800 in Q4 to $12,900 in Q1 and currently stand at $8,250. Average secondhand prices for older than 20-year old vessels remained around their now dropping zone scrap prices, however, for younger vessels of about five to 15 years old, there was a drop circa 15%. The inactive containership fleet surged to a record of 524 vessels totaling 2.65 million teu as of May 11, according to recent trade [ph] articles. This includes idle due to scrubber retrofitting, which of course is mostly larger vessels and is about 700,000 teu total. Scrapping remained at the same levels as the latter part of 2019, which is very low for the current market. Only about 40,000 teu are scrapped in 2020 so far. Due to the lockdown of scrapyards worldwide vessels can't be scrapped currently, and any quoted prices are 20%, 25% lower than the previous prices. The fleet has grown by 0.6% in 2020 so far, without of course, accounting for idle vessels reactivations or idling. Please turn to Slide 11. Due to COVID-19, the IMF projected world GDP growth in 2020 is revised downwards from 3.3% positive growth to minus 3%, with reductions stemming from the USA, China, India and the ASEAN-5 economies mostly. India was also reduced this quarter from 5.8%; the IMF predicted three months earlier to 1.9% predicted to-date [ph]. For 2021, global GDP growth rebounds to 5.8% as per the IMF, as still the best case scenario is for a rapid global recovery. The major global economies are expected to rebound strongly in 2021, with the U.S. and the Eurozone rebounding by 4.7%, India by 7.4%, and China by 9.2%. In terms of demand for containerized trade, demand measured in teu per mile is expected by Clarksons to have a sharp drop at minus 10.3% in 2020. While high growth rate of 8.9% is expected to return around 2021, owing to the rise of the global economy. It should be noted that trade and growth projections currently made will probably be revised as the COVID-19 develops but also due to the uncertainty of the geopolitical situation. Therefore, market development projections are even harder than usually to make. Please turn to Slide 12 to review the containership age profile and orderbook delivery schedule. As you can see on the containership age profile chart on the left side of the slide, we have a young fleet with a mere 6% of ships being over 20 years old only. This however, is concentrated in the smaller sized classes where we operate. On the right side, the chart shows the delivery schedule of the current containership orderbook which is expressed as a percentage of the fleet. The circle figures for the years 2017 to 2019 show the actual fleet growth after taking into account scraping, cancellations and slippage. Once the red circle figures for 2020 to 2022, so the orderbook before any scrapping and slippage, currently the containership orderbook stands at 10% of the fleet, a figure which is the lowest observed in more than 20 years. This low level of orderbook provides a source of optimism for a quick recovery of the rates if trade demand recovers as supply side pressures will be at minimum levels. Please turn on Slide 13, where we discuss the outlook -- our outlook summary. The disruption of the economic activity and seaborne trade caused by the unprecedented worldwide lockdown, as well as the still evolving pandemic render any forecast a very ambitious exercise surrounded with a high degree of uncertainty. As discussed, initial estimates from Clarksons to quantify the effects of the pandemic on containerized trade indicates a sharp drop in demand in 2020 of 10%, followed by sharp recovery in 2021 of 9%; similar to the way economies reacted during the 2008-2009 financial crisis. Therefore, we expect a very weak 2020 and a strongly strengthening 2021 and 2022. Hoping to have been through the toughest part of the pandemic's effecting in the first half of the year 2020, we still might not expect to see any significant gains during the summer, but markets could see meaningful improvements by year-end. For the following few months it will be difficult to charter vessels that are delivered by their charterers and the owners. The best hope is to extend, if possible, with existing charterers for whatever periods are available at somewhat lower rates in order to avoid idling. The order book has a percentage of the fleet, is the lowest of the last 20 last years, indicating limited supply growth over the next two, three years. Still, a significant percentage of it is to be delivered in 2020; so some of it will spill into 2021 plus the return of quite a few vessels, mainly larger ones that are in shipyards, [indiscernible], will dampen the effect of any market recovery as the effects of COVID-19 hopefully repeat towards the latter part of the year. The orderbook for 2021 onwards is luckily quite low, and since owners do not yet know what the optimal fuel for the not too distant future will be, they are reluctant to place new orders. So, the second half 2021 and the whole of 2022 may prove to be boom periods if global demand picks up, as generally expected. Let's turn to Slide 14; the left side of the slide shows the evolution of the one-year time charter rates for containers of 2,500 teu since 2000. Since the financial crisis of 2008, rate stayed rather depressed with three spikes within the $5,500 to $15,000 per day raise. Currently, we see charter rates hovering at $7,500 per day. The right hand side of the slide shows vessel values in relation to historical prices since 2011. As you can see, containership values are still below the median historical values, and of course, significantly lower than historical average levels as well. And with that, I will now pass the floor to our CFO, Anastasios Aslidis, to go over our financial highlights.
Thank you very much, Aristides. Good morning from me as well, ladies and gentlemen. I will take the next four slides to give you an overview of our financial results for the first quarter of 2020, and compare then with the same periods of 2019. So with that, let's look first at Slide 16. For the first quarter of 2020, the company reported total net revenues of $15.4 million representing an 85% increase over total net revenues of $8.3 million during the first quarter of last year. The main reason for this revenue increase was the number of vessels we operated in 2019 to 2020 or as compared to 11 in 2019. The company reported a net income for this period of $2 million and the net income attributable to common shareholders of $1.8 million, as compared to a net loss of $0.02 million and the net loss attributable to common shareholders of $0.49 million for the first quarter of 2019. The results for the first quarter of 2020 also include $0.8 million of amortization of below market time charters acquired. Depreciation expense for the first quarter of 2020 amounted to $1.7 million compared to $0.8 million for the same period of 2019 due to the increased number of vessels we operate. In the first quarter of 2000, none of our vessels underwent drydock while in the same period of last year, we had one vessel completing a special survey with a drydock with a cost of $0.7 million. In turn, another financial cost for the third quarter of 2020 amounted to $1.3 million compared to $0.7 million in the first quarter of 2019; this increased due to the increased amount of debt we shared in the current period, compared to last year, and despite the offset by the lower LIBOR rate we had to pay this year, again as compared to the years [ph]. Adjusted EBITDA for the first quarter of 2020 was $4.1 million compared to $1.5 million achieved in the first quarter of 2019 representing 179% change/increase, again, mostly driven by the higher number of vessels we operate. Basic and diluted earnings per share for the first quarter of 2020 were $0.32 calculated of $5.58 million, basic and diluted weighted average number of shares outstanding compared to basic and diluted loss per share of $0.32 for the first quarter of 2019 calculated on $1.54 million basic and diluted, weighted average number of shares outstanding. Excluding the effect on the income attributable to common shareholders of the unrealized gains and the averages and the amortization of below market charters acquired, the adjusted earnings per share for the quarter ended March 31, 2020 would have been $0.17 compared to an adjusted loss of $0.33 for the first quarter of 2019. Usually security analysts do not include the above items in the published estimate of interest earnings [ph]. Let's now turn to Slide 17 to review our fleet performance for the first quarter of 2020, and again, compare it to the same period of last year. Let's first look at our fleet utilization rate. As usual, we have broken down our fleet visualization rates in commercial and operations. If you can see on the slide, for the first quarter of 2020, we reported 98.9% commercial utilization rates and the 96.2% operational utilization rates as compared to a 99.4% commercial and 100% operational utilization rates for the same period of 2019. I would like to remind you here that our utilization rate calculations does not include vessels in scheduled drydock or scheduled repairs or laid-up, if there is any, during the reported period. As I mentioned earlier, in the first quarter of 2020 we operated 19 vessels which had another time charter equivalent rate of $9,615 per vessel per day compared to time charter equivalent rate of $9,088 per vessel per day for the same period of 2019, a period that we operated 11 vessels on average. Total operating expenses, including management fees and general and administrative expenses, but excluding drydock cost were $5,881 per vessel per day for first quarter of 2020, compared to $6,223 per vessel per day for the same period of last year. Let's look now at the bottom of the table for our daily cash flow breakeven levels presented here on a per vessel per day basis. For the first quarter of 2020, we reported an operating cash flow breakeven level, including loan repayment but before balloon payment of $8,518 per vessel per day as compared to $8,800 per vessel per day for the first quarter of 2019. Let's now move to Slide 18 to review our debt profile. This slide shows on the right hand side our cash flow breakeven expectation for the next 12 month. And on the left side we can see our scheduled debt repayments over the next several years. As you can see from the chart on the left, almost 30% of our loan repayments this year, about $5 million are due to a related party and under certain conditions the company can repay them in turn. In 2021, we have to repay $19.2 million of our balloon payment for a loan that covers nine of our vessels. And in 2022, there is also a $1.7 million balloon repayment related to one of our vessels. Finally, in 2023, we have to make three balloon payments of nearly $30 million for the remaining nine of our vessels. A regular loan repayment, if I may say so, that is not part of the bars of the chart are scheduled to decline every year, over the next four years. Expressed in dollars per vessel per day, our loan repayments over the next 12 months amount to $1,700 in contribution to our cash flow breakeven levels. Looking now at the right part of the slide, in the table there, and by making assumptions for the remaining components of our cash flow breakeven level, that is operating expenses, G&A expenses, interest, drydock, and the cash payments of our preferred stock dividend, we come up with our cash flow breakeven level for the next 12 months which amounts to about $8,780 per vessel per day. As Aristides mentioned earlier, due to the extreme circumstances it was used by COVID-19 pandemic, we're in discussions with our bank to defer some of the loan repayments due in 2020. We're also in discussions with our preferred equity holders to pay -- to possibly pay the dividends in 2020 instead [ph]. We expect with these accommodations when formalize will reduce in half or more the cash requirements of our loan repayments and preferred dividend payments bringing down our breakeven level to around or just below $8,000 per vessel per day. Let's turn now to Slide 19. This slide provides some highlights from our balance sheet. As of March 31, 2020, we have cash and other assets of $13.6 million, and the book value for our vessel was about $113 million, giving us total assets -- total book value of our assets for approximately $126 million. On the liability side, which has an outstanding funds and other debts of about $87 million, preferred equity of about $8 million, and other liabilities of $9.5 million; thus leaving us with a book value of about $22 million. If we adjusted the book value of our -- with the market value of our vessels, based on internal estimates, we can calculate the net asset value of our fleet of about $26 million or $4.7 per share. With recent share price trading range of between $2 and $3 per share, this level represents a significant discount to the book value -- to the book and net asset value of the company, and potentially represents a good investment for our shareholders. And with that, I would like to turn the floor back to Aristides to manage the remaining of the call.
Yes. Anastasios, thank you. I am now opening the floor for any questions you may have.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] We will now take our first question, Tate Sullivan from Maxim Group. Please go ahead, your line is now open.
Hello. Just the first question on the ship list -- the current term contracts for your fleet when you indicate in your ship list; and the reason for the question that set expectations for this current quarter and next, when you indicate for instance, the term contract -- current term contract ends in May, is it usually at the end of the month or certain areas and sometimes in the middle of the month, or beginning of the month for earlier term contracts?
It varies; it could be any time during the month. We try to be around thing s and we report the amount to ships [ph].
Okay. And then, your earlier comments on the scrapyards; can you give more background on where usually containerships may get scrapped? And are the yards in the process of opening or where are they in general? Or more background on the regional diversification of where they're closed and where -- where maybe they may be open faster, please?
Yes. I mean 90% of the ships that are scrapped, are scrapped in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh; these are the three areas where we have the biggest scrapping and the pay the most, you can scrap the ship in 30 or in few other places, but you get much less money for that. Both of our ships are positioned in the United Arabs location there, and therefore the most profitable places for them to be scrapped are either Pakistan or India. These countries have locked down the scrapyards for nearly -- for over a month now. And -- but there are discussions of these scrapyards opening up very soon. In fact, in Pakistan, they say that they can open -- that the yards are open; however, there is no way to repatriate your crew yet. So, practically you cannot sell a vessel for sale because you cannot take it for scrap, because we cannot take you through all [ph]. But we hope that things will improve within the next few weeks, couple of weeks, and the ships will be sold within this quarter, within Q2.
Okay. Thank you very much. Have a good rest of the day.
Your next question comes from Paul [ph] from Noble Capital Market. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Hi, good morning, Aristides. Good morning, Anastasios. Can you highlight on the -- whether there is going to be potentially an insurance recovery for the fire in the engine room? And then secondly, could you just highlight the scrap value that you're looking for? It looks like you've had a deposit on the Manolis P; was that $1.1 million? Can you just highlight any additional cash that you potentially are looking at with scrapping the Manolis P? And then also [indiscernible].
Yes. On the Manolis P, as you say correctly, we had $1.1 million deposit, which we now have put in an escrow account subject to the developments will be arbitration procedures. Scrap prices are being quoted 20%, 25% below where they were before the crisis, although this is somehow artificial because if you look at steel and scrap prices globally, they haven't dropped; they might even be increasing. But because of the scrapyards having been closed for so long, the scrap brokers are now asking paying a lower price; we will see how that will develop. The Manolis will be sold at a price of maybe anything between $300 and $380, let's say, dollars per ton, I would say, which is just a little bit less than what we had agreed previously. But let's say around $1.5 million -- around $2.5 million, maybe. And the Oinousses will be sold something like $3.5 million to $4 million I would probably estimate right now. And of course, we are going to get the fully covered from the insurance for all the damage that we suffer. So that cost will be recovered fully, minus 100% -- $100,000 of deductible mainly.
And would you be able to quantify the damage that was incurred on -- from the fire?
I wouldn't like to do that right now. This is a process; we are in with the insurance. But it really doesn't matter too much because what we recover is what we expensed.
Okay, great. It's so though covered. And then, Anastasios, can you just talk about the below market time charter amortization? And will we see that in the second quarter or for how long should we see that?
We should see in the second quarter too but at declining rates. I'll be happy to provide some information for you that relates primarily to the ship that we bought back in November, the game was some charter as well, then below market. And as you know, when you do rolling up wires [ph] at the charter, which is to make the appropriate account adjustment. But I think that they would be going down over the next couple of quarters, let's say in early, it was about $6,000 [ph] time around.
Great. And then, could you highlight how much you're looking forward for the deferral of amortization in 2020?
I think as I mentioned, we expect to see something close to $800 per vessel per day which I think should amount to -- I think nearly $4.5 million to $5 million.
And Anastasios, I'd like to notice on Slide 18, next year, the 12 months budget numbers are based on '19.
Should -- is there linear association, if we based on 17 vessels or any adjustments that you could highlight for us that are based on regular?
They would see the most of the numbers would be the same. The G&A will increase by about $100. And the preferred dividend might increase by about $30, if it remains in cash, if it is converted in peak, it will not affect the cash flow breakeven. The only effect I see here it could be the G&A that monitors a dollars. And -- because the loan repayment that would be proportionally -- almost proportion, depends on the specialty [indiscernible] refused because when you sell a ship, you might have to pay part of the outstanding.
Great. And then, it looks like drydock activity was pretty low in the first quarter, and you know, you're budgeting higher numbers; could you just give us some timing on maybe the second quarter drydocking activity or for the rest of the year?
I believe we have one drydock right next quarter, although to be certain, I would like to check and get back to you on that.
We have a couple of ships that are due for a special survey. One in Q3, and one in Q4; we will decide if we're going to pass those special surveys, they are amongst the elder of our vessels. And we will decide if we're going to pass those special surveys or not depending on how the market has -- will be fairing at design. If the markets are very poor, we will not spend the money to pass the special survey; if the markets are recovering, and we can see that we will recover the money for the special survey within a year's time after we pass it we -- we will pass those special surveys.
And Aristides, would you mind mentioning that, you know the names of those vessels that are looking at third and fourth quarter?
It's -- the Ninos I think and the atoms.
Great. Thank you so much.
[Operator Instructions] There are no further questions at this time. Mr. Pittas, please continue.
Thank you all for participating in our call this quarter. And we will see you in three months' time again, and discuss the Q2 developments, and hopefully, the retraction of the COVID-19 worldwide.
That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may all disconnect.