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Euroseas Ltd. (ESEA)

Q2 2018 Earnings Call· Fri, Aug 10, 2018

$71.46

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good afternoon. Thank you for standing by, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Euroseas Conference Call on the Second Quarter 2018 Financial Results. We have with us Mr. Aristides Pittas, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; and Mr. Tasos Aslidis, Chief Financial Officer of the Company. [Operator Instructions] I must advise you that this conference is being recorded today. Please be reminded that the Company announced their 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. Matters discussed may be 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 statement, 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, now I would like to pass the floor to Mr. Tasos Aslidis. Please go ahead, sir.

Tasos Aslidis

Analyst

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you all for joining us today for our scheduled conference call. Together with me is Tasos Aslidis, our Chief Financial Officer. The purpose of today's call is to discuss our financial results for the three and six month period ended June 30, 2018. Let's turn to Slide 3. During the second quarter of 2018, we achieved a significant milestone in executing our strategy by completing the spin-off of six of our drybulk vessels into EuroDry Ltd., a shipping company also listed on NASDAQ. We are pleased to see that our shareholders benefited by having the market value of their combined EuroDry and Euroseas holdings increase by more than 40% as a result of the spin-off. The combined price after the spin-off amounted to $3.32 per share compared to $2.24 per share immediately prior to the spin-off, a 48% gain. Euroseas is now the only U.S. listed mainly feeder container Company. We believe the feeder container sector will experience positive demand supply dynamics over the next couple of years, and the low order book and relatively elder fleet profile are expected to keep supply growth under control. At the same time, demand growth should be positively influenced by expected continuing economic growth in most regions of the world. Indeed, during the second quarter of 2018 the container ship market continued its recovery, and although rates have softened a bit since early July, they remain at levels that will allow us to produce profits for our shareholders. We remained focused on growing Euroseas to a significant publicly listed consolidated platform for the feeder container sector. We continuously evaluate investment opportunities of either individual vessels or fleets that could be accretive to our shareholders. Let's turn to Slide 4. The Euroseas fleet is comprised of 11…

Tasos Aslidis

Analyst

Thank you very much, Aristides. Good morning from me ladies and gentlemen. I will take the next three slides to give you an overview of our financial results for the second quarter and first half of 2018 in comparison with same period of the previous year. Let’s look at Slide 16, for the second quarter of 2018 we reported total net revenues of $9.8 million representing an 85% increase over total net revenues of $5.3 million during the second quarter of 2017. This was the result of the increased average number of vessels we operated during the quarter and also the increased average time charter rate our vessels earned. We reported net income for the period of $2.1 million and net income attributable to common shareholders of $1.8 million as compared to a net loss of $0.8 million and a net loss attributable to common shareholders of $1.2 million respectively for the same period of 2017. The difference between net income and net income attributable to common shareholders accounts for the dividend we paid to our Series B preferred shares in the second quarter of this year. This preferred dividend can be paid out entirely either in cash or in kind, and we have elected to pay it in kind for the last 18 quarters. The results for the second quarter of 2018 includes a $1.3 million gains on sale of a vessel the Monica P as Aristides mentioned. Drydock expense for the quarter amounted to $0.4 million as one vessels underwent drydocking, depreciation expenses for the second quarter of 2018 amounted to $0.8 million compared to $1 million for the same period of last year. Although the average number of vessels increased, one vessels was held for sale during the second quarter 2018 and it did not contributed to…

Aristides Pittas

Analyst

Thank you, Tasos. We are open to questions that anybody may have. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Your first question today comes from the line of James Jang from Maxim Group. Please go ahead, your line is now open.

James Jang

Analyst

So, just looking at the fleet employment profile, it looks like you guys are happy operating some vessels on spot at the moment. How have you seen rates start to develop or at least start to get deeper into Q3?

Aristides Pittas

Analyst

As we said, we are seeing a slight correction on rates and we have one ship only that has just concluded its charter, which is the bigger vessel, the Akinada, and we have not been able to fix that vessel yet. So we will experience some idle time there. The smaller vessels, they are all employed and we think will be employed for the next couple of months, as the indications are, the charterers, we keep most them till the end of the window that they have available. But we are finding it - for the bigger ship, harder than we thought we would.

James Jang

Analyst

So, there could be some material effect for the third quarter earnings, correct?

Aristides Pittas

Analyst

From the Akinada Bridge, if we are not able to secure some employment, this could be quite significant.

James Jang

Analyst

You guys told - more as a short-term thing, do you think in Q4, the rates will go back up to about the previous charter rate?

Aristides Pittas

Analyst

I think that usually within September or October, everything else being equal, charter rates improve for container ships. So we think that things should look better in a couple of months.

James Jang

Analyst

Have you seen - the intra agent trade or the intraregional trades still strengthened or have you seen some more come out extensions where the vessels are trading further away from the typical?

Aristides Pittas

Analyst

The one area where we've seen a correction, and say, the bigger part of this use is the longer trades with medium sized vessels. So, we saw some time specific lines cancelling sailings. We haven't seen a softening in the regional trades where all the smaller vessels trade.

James Jang

Analyst

Do you have a drydock schedule for 2019 yet?

Aristides Pittas

Analyst

There are a couple of vessels that have to be drydocked, I mean, I can provide you offline the specifics but I think – we don't have – we have, as I see here, we have some in-water surveys that we expect to [indiscernible] we have only one other drydock in the next 12 months.

Operator

Operator

We have no further questions at this time. So I'll hand the floor back.

Aristides Pittas

Analyst

Well, thank you for listening in our conference call today. And we'll speak again in about three months.

Tasos Aslidis

Analyst

Thanks everybody.