Earnings Labs

FLEX LNG Ltd. (FLNG)

Q3 2020 Earnings Call· Tue, Nov 17, 2020

$31.82

+1.28%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Flex LNG Q3 2020 Earnings Presentation Conference Call. At this time, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. After the speaker presentation, there will a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions]. I must advise you that this conference is being recorded today. And I would now like to turn the conference over to your speaker, Mr. Øystein Kalleklev. Thank you. Please go ahead. Øystein Kalleklev: Okay, thank you, and welcome to Flex LNG’s 2020 third quarter presentation. My name is Øystein Kalleklev, and I'm the CEO of Flex LNG Management. I will be joined today by our CFO, Harald Gurvin, who will go through the numbers as well as providing our financial updates. A replay of the webcast will also be available at flexlng.com. So, Slide #2 is a disclaimer with regards to, among others, forward-looking statements, non-GAAP measures, and completeness of details. And the full disclaimer is available in the presentation, and we recommend that the presentation is read together with the earnings report as well as our 20-F Annual Report. So, Slide #3, the highlights. Not surprisingly, the spot market stayed weak during the spring and summer due to the fallout on the COVID-19 pandemic. This adversely affected demand for natural gas, resulting in record low prices and thereby incentivizing a flurry of cancellation of flexible U.S. cargoes. Nevertheless, the market started to improve by August as restrictions were eased and the economic activity picked up. The improvement in the freight market was, however, somewhat derailed and delayed by the most active hurricane season on record in the U.S., resulting in temporary shutdowns of LNG export plants in the Gulf of Mexico. The tropical storm, Iota, easily became the third named tropical storm, breaking the…

Harald Gurvin

Analyst

Thank you Øystein. Looking at the income statement on Slide 6, revenues for the quarter came in at 33.1 million up from 25.8 million in the previous quarter. The time charter equivalent rate for both quarters was 47,000 per day, and the increase is due to delivery of three vessels during the quarter, increasing the number of vessel days. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was 21.9 million, up from 17.4 in the previous quarter. The results for the quarter includes again on derivatives of 2.1 million relating to our interest rate swaps, which includes an unrealized non-cash gain of 3.5 million. This compares to a loss of 6.6 million in the previous quarter of which 6.2 million was unrealized. At quarter end, we had entered into interest rate swaps totaling 710 million at an average interest rate of approximately 1.2%. The gain on interest rate swaps was a result of the increase in longer-term interest rates during the quarter following a significant drop during the first half of 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Net income for the quarter was 3.8 million, up from a net loss of 6.7 million in the previous quarter. Adjusted net income for the quarter was 1.2 million or $0.02 per share compared to an adjusted net loss of 700,000 or $0.01 per share in the previous quarter. Then moving on to our balance sheet as per September 30th on Slide 7. Following delivery of the three new buildings our assets at quarter end consisted of nine vessels on the water with an aggregate value of 1.7 billion. In addition, we have booked vessel purchase for prepayments of 218 million relating to the four new buildings still to be delivered at quarter end. This represents the advance payment on these including the 17.8 million we…

Operator

Operator

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions]. There is no question at this time. Please continue. Øystein Kalleklev: I think I got some chat questions here. So I can maybe take those. I've been talking for such a long time now, so I am going to try to keep it a bit short. So the questions we received here is as follows. Should we consider the dividend of 10% [Sic] [$0.10] as fixed? So that's certainly not the case. All income is variable, it goes up and down. If you look at it yesterday, so our adjusted income -- adjusted earnings per share is $0.18. We started paying dividends last year, Q3, so we paid $0.10. In Q4, we delivered fantastic results last year, $94,000 on a TCE basis, but we did not increase the dividend. And the reason was, we were in February 2020, the lockdowns had started in China and there was a lot of uncertainty. So we decided just to stay with the dividend of $0.10 for Q4. And then as the virus spread and we had our Q1 report in May, we decided to suspend the dividend, given an older uncertain nature of the market development. So we have suspended it for Q1 and Q2, and now we are delivering Q3 and adjusted EPS for these three quarters are $0.18. We think it's appropriate to start with $0.10 again for this quarter. When we are delivering on both in Q4 next year, February, of course, we will most likely have our earnings support with significantly more earnings, given the guidance provided today. So then we will really just assess the outlook, the bookings for Q2 and Q1 to define the appropriate level of the dividend. But in general, we…

Operator

Operator

There are no question that came through. Please continue. Øystein Kalleklev: Okay. Thank you, everybody, for joining the webcast today. The dividends maybe we have some based on that. I think it's payable 17th of December. So it won't be in your bank account in – ahead of Black Friday, but at least it will be in your bank account ahead of Christmas season. So I hope you can spend it well either on buying fresh stocks or something nice for your loved ones. So thanks a lot again for joining, and we'll be back in February.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. This does conclude our conference for today. Thank you all for participating. You may now disconnect.