Earnings Labs

Frontline Ltd. (FRO)

Q3 2008 Earnings Call· Fri, Nov 28, 2008

$36.14

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day and welcome to the Frontline Ltd. Q3 2008 results presentation conference call. At this time I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Jens Martin Jensen; please go ahead sir.

Jens Martin Jensen

Management

Good afternoon and good morning to the people who have dialed in from America, welcome to Frontline Q3 presentation. We will start the presentation with our CFO, Inger Klemp, going through the financial highlights and major transactions and a review of our financial situation and newbuilding program. After that I will give a rundown on the market situation on how we see markets moving ahead. After that there will hopefully be time for some questions and answers. So Inger if you could start with the financials.

Inger Klemp

CFO

Thank you Jens, good morning to all of you. I will guide you quickly through the major transactions and the financial highlights in the third quarter 2008 together with a run through of the newbuilding program as Jens just said. So then moving to slide four and five in the presentation, in July, 2008 Frontline received approximately $207 million after the completion of a private placement of 3 million new shares at a subscription of NOK 357 per share. Further in June, 2008 Frontline acquired five double hull Suezmax tankers [on block] from Top Ships and that was at a purchase price of $240 million. One vessel was delivered in June, one was delivered in July, and the remaining vessels were delivered in September. Further in June, 2008 we also entered into an agreement to take five double hull Suezmaxes on time charter from Eiger Shipping for the balance period of existing charters, all with commencement of charter from June to August and the re-delivery from September, 2009 to April, 2010. And in September, 2008 Frontline completed a syndicated loan facility for $180 million to part finance the acquisition of the five double hull Suezmaxes purchased from Top Ships. In September, 2008 Frontline chartered out Front Guider and Front Viewer for a period of five years with commencement of charter early December this year and mid-April, 2009 respectively. Further in November, 2008 Frontline chartered out Front Energy for a three-year period with delivery in mid November and Front Champion for a period of one year with commencement of charter early December, 2008. And as a consequence of the increased time charter coverage the average time charter [rate] has increased from 2008 to 2009 with $2,500 and further $2,400 from 2009 to 2010. In early December we will re-deliver Cosglory Lake…

Jens Martin Jensen

Management

Thank you Inger, we are now on slide number 18, the earnings slide. As you can see in the grey shown the rates dramatically changed in the third quarter in 2008. There was a complete sentiment turn basically from fear of oil supply to fear of demand. The high rates for VLCCs were $164,000 per day to lows down to $29,500. At the end of July the market for VLCCs fell more then 100 WS point within one week and our strategy as Inger mentioned of fixing short higher paying [AGE] voyages proved to be wrong. We should instead have gone for longer voyages such as AG west or West Africa east voyages or maybe voyages into the US west coast. The steep fall in the spot rates have to some extent been compensated by the falling bunker prices however the positive effect of this is lagging, e.i. it takes time to consume the expensive bunkers. The negative oil demand sentiment has turned, has continued and obviously the OPEC cut on the 24th of October did not help the sentiment. With further oil company tanker relet hitting the market there was pressure on the market. We estimate that the spot VLCC rate today is about $45,000 per day with spot bunkers. The Tulin incident in the [Malaga] Strait which is a single hull VLCC has proven that there is definitely rate pressure on single hull VLCCs and the gap is widening. If you look at the Suezmax graph a similar pattern as the VLCCs from high rate of $153,000 per day down to $41,000 however in relative terms the Suezmax market has remained more healthy compared to VLCCs. The main positive factor on the Suezmax rates in the third quarter has been that many VLCC cargos traditionally, many cargos traditionally…

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from the line of [Robert Silver – RE Silver & Associates] [Robert Silver – RE Silver & Associates]: When you gave the presentation, you gave a reference to corporate opportunities, could you expand what you mean by corporate opportunities.

Inger Klemp

CFO

That of course could be a lot of things but of course you know that it’s a lot of companies which are quite inexpensive in the market nowadays. It could be anything.

Jens Martin Jensen

Management

We are not looking at any specific company but obviously we are following other companies in the industry and as Inger mentioned many of these companies on paper now are looking quite attractive so this is something that we are looking at and I’m sure other companies are as well. [Robert Silver – RE Silver & Associates]: Is that why the dividend was reduced so much to conserve cash to make it possible to do such corporate opportunities?

Inger Klemp

CFO

As we explained in the press release the reduction in the dividend was taken after a thorough evaluation of different items but of course the newbuilding commitments, the weak fundamentals that we foresee in 2009, and also the squeeze in the credit market was important in that consideration. In addition to that we also considered the opportunities as we just spoke about.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of [Sheila Lehrman – Independent] [Sheila Lehrman – Independent]: Can you please tell me what you have set for the ex dividend date?

Inger Klemp

CFO

The ex dividend date is December 5, 2008.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of [Steven Williams – Simmons] [Steven Williams – Simmons]: Should you have any more difficulty then you current envisage with regards to refinancing or any kind of problems in the credit market, is there any possibility of and would you give any consideration to cancellation of any of your newbuilds?

Jens Martin Jensen

Management

I think there is probably other things we will look at before we do that. Of course that’s always one option but we have quite well priced newbuilding and we believe should we have to we could sell these ships in the market even though overall prices under pressure we still believe that we could sell some of these. Of course if cancellation is a must, this is something we could look into but we have not done that yet. [Steven Williams – Simmons]: On a theoretical basis and if you were to go and sell any of these newbuildings today what sort of price do you think you could get?

Jens Martin Jensen

Management

I think without of course knowing for sure, but speaking to a few potential buyers, brokers, in the market today, I believe that a newbuilding you can probably sell in the market between $130 and $140 million basic delivery now.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of [Andy Rose – ABG] [Andy Rose – ABG]: I don’t know if I quite heard what you said on reselling a newbuilding contract, but did you say that you expect that you could resell a newbuilding contract for $130 million?

Jens Martin Jensen

Management

Yes. [Andy Rose – ABG]: But does that also apply to your Chinese vessels which were contracted at a significant discount to the market quotations at the time?

Jens Martin Jensen

Management

That would be for VLCC coming from, being delivered now let’s say the first quarter next year, I believe you could sell that between $130 and $140 million in the market now.

Operator

Operator

Your next question is a follow-up from the line of [Robert Silver – RE Silver & Associates] [Robert Silver – RE Silver & Associates]: I know you have a lag on bunker prices using them up, but with the new bunker pricing where it is, how long do you think it will take before that will significantly impact at the lower prices?

Jens Martin Jensen

Management

On some of the ships of course we have been able to bunker and consume at these lower prices so I would, and of course it depends a little bit on the voyages but within hopefully before the fourth quarter is out we are down to bunkers at the present level. But it will take two to three months to burn the bunkers out. [Robert Silver – RE Silver & Associates]: Given the same situation that you had now during the third quarter would you anticipate that the dividend would be approximately the same in the fourth quarter?

Inger Klemp

CFO

I wouldn’t think that we would say anything about that at the time being. That is for, that’s what the future will show.

Operator

Operator

There are no additional questions at this time; I would like to turn it back over to management for any additional or closing comments.

Jens Martin Jensen

Management

I would to thank everybody for dialing in and spending your time and for people dialing in from America Happy Thanksgiving. We are sorry we had to put this conference during your vacation. I think it didn’t cross our mind when we blocked off this date. But thank you everybody for dialing in and showing interest in our company.