Earnings Labs

StealthGas Inc. (GASS)

Q2 2012 Earnings Call· Fri, Aug 17, 2012

$9.57

-0.78%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Welcome to the StealthGas Inc. second quarter 2012 results call. At this time all parties are in a listen-only mode. (Operator Instructions) I would now like to turn the conference over to your speaker today Harry Vafias. Please go ahead, sir.

Harry Vafias

Management

Thank you and good morning, everyone. Welcome to our conference call and webcast to discuss the results for the second quarter and six months 2012. I’m Harry Vafias, CEO of StealthGas, and I would like to remind you that we will be discussing forward-looking statements in today’s conference call and presentation. Regarding the Safe Harbor language, I would like you to refer to slide number one of this presentation as well to our press release on our second quarter and six month results. With me today is Konstantinos Sistovaris, CFO, and if you need any further info on the conference call or the presentation, please contact to Konstantinos or myself. Before I start with the slides, I would like to comment on the results we released today which highlight a considerable year-over-year improvement in our operations. Our income from operations went from 1.2 million last year to about 10 million this year, a 740% increase, I repeat 740% increase. But even looking at our bottom line not a net income of $0.35 a share, but our adjusted figure of $0.31 a share that excludes the losses and gains on [western] sales and hedging compared with a $0.16 a share for the same quarter last year which was close to a 100% increase, even compared to the previous quarters adjusted EPS of $0.25 is a 25% improvement. This shows once again a significant improvement in the LPG market in contrast with the continuing difficult environment for more shipping companies where by few reporting earnings at all. As a result of our focus in the niche LPG market, we continue to operate profitably and we are confident that the fundamentals in our core segment point further market improvements in the future. We have laid solid foundations for the company and improved our…

Konstantinos Sistovaris

Management

Thank you, Harry. Good morning everyone. Let me continue with this presentation with slide number four, the financial highlights for the second quarter and six months of 2012. With an average of 37 vessels owned and operated in the second quarter we realized a net income of 7.2 million on voyage revenue use of 29.1 million. EBTDA was 16.5 million and earnings per share for the quarter were $0.35. Our adjusted net income for the quarter were 6.5 million or $0.31 per share that is before the net non-cash loss of 0.3 million on interest rate swaps, 1 million on swap interest paid and 0.1 million gain on the sale of a vessel the Gas Kalogeros and 0.1 million unrealized foreign exchange loss. The free cash balance at the end of the quarter was approximately $57 million versus $46.5 million at the end of last quarter. We also have about $4.9 million in restricted cash as part of loan agreements. For the six months of 2012, with an average of 36.7 vessels our net income was $14.6 million compared to a net loss of $2.1 million for the same period last year. Voyage revenues were $58.3 million and EBITDA was $33.4 million, adjusted net income for the six months period was $11.7 million or $0.57 per share compared to $6.1 million or $0.29 per share for the same period last year. We now turn to slide number five, for summary of our income statement in order to compare our results for the second quarter versus the previous quarter and versus last year's quarter. Compared to last year when we had two more vessels in the fleet, our revenues decreased by $2.2 million. However, the big difference is in the expense side. Compared to last year, our voyage costs were reduced…

Harry Vafias

Management

Slide nine please. As we’ve said in the past, one of the key drivers in LPG market is supply of the product. LPG is a by-product of natural gas and we expect that as more natural gas producing facilities are being built, there will be more LPG available for shipment, especially since it's too costly too store. The Middle East is the main exporter of LPG and usually VLGCs are used to carry the products from the Middle East to hubs in Asia such as Singapore where our vessels take care of the local distribution. The Middle East and countries especially Qatar have increased their quantities, that produce and is expected to further increase will continue throughout LPG seaborne trade in total could reach 70 million tonnes by '13 and 82 million tonnes by '15. As a result, we see increased interest from business coming to Asia from Middle Eastern companies. On the other side of the equation, the managed (inaudible) increasing developing nations especially in the Far East, where the majority of our fleet is trading. A recent trend we've seen is increasing demand for LPG from petrochemical plants especially in Europe. In the US shale gas increases LPG export potential. Although, US has never been a major exporter of LPG and only have a couple of vessels occasionally trading there as a potential for an additional 2.5 million tonnes to 3 million tonnes of LPG of exports. Although not a huge amount, it is a welcome development. Slide 10. In this slide, we show you one year time charge rates for the average size ship of our fleet which is 5,000 cbm. We have updated these slides last quarter rates, current rates and future estimates for the third quarter of 2012. So looking at the 5,000 CBM pressure…

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from the line of [Jack Wilson] of UBS. Please go ahead.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Your stock buyback program is definitely the best thing you can do with your seep discount; when we recommend stocks decline or so however, the first question is where is the dividend yield, that’s very important to investors in the current environment? Could you possibly consider restarting the low cash dividend policy and that would open the door for many investors?

Harry Vafias

Management

Thank you Jack; probably you are not on the last call. We said very precisely on this question that we will wait and see how the last six months of 2012 pan-out and thereafter, we will sit down with the Board and discuss the possibility of a dividend reinstatement. But just to add something, if these investors are clever and just as a basic maths of GASS to see whether the company with 45% debt to market values, $65 million cash, $80 million of projected EBITDA and leader in its segment and tiny book and is trading at 60% discount of NAV. So I do understand that dividend is very important, but I think it’s no-brainer whether this level is definitely bargains, big bargain, so.

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) Your next question comes from the line of [Vic Peters]. Please go ahead.

Undefined Analyst

Analyst

Good morning, Harry. This is actually [Jeff Gegas]. When your interest rate swap start to roll up, would you intend to further hedge your interest rate exposure?

Harry Vafias

Management

Depends; I cannot say at the moment. We have nothing that is very prompt to be discussed, but we don’t foresee rates going up in the near future.

Undefined Analyst

Analyst

Second question, you have got four ships coming off charter, six in spot; what is your expectation in terms of where your fleet will end up at year-end with regard to spot versus fixed?

Harry Vafias

Management

I don’t know which vessels these are, because I don’t have the list in front me. But I suppose at the year-end it will be approximately at the same percent as that we are today; we will have about five to six vessels spot.

Undefined Analyst

Analyst

And a last question and you may have mentioned this on your prior call, but I didn’t recall, what is your intention with respect to your cash, if not buying in shares?

Harry Vafias

Management

We are entering the second stage of expansion, so some of the cash will go towards that. And two, as we discussed previously, there is going to be either dividend reinstatement or share buyback.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Your next questions comes from the line of [Martin Barrow] of NSR Please go ahead.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

I just wonder if you could talk about the statement in the press release about evaluating strategic opportunities to grow and renew fleet; are these acquisitions that you are looking at or new orders; I am a little bit puzzled by what you said?

Harry Vafias

Management

No, we are not; and generally we prefer to buy the ships on an individual basis i.e. one-by-one, or two-by-two at a maximum. We have not seen any groups of ship or any fleets that we want to acquire. Our priority is modern ships either very, very modern second hand ships or brand new ships. At the moment, we haven’t done anything, but obviously the time is coming that we have the money, we are very bullish for this year and the next and we need to keep our leading position with brand new vessels that not only are in high demand, but also give much better operational efficiency, because of new engines, lower consumption and lower running costs basically.

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) There are no further questions at this time. Please continue.

Harry Vafias

Management

We like to thank you very much for joining us at our conference call today and for your interest and trust in our company. We look forward to having you again at our next conference call for our third quarter results in October.

Operator

Operator

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