Earnings Labs

United Maritime Corporation (USEA)

Q3 2023 Earnings Call· Wed, Nov 15, 2023

$2.04

+0.99%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Thank you for standing by ladies and gentlemen. And welcome to the United Maritime Corporation Conference Call on the Third Quarter Ended September 30, 2023, Financial Results. We have with us Mr. Stamatios Tsantanis, Chairman and CEO; and Mrs. Stavros Gyftakis, Chief Financial Officer of United Maritime Corporation. At this time all participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a question-and-answer session [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that this conference call is being recorded today Wednesday, November 15, 2023. The archived webcast of the conference call will soon be made available on the United Maritime website, www.unitedmaritime.gr under the investor section. Many of the remarks today contain forward-looking statements based on current expectations. Actual results may differ materially from the results projected from those forward-looking statements. Additional information concerning factors that can cause the actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statement is contained in the third quarter ended 30, 2023 earnings release, which is available on the United Maritime website again, www.unitedmaritime.gr. I would now like to turn the conference over to one of your speakers today, the Chairman and CEO of the company, Mr. Stamatios Tsantanis. Please go ahead.

Stamatios Tsantanis

Analyst

Good afternoon. I would like to welcome everyone to United Maritime earnings conference call, where we are going to discuss our financial performance for the third quarter of 2023, as well as our main corporate and commercial developments. Starting with some financial highlights, in the third quarter of 2023, we recorded a very strong net profit of $8.9 million or $0.91 per share on a revenue of $11.7 million for the company’s fleet and a daily time charter equivalent rate of $16,200. During the third quarter, we completed the delivery of our last LR2 tanker to its new owners after agreeing to sell it earlier in the year. United, recover the gain of $11.8 million in this transaction, yielding an extraordinary return on our initial equity investment of about 300%. Furthermore, during the quarter, we also completed a delivery of all previously acquired dry bulk vessels. The fourth quarter of 2023 will be the first period with a full dry bulk fleet consisting now of three Capesizes, two Kamsarmaxes and three Panamax vessels that will be operating on a fully delivered basis. It is important to note that this $144 million investment in 2023 has been financed using cash on hand and debt without resorting to any dilutive capital raising transactions. United Maritime has not done any public equity offering since its IPO in July 2022. Consistent with our stated dividend policy, for the third quarter, our Board of Directors has approved another cash distribution of $0.075 per share amounting to an annualized yield of about 14%. During 2023, we have paid out $1.30 per share cash dividend, which represents approximately 63% of our current trading price. Additionally, since the end of second quarter, we have completed share repurchases for an aggregate amount of about $400,000 at an average price…

Stavros Gyftakis

Analyst

Thank you, Stamatios. A warm welcome to everyone also from my side. Let us start by reviewing the main highlights of our financial statements. Net revenue in the third quarter was equal to 11.7 million with our PCE reaching 16,200 per day. Net revenue for the nine-months period was equal to 24.5 million, while PCE was $15,100. Adjusted EBITDA was also improved this past quarter, reaching 13.8 million, including the 11.8 million gain from the sale of our last tanker. Just to briefly remind you, our tanker via Epanastasea was sold for $37.5 million representing a return on equity investment of approximately 300%. At the same time, we manage the reduction in operating expenses during these nine-months period with OpEx per vessel falling year-on-year by 9%. Our adjusted EBITDA for the period up to September 30th, was $14.4 I’m, with almost 75% of our ownership days hedged for the fourth quarter at an average rate of $14,700 per day, we are prepared for any further volatility in the market during the last quarter of the year. Moving on to our balance sheet, we increased our cash position during the third quarter to $14.3 million, while enrolling our second investment cycle. Who has taken delivery of two more Panamax drybulk vessels, raising the book value of the fleet to 155.5 million. Debt outstanding, which includes liabilities under our bareboat in transaction stood at 94.3 million as of September 30th. During the quarter, as Stamatios mentioned, we entered into a 12-month bareboat charter agreement for the Synthesea. According to this agreement, following a total down payment of $5 million, United will be paying a daily rate of $8,000 of charter high, while we have the option to purchase the vessel at the end of the charter period for a price of $17.1…

Stamatios Tsantanis

Analyst

Thanks, Stavros. After successfully completing our first investment cycle, which was very, very profitable and delivering strong returns for our shareholders, we have now grown our fleet without resorting to any dilutive capital raisings. So far we have paid total cash dividends of $1.30 per share or $10 million since November 2022, representing a massive cash yield of 63%. We have not made any public equity offering since our IPO. And not only that, but we have made aggressive stock buybacks for approximately 3.5 million common shares at an average price of $1.87 since Q3 of 2022 creating a significant accretion for shareholders. We have placed the company in an optimal position to take advantage of another rising market cycle deriving from a strong demand for raw materials and the lowest order book in many years. From here, I would like to turn the call over to the operator and answer any questions you may have. Operator, please take the call.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] And our first question comes from Tate Sullivan from Maxim Group. Your line is now open.

Tate Sullivan

Analyst

On the share buyback comment, Stamatios, do you currently have a share repurchase authorization in place and do you mean that you are limited based on the daily trading volume in the stock from buying as much as you want to or I’m just looking at the statement in the press release.

Stamatios Tsantanis

Analyst

The answer is, yes. Unfortunately, we are bound by the liquidity of the stock. We are doing in many days the maximum amount of shares that we can repurchase. Obviously, now due to the financial results we had blackout, but the intention is to continue at a certain point aggressively again as much as we can to repurchase stock as much as possible. We hope that in the coming weeks and months that the liquidity is going to pick up and we can do more-and-more buybacks. But for the time being, we are restricted by the volume and the rules are the rules, so we cannot overcome that.

Tate Sullivan

Analyst

And average diluted shares is around 9.4 million is outstanding common shares much below that In case you have that figure handy or can share?

Stamatios Tsantanis

Analyst

I don’t know. Stavros is going to give you the response now.

Stavros Gyftakis

Analyst

Yes. The diluted number of sales, you said it. It is in line with around 9.3 million diluted basis, including all the outstanding warrants.

Tate Sullivan

Analyst

And then with the remaining use of cash, I mean, pro forma for the bareboat charter, 14 million of cash are continuing to consider acquisitions or happy with the fleet setup going into 2024?

Stamatios Tsantanis

Analyst

Right now, we are quite content, having done a big amount of transactions this year. We sold and bought so many ships, so total investment of more than $140 million, all organic, no equity dilution. So the answer is that we will continue seeking to grow the company on a very, very accretive basis. And if we can do more the bareboat deals like we have done so far, we will continue doing so. So first and most cautious thing in our minds is the shareholder benefit that we can make. We don’t issue in stock right now, given that we are trading at a discount to NAV. And for the time being, we will grow the fleet if we can through similar transactions that we have done so far.

Operator

Operator

And I’m showing no further questions. I would now like to turn the call back over to Stamatios for closing remarks.

Stamatios Tsantanis

Analyst

Thank you, Justin. Once again, I would like to thank everyone for attending our call today. We look forward to touch up again in the near future. Thank you very much once again and you may now disconnect your lines.

Operator

Operator

This concludes today’s conference call. Thanks for participating. You may now disconnect. Speakers, please stand by.