SFL - Earnings Call - Q2 2020

Transcript

Speaker 0

Thank you, and welcome all to SFL's Second Quarter Conference Call. I will start the call by briefly going through the highlights of the quarter. And following that, our CFO, Axel Olesen, will take us through the financials, and the call will be concluded by opening up for questions. Before we begin our presentation, I would like to note that this conference call will contain forward looking statements within the meaning of The U. S.

Private Securities Litigation Reform Act Words such as expects, anticipates, intends, estimates or similar expressions are intended to identify these forward looking statements. These statements are based on our current plans and expectations and involve risks and uncertainties that could cause future activities and results of operations to be materially different from those set forth in the forward looking statements. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ includes conditions in the shipping, offshore and credit markets. For further information, please refer to SFL's reports and filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The announced dividend of $0.25 per share represents a dividend yield of around 10.5% based on closing price yesterday and this is our sixty sixth quarter with dividends. Over the years, we have paid more than $27 per share in dividends or $2,300,000,000 in total and we have a significant fixed rate charter backlog supporting continued dividend capacity going forward. The total charter revenues of $158,000,000 was in line with the first quarter with more than 90% of this from vessels on long term charters and less than 10% from vessels employed on short term charters and in the spot market. All customers are current on the charter payments and we have good cash flow visibility into the current quarter. The EBITDA equivalent cash flow in the quarter was approximately $121,000,000 and last twelve months the EBITDA equivalent cash flow has been approximately $481,000,000 demonstrating the stability.

With a very large proportion of long term charters and the fact that all customers are currently charter payments, the underlying business remained robust and cash position was more than $150,000,000 after repayment of a bond loan in June. In addition, we had 35,000,000 in marketable securities at quarter end. Our fixed rate backlog stands at approximately $3,400,000,000 after recent vessels acquisitions, charter extensions and vessel sales, providing cash flow visibility going forward. We have been cautious in the light of the uncertainty caused by the COVID-nineteen outbreak, but in May, we acquired a newbuild VLCC with long term charter. The net purchase price was $65,000,000 which is significantly below current broker estimates for VLCC resales, effectively providing SFL with a very attractive risk profile.

Our chartering counterparty, the Landbridge Group has secured a three year sub charter to an oil major providing good cash flow visibility. There are purchase options for the charterer during the charter period, first time after three years. And at the end of the charter, there is a purchase obligation. The net contribution after debt service during the first three years is estimated to more than $4,000,000 on average with full cash flow effect from this quarter. We have been active extending charters on our existing fleet and so far this year, we have added $172,000,000 to our charter backlog on existing vessels.

Dollars 38,000,000 was linked to an extension agreed in the second quarter for seven container vessels we extended by another four point five years. And with a large fleet of assets, there will always be acquisitions and disposals and two of the vessels on charter to the Hunter Group has been repurchased by them. The Hunter deal was designed to give us a very high return on low risk profile in exchange for flexibility on Hunter's part. This is a good example of a cost of capital arbitrage where we could utilize our premium access to low cost funding and at the same time give flexibility that Hunter was willing to pay for. Delivery took place earlier today and net cash to us is $23,000,000 after repayment of the associated financing and there is one vessel remaining with Hunter in our fleet after that.

We have also been active in the financing market over the last months and have addressed most of the financing maturities this year. Terms have been attractive and we have seen lower all in interest costs than ever before despite the general market volatility. We believe part of the reason for this is the consistent performance of SFL the last sixteen years and our ability to source capital from a much wider market than most other maritime companies. During the second quarter, we refinanced four large container vessels at historic low interest costs. We stored $50,000,000 of non recourse financing on the new VLCC we acquired and we repaid the Norwegian kroner denominated bond loan due in June from our cash position.

The COVID-nineteen pandemic has caused massive disruptions in most transportation markets and for offshore assets. As early as January, we implemented a robust emergency management plan with the goal of ensuring the health and safety of our crew on board the vessels and onshore, while maintaining our business operations as efficiently as possible. In addition to our own requirements, all crewing managers are following the guidance issued by the World Health Organization and the International Chamber of Shipping to ensure that the proper protocols are in place onboard the vessels. We are hosting regular meetings with all crewing managers in all our sectors to discuss and handle any issues, in particular challenging facing our crew and safe operations as they arise. While we have good and strong protocols in place on border vessels during the normal ship and port operations, our biggest concern is with crew changes.

The logistics challenges of testing and moving people across borders safely without infection are enormous. And in many countries and ports, such movements are not even allowed. This means that we have had to postpone crew changes and extend the contracts of many of our seafarers over this period after the outbreak. While they have shown great understanding of the situation, there are many individuals who have suffered due to this and we acknowledge their vital contribution in these challenging times. In addition to crew transfers, we have also experienced some delays at shipyards in connection with dry dockings and scrubber retrofitting of vessels.

Of the 85 vessels, currently only three are idle and we have seen some improvements in the market in several of the segments recently. After all, the vessels more exposed to near term market developments represent less than 10% of our charter revenues, and the 90% fixed rate revenues are more insulated to short term market movements caused by effects that we could not predict. Despite the impact of COVID-nineteen on global trade, all our counterparties are current on charter hire payments with good visibility for the current quarter as mentioned before. But we will of course continue to closely monitor developments in our customers' end markets in order to be able to react quickly to any potential business disruptions. Following the recent charter extensions, our charter backlog now stands at approximately $3,400,000,000 and of this more than $420,000,000 has been added in last twelve months.

Over the years, we have changed both fleet composition and structure and we now have 85 assets in our portfolio and no vessels remaining from the initial fleet in 02/2004. We have gone from a single asset class chartered to one single customer to a diversified fleet and multiple counterparties. And over time, the mix of the charter backlog has varied from 100 tankers to nearly 60% offshore at one stage to container being the largest segment now with 55% of the backlog. We do not have a set mix in the portfolio, focus is on evaluating deal opportunities across the segments and try to do the right transactions from a risk reward perspective. Over time, we believe this will balance itself out, but we try to be careful and conservative in our investments and not just invest because money is burning in our pockets.

With the exceptions of two car carriers that are currently idle in the shipping space, all other assets are generating cash flow. Some segments like the dry bulk market and containership market has also improved over the last few months. The offshore market, however, remains very challenging. We have three rigs on charter to Seadrill and two of the rigs are harsh environment units working in the North Sea. West Linus is sub chartered to ConocoPhillips on a very long charter until the end of twenty twenty eight.

And West Hercules, semi submersible, is sub chartered to Equinor until next year. In addition, there are some options for Equinor for extended employment. The third rig, Vazdaarus, is idle and laid up in Norway. Seadrill is paying the agreed charter hire on all three rigs and we continue reducing the debt on the rigs as per schedule. This means that we have reduced debt by nearly 30% since Seadrill filed for Chapter 11 in 2017.

Seadrill has disclosed that it is currently engaged in discussions with its lenders to provide operational flexibility and additional near term liquidity. We believe it will be in all stakeholders' interest to have a financially stronger counterparty and we are in a constructive dialogue with Seadrill. I can unfortunately not comment anymore on this right now. But given our fleet composition, most of our cash flow comes from shipping assets. And unlike most other companies with a financing profile in the maritime world, nearly two thirds of our cash flow comes from vessels on time charter and only a third from bareboat chartered assets.

Our strategy has been to maintain a strong technical and commercial operating platform in cooperation with our sister companies in the Sea Tankers Group. This gives us the ability to offer a wider range of services to our customers from structured financing to full service time charters. But more importantly, we also believe it gives us unique access to deal flow in our core segments. And with that, I will give the word over to our CFO, Mr. Willison, who will take us through the financial highlights for the quarter.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Mr. Atracki. On this slide, we have shown a pro form a illustration of cash flows for the second quarter. Please note that this is only a guideline to assess the company's performance and is not in accordance with U. S.

GAAP and also net of extraordinary and noncash items. The company generated gross charter hire of approximately $158,000,000 in the second quarter, with more than 90% of the revenue coming from our fixed charter rate backlog, which currently stands at $3,200,000,000 providing us with strong visibility on our cash flow going forward. The liner fleet generated gross charter hire of approximately $80,000,000 And of this amount, approximately 97% was derived from our vessels on long term charters. At the end of the quarter, SFL's liner fleet backlog was approximately $1,800,000,000 with an average remaining charter term of approximately five years or approximately eight years if weighted by charter revenue. Approximately 84% of the liner backlog is the world's largest liner operators, Maerskline and MSC.

And during the quarter, SFL extended the charters for seven four thousand one hundred TEU container vessels with MSC until the third quarter of twenty twenty five. The extension added approximately $38,000,000 to SFL's fixed charter rate backlog. Our tanker fleet generated approximately $27,000,000 in gross charter hire, including $4,500,000 in profit split contribution from our two on charter to Frontline. The two VLCCs earned approximately $72,000 on average per trading day in the second quarter. And during the quarter, the vessel commenced new time charters on which the vessels will trade until the fourth quarter at similar rates, ensuring visibility on quarterly profit split contribution also for the next two quarters.

As for our Suezmax tankers, revenue was down for the quarter as one of the vessels underwent special survey scrubber retrofit installations during the quarter. Furthermore, the company acquired the twenty twenty built scrubber fitted B2C Landbridge system in combination with a seven year bareboat charter to Landbridge Group. The vessel was delivered in May and has been sub chartered for three years as an oil major on time charter basis. The acquisition cost of $65,000,000 was financed by $50,000,000 on recourse debt facility and the transaction will have full earnings effect in the third quarter. And today, on 08/18/2020, the company redelivered two VLCCs to the Hunter Group after declaration of purchase options.

The transaction increases SFL's cash balance by approximately $23,000,000 During the second quarter, our dry bulk fleet generated approximately $26,000,000 Of this amount, approximately 84% was derived from our vessels on long term charters and approximately 16% was derived from vessels on short term charters. There was no profit split contribution from our Capesize vessels on charter to Golden Ocean during the quarter as the COVID-nineteen pandemic negatively impacted dry bulk demand by creating logistical issues, including port closures and quarantine restrictions. The soft drybulk market also impacted the revenue on our 10 vessels trading in the short term market. At the end of the second quarter, SFL owned three drilling rigs. All of our drilling rigs are long term variable charters to fully guaranteed affiliates, Seadrill Limited, and generated approximately $25,000,000 in charter hire.

The harsh environment tracker business Linus is sub chartered to ConocoPhillips until the end of twenty twenty eight, while the harsh environment semisubmersible rig at Kirkland is employed on consecutive shorter term subcontract to Equinor in the North Sea. The semisubmersible rig West Taurus is currently in layouts in Norway. This summarizes to an adjusted EBITDA of approximately $121,000,000 for the second quarter or 1.11 per share, which is in line with the previous quarter. We then move on to the profit and loss statement as reported under U. S.

GAAP. As we have described in previous earnings calls, our accounting statements are different from those of a traditional shipping company. As our business strategy focuses on long term charter contracts, a large part of our activities are classified as capital leasing. As a result, a significant portion of our charter revenues are excluded from U. S.

GAAP operating revenues and instead booked as revenues classified as repayment of investments in finance leases and vessel loans, results in associates and long term investments and interest income from associates. So for the second quarter, we report total operating revenues according to US GAAP of approximately 118,500,000.0 which is a smaller number than the $158,000,000 of charter hire actually received for the reasons just mentioned. Furthermore, the company recorded non recurring and or non cash items, including negative mark to market effects related to interest hedging, currency swaps and equity investments of $7,300,000 prepayment of interest on the swaps of $4,500,000 amortization of deferred charges of 2,600,000.0 and credit loss provisions of $1,400,000 Adjusted for these items, the company's net income would have been $27,800,000 or $0.06 per share. So overall and according to U. S.

GAAP, the company reported a net profit of $11,800,000 or $0.11 per share. Moving on to the balance sheet. In terms of liquidity, the company continues to have a solid cash position with approximately $152,000,000 in cash and cash equivalents, excluding approximately $50,000,000 held in fully owned non consolidated subsidiaries. In addition, the company also had $8,000,000 in restricted cash related to equity securities. At quarter end, the company had marketable securities of approximately $19,000,000 net and adjusted for purchase obligations on securities.

This includes 1,400,000.0 shares in Frontline Limited and financial investments in secured bonds and other securities. During the second quarter, SFL sold approximately 2,000,000 shares in Frontline, explaining the drop in the book value of marketable securities from the previous quarter. And of the approximately $300,000,000 of short term debt, approximately $200,000,000 is related to senior bank financing on vessels for SFL and secured charter extensions until 2024 and 2025 at attractive terms. This includes $38,700 TEU container vessels on charter to Maersk and seven four thousand one hundred TEU vessels on charter to MSE. The balance of approximately $100,000,000 is related to ordinary scheduled loan amortization and a $16,000,000 purchase obligation on the Frontline shares.

At quarter end, SFL had five debt free vessels with a combined charge free value of approximately $30,000,000 based on average broker appraisals. So based on Q2 twenty twenty figures, the company had a book equity ratio of approximately 25%. Then to summarize, the Board has declared a cash dividend of $0.25 for the quarter, which represents a dividend yield of approximately 10.5% based on the closing share price yesterday. This is the sixth consecutive quarterly dividend and since inception of the company in 02/2004, more than $27 per share or $2,300,000,000 in aggregate has been returned to shareholders through dividends. And while we continue to collect revenue from a $3,400,000,000 fixed charter rate backlog, we also have upside from profit split arrangements from our VLCCs in addition to profit split arrangements related to fuel savings on some of our large container vessels.

Despite a relatively volatile market in 2020, we have already added approximately $230,000,000 per fixed charter rate backlog, and we continue to explore new business opportunities. And while risk premiums on energy and shipping investments have increased with the recent volatility in financial markets, SFL has at the same time raised new fleet financing at all time low cost of debt and has continued to expand its group of lending banks. SFL's business model has continuously been tested throughout its sixteen years of existence and has previously been highly successful in navigating periods of volatility. And with that, I give the word back to the operator who will open the line for questions.

Speaker 2

Thank Your first question today is from the line of Greg Lewis from BTIG. Please go ahead.

Speaker 0

Hi, Greg.

Speaker 3

Good afternoon, everybody. Ola, you know, kinda curious, you know, you you kinda touched on it in in at the end of the prepared comments, about, you know, the the challenges that that that that capital are are having, you know, in your traditional investment in your traditional investment warehouse. Just kinda two questions around that. One is could that trigger you to start looking outside of your traditional wheelhouse of conventional shipping? And I guess first, that would be my first question.

Speaker 0

Thanks. You're absolutely correct. I mean what we it's important to understand that SFL, we're not tied to one specific segment. We have been focusing on the maritime space for a number of years because this is where we have seen the more, I would say, deal flow and also where we've seen more deal flow and perhaps we also think maybe seeing deals before others see them, partly due to our affiliation with Mr. Fredriksen and what we say the deal flow that then you can say trickles down to us if there are long term employment opportunities around that.

So that's been a nice steady, call it, way for us to generate business simply by being in the midst of an information flow, if you wish. But we are not tied to maritime space. We can move into other infrastructure. I think the principal focus for us is to have a structure, have a deal flow to ensure that we can pay a predictable long term dividend to our shareholders with the right type of risk profile. We have so far not really ventured far away from the maritime space.

I would say maybe one of the reasons could be that if you go into a new space where we don't have, call it, a leverage on information, I. E, we don't see the deals before others do, the risk is that we end up paying too much or we take a deal after someone else has passed on it or we accept a too low return to get in. But again, it's all down to finding the right deals and we could do them also outside the normal shipping space.

Speaker 3

Okay, great. And then just kind of asking that question a different way. Just given the the the, you know, the the the you know, not not the exodus, but the the the lack of capital interested in in the maritime space, it seems like that was seen developed over the last twelve to eighteen months. I mean, that realizing you haven't done a lot of transactions and the ongoing pandemic might have something to do with it. But have you started to notice any increases in the potential returns of transactions you're looking at?

Or is it kind of are we in an environment where there's less capital, but there's still enough capital that's kind of keeping returns in that in kind of a flattish world.

Speaker 1

Yes. It's good point and observation. I think the way we see it is that capital in shipping is priced more correctly. And there's also, call it, the traditional lenders are retracting from the market. So basically, there's less capital available, and there's, in general, a flight to quality.

For SFL part, we have gained access to an even larger pool of banks. We have access to capital at a lower cost of capital, able to find transaction where you can take advantage of the capital cost arbitrage at the track risk reward metrics. A good example of that is the recent Lambridge transaction required a brand new scrubber fitted VLCC at $65,000,000 on a payables basis. And the client Lambridge Group has a three year charter with BP shipping on a time charter basis attached to it. And we believe that's a very attractive risk reward in terms of the capital we're able to deploy and the return we're able to achieve.

And I think that's a trend that will continue going forward.

Speaker 3

Okay. Thank you very much.

Speaker 0

Thank you.

Speaker 2

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Randy Giveans from Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Speaker 4

How are gentlemen? How's it going?

Speaker 0

Hi. Good to good to meet you.

Speaker 4

You as well. Alright. I guess the first, just looking at the balance sheet, obviously, it's in great shape, plenty of cash, substantial free cash already booked for the, you know, subsequent quarters. So I guess with that, two questions on it. Can you provide some more details on the rationale for issuing the 13,000,000 or so of shares to the ATM?

And secondly, are there certain kind of leverage ratios you're looking to get to in the near term? Or how do you kind of view your balance sheet at these levels?

Speaker 0

Yes. I think first of all, we've issued relatively few shares compared to our share count. It's really quite marginal. And yes, and a part of that was linked to a dividend reinvestment plan. So but yes, they are issued.

For us, the important thing is really how can we make sure that we or invest the capital in an accretive manner per share. So for instance, when we did this VLCC deal, we return have on our invested equity there, which is way higher than the yield, call it specifically here linked to those shares we issued. So the way we look at it, we look at transactions and then we fund deals down at the asset level. And then we sort we have capital either we source it from the bond market, we source it from the convertible market or the equity market. And then we can use that as effectively.

So this is there is nothing particular relating to that. It's really for us to ensure that we have an ongoing business, that we can continue to invest here in the long run. We will tap the point in various markets with the aim to create value per share.

Speaker 4

Got it. Okay. And then I guess next question. You know, in the presentation here, you took out the slide on kinda the offshore market and the drilling rigs. So I guess around that, what is the kinda status of those?

It seems like that really is accounting for most of the risk and uncertainty around SFL, around the dividend, what have you. So for those CJO conversations, is there a a timeline maybe around these talks? And is the most likely scenario a possible charter reduction and extension? What are your thoughts on that?

Speaker 0

Yes. The reason why we didn't put it in this quarter is that there hasn't really been any change since last quarter. Things are pretty much as they were then. Only difference is that we've had another three months of cash flow and pay down debt associated to those assets. And we guarantee around 50% of the outstanding loans relating to sort of the Seadrill call it assets.

I can of course not really comment much on the Seadrill call it situation apart from that we are we think it's sort of positive to have a stronger counterparty. And we think it does make sense in the current environment to sort of to trim balance sheet to activity levels. What we are of course happy to see is that in an otherwise challenging offshore market, two of our rigs are working. One is on a very long term charter to ConocoPhillips. So at least there are we have two of the relative few warm rigs and active rigs in the harsh environment space today.

But I cannot guide you on time line for Seadrill. I'm sure they will comment on that when they report, I believe, in a week or so.

Speaker 4

Right. All right. Well, then I guess last quick question for the tanker market. You returned two of the hunter vessels. I'm assuming the third soon.

You brought in one on the twenty twenty side. Is that more of a strategic play of just making sure you have that tanker presence? Or, again, was it just a sector agnostic kind of capital arbitrage play? Are you really looking to grow the tanker tanker exposure here?

Speaker 0

The last deal was a pure capital cost of capital arbitrage. So it's just an opportunity where we could get in, get a very attractive risk profile we think, we could source efficient financing around that to generate a nice return on the capital we invest. But of course, know the tanker space very well and we don't mind investing in the tanker space for the right structure. What we have not seen though is a lot of long term chartering opportunities to end users. So that's something we of course have been exploring.

We've looked at many opportunities as you can imagine, but we cannot really comment on what we haven't done specifically. But we are active out there. I think people know that we can do and we hear we can both deliver everything from like the last deal, the cost of capital arbitrage to deliver a full service time charter product like we have with Phillips sixty six, where we have LR2 product tankers on seven year time charters.

Speaker 4

Sure. Sure. Great. Well, that's it for me. Thanks again.

Hope all is well.

Speaker 1

Thanks a lot.

Speaker 2

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Liam Burke from B Riley. Please go ahead.

Speaker 5

Yes, thank you. Good afternoon.

Speaker 0

Good afternoon.

Speaker 5

You mentioned for obvious reasons how COVID has disrupted the market. But looking specifically in the container space, rates and capacity is tightening, rates are coming up, things look to be a little firmer. How does that translate when you're looking at deal flow here? Are things getting clearer? Or do you see any more or do you have any more confidence looking at deals?

Speaker 0

Yes. Thanks. It's actually an interesting observation, what we have seen recently. To me, the way I look at it is that because the liner operators have a relative recent experience from the financial crisis in 02/2009 and the effects of that, I think they've taken a very different approach to, call it, the market disruption this time. Back then, my impression was that they were the focus was on utilization of the assets.

It was also a more fragmented business in the first place, but their focus was on utilization. So the operators started cutting rate to ensure that they were filling the vessels. The effect of that was that the demand side, that dropped inevitably. So the effect was that, one, you had lower volume and you had lower revenues as well because of your cost cutting or sorry, your charter rate cutting measures. This time around, what the liner companies have done instead is that they've been holding back volume, I.

E, they've been blanking sailings. And by doing that, there have been tremendous cost savings in the operations. Also, the fuel cost has been really positive for the liner operators because that's really dropped a lot since pre COVID-nineteen. So that so if you then adjust for, call it, the other negative effects, it's actually a positive. And for instance, the one the Alliance, the group, they swung back with a massive improvement in profits in the first quarter as a result of this.

And we have also seen, as I'm sure you also follow closely, the Asia U. S. East Coast pricing record high levels. So what we're seeing now is that the liner companies as they see that the revenues hold up, they seem to be filling in with more volume to sort of to take off to make sure that there is sufficient capacity for the market. This, of course, for us is very positive.

Demonstrates that our customers are taking the steps to protect their business and shows resilience to market disruptive, call it, effects like this that nobody could anticipate just a few months ago. So yes, it sort of helps our decision making, of course, also in putting more money also into the liner space.

Speaker 5

Great. And I know this is a small part of the business. And talking on the bulker side, you do have a larger than average percentage in the spot market. Can you generate acceptable returns in the spot market in the bulker space? And I know it's not conducive to the longer term charters the way you would possibly see with a VLCC or in the entire container space.

But how do you address your spot market on the bulk of the side?

Speaker 0

Of course, it's a very good question, what is a reasonable rate in that space. All the bulk vessels that we have where the one that were ordered, of course, at one stage, they have all been on longer term charters. And some of them have come off charter and been redelivered after the charter period. What we then typically do is that we don't necessarily re charter them. If we feel that we are really low in the market, we would prefer to trade the vessels and then hope to fix them for longer term as the market recovers instead of just taking whatever the market may offer at the time.

So yes, we have in terms of number of vessels relatively a few vessels there, but in terms of magnitude, it's really small. So for now, we've been sort of training them in the market. The market was soft in particular now in the second quarter. We do see from the smaller bulkers that the market is improving. And based on market observations like Clarksons, where they indicated handysizes now are up at around $9,000 per day level.

At that level, that's not bad. That you can live with. But of course, if you're down to 2,000 to $3,000 per day that we have seen at some few points, that is that's not really good So the question is also in this sort of segment, can we find new longer term employment? Or what should we do with the assets? So that's of course something we discuss every day.

Speaker 5

Great. Thank you very much.

Speaker 1

Thank you.

Speaker 2

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Chris Wetherbee from Citi. Please go ahead.

Speaker 6

Good afternoon, guys. This is James on for Chris. I wanted to follow-up on that prior question around containers. You highlighted the fact that the improvement profitability is driven from sort of supply discipline. Wanted to actually make sure that you also were seeing some sort of strength in deal flow in containers despite that.

And as sort of a secondary question to that one, does that mean that we might see a particular focus in this capital that you deployed back on containers similar to the way it was prior to COVID-nineteen?

Speaker 0

I don't think we will I think generally we are looking at all sectors and all segments here, call it, in parallel. Of course, we had going into the sort of the COVID-nineteen, call it, disruption, we had many container ships in our fleet. So we paid, of course, extra attention to that space and how our customers, our end users call it are adapting to that challenging situation. So that gives us more comfort when we see that they seem to at least so far have managed quite well and certainly much, much better than I think most people anticipated some months ago when this was at its height. It's not over yet.

I mean we still have to expect more uncertainty surrounding it also going forward. But from our side, it does help to see, call it, disciplined end users here at the liner companies who sort of make sure that their business remains robust and are able to react as quickly and as swiftly as they have in this situation. We on our side, we've seen some transactions in this space. Would say that there haven't been a lot of I think that the newbuilding orders have slowed down. I think generally, I think the newbuilding order book is quite low in most sectors.

We also see that in the tanker side and the dry bulk space. And I would say that again is helping, call it, market dynamics because if there is not too much, call it, supply of assets or vessels out there, it does could indicate that you could be able to generate better effectively earnings on your assets over time. So we will come back. We will put discipline also on the ordering side as we see as on the financing side. And hopefully that could prove to be you know, create good returns for all, who are active in the market.

Speaker 6

Got it. And then, obviously, during with the current backdrop, you're monitoring, credit risk within your portfolio. You have commented that seemingly on the liner side, it's relatively stable. Are you seeing any pockets of credit risk outside of offshore, either in bulk or tankers that you think is worthy of calling out? Or are you mostly comfortable with what you're seeing?

Speaker 1

I would say if you look

Speaker 0

at where we are active, I would say, of course, offshore is challenged, as I commented on earlier. Also, there's it was has been a massive disruption in really in oil, both exploration and production activity, both onshore and offshore. So that's, of course, been focused on a lot in the media generally and the oil price collapse did not help there. If you look at our other subsectors, we have two car carriers that are idle right now. One came off charter in mid May and the second came off a charter just two weeks ago or so.

Generally, we are what we are seeing is more activity on the chartering side in that segment as well. We've seen idle fleet drop from more than two fifty vessels some weeks ago to roughly half that. That doesn't mean that the market is in good balance yet, but it means that there is a significant change in dynamics there, where at least, call it, the market balance or the market activity is going in the right direction. We only have two of these, so it doesn't have a big impact on our business. But of course, we would be happy to see them back trading, earning a good return on capital.

Speaker 6

Okay. Thank you.

Speaker 0

Thank you.

Speaker 2

Thank you. Once again, ladies and gentlemen, if you do have any further questions, it's star and one on your keypad and the hash key if you'd like to cancel. So that's star and one for any questions today. We appear to have no further questions at this time, so I'll hand back to the speakers.

Speaker 0

Thank you. Then I would like to thank everyone for participating in our second quarter conference call and also thanks to Esophel and team both on board the vessels and onshore for their efforts in a very challenging time and commitment to continue building our business. If you have any follow-up questions, there are contact details in the press release or you can get in touch with us through the contact pages on our webpage, www.sflcorp.com. Thank you.