Tidewater - Earnings Call - Q3 2025

Executive Summary

• Q3 2025 revenue was $341.1M with gross margin at 48.0%; GAAP diluted EPS was $(0.02) due to a $27.1M loss on early extinguishment of debt, and Adjusted EBITDA was $137.9M.
• Results vs Street: revenue beat by ~$11.6M*, EPS beat by ~$0.15*, while EBITDA missed by ~$21.9M*; note company-reported GAAP diluted EPS differs due to the refinancing charge (Street “Primary EPS” reflects normalized EPS) [GetEstimates]*.
• 2025 guidance narrowed (revenue $1.33–$1.35B; gross margin 49–50%) and 2026 initiated (revenue $1.32–$1.37B; gross margin 48–50%); ~99% of 2025 revenue guidance covered by completed/contracted revenue.
• Operational KPIs improved sequentially: active fleet utilization rose to 78.5% and free cash flow was $82.7M, supported by better vessel uptime and lower idle/drydock days; average day rate softened to $22,798 on North Sea/West Africa pressure.
• Potential catalysts: capital deployment (M&A and buybacks) under a $500M authorization and low leverage (Net Debt/EBITDA ~0.4x), plus emerging late-2026 drilling recovery narrative that could tighten vessel supply and lift day rates.

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

• What Went Well
  • Strong uptime and utilization drove revenue above internal expectations; gross margin 48% (~200bps above guidance) and Adjusted EBITDA $137.9M; “best active utilization since Q2 2024”.
  • Free cash flow was $82.7M; net cash from operations was $72.1M, with improved operating costs (lower crew, supplies, idle/repair days).
  • CEO on strategic positioning: diverse demand drivers (production support, offshore construction, subsea/EPCI, drilling, renewables) insulate the business amid near‑term drilling uncertainty.
• What Went Wrong
  • Sequential margin compression: gross margin fell from 50.3% in Q2 to 48.0% in Q3; average day rate declined to $22,798 on North Sea/West Africa softness.
  • GAAP net loss of $0.8M (diluted EPS $(0.02)) driven by $27.1M debt extinguishment charge from July refinancing; tax expense also elevated.
  • Europe/Mediterranean day rates down ~11% and utilization down ~6ppt; G&A rose ~$4M QoQ on higher professional fees; Americas/West Africa faced lighter activity into year‑end.

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Thank you for standing by. My name is Liz, and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I'd like to welcome everyone to the Tidewater Q3 2025 earnings call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star one again. Thank you. I would now like to turn the call over to Wes Gotcher, Senior Vice President of Strategy, Corporate Development, and Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Wes Gotcher (SVP of Strategy, Corporate Development, and Investor Relations)

Thank you, Liz. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Tidewater Q3 2025 earnings conference call. I'm joined on the call this morning by our President and CEO, Quintin Kneen, our Chief Financial Officer, Sam Rubio, and our Chief Operating Officer, Piers Middleton. During today's call, we'll make certain statements that are forward-looking and referring to our plans and expectations. There are risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause the company's actual performance to be materially different from that stated or implied by any comments that we're making during today's conference call. Please refer to our most recent Form 10-K and Form 10-Q for additional details on these factors. These documents are available on our website at tdw.com or through the SEC at sec.gov. Information presented on this call speaks only as of today, November 11, 2025.

Therefore, you're advised that any time-sensitive information may no longer be accurate at the time of any replay. Also, during the call, we'll present both GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP financial measures can be found in our earnings release located on our website at tdw.com. With that, I'll turn the call over to Quintin.

Quintin Kneen (President, CEO, and Director)

Thank you, Wes. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Tidewater Q3 2025 earnings conference call. I'll start, as usual, by providing some highlights of the third quarter, updating you on our current view on capital allocation, and then discussing the offshore vessel market and our outlook on vessel supply and demand. Wes will then provide some additional detail on our financial outlook and give you our 2026 guidance. Piers will give you an overview of the global market and global operations, and then Sam will wrap it up with our consolidated financial results. Q3 revenue and gross margin nicely exceeded our expectations. Revenue came in at $341.1 million, due primarily to a higher-than-expected average day rate and slightly better than anticipated utilization. Gross margin came in at 48% for the quarter, about 200 basis points better than our guidance.

The primary factor driving the increase in average day rate was the benefit of our fleet rolling onto higher day rate contracts. Additionally, fleet utilization continued to benefit from the substantial dry dock and maintenance investment we have made over the past few years, driving meaningful uptime performance compared to our expectations. During the third quarter, we generated $83 million of free cash flow, bringing the first nine months of 2025 total free cash flow to nearly $275 million. Free cash flow generation we continue to demonstrate alongside balance sheet and liquidity enhancements we completed during the third quarter provides us with a substantial degree of confidence in our ability to deploy a significant amount of capital over time to drive shareholder value.

Based on the estimates for 2026 that Wes is going to cover shortly, absent any cash used in M&A or share repurchases, we will be ending 2026 with close to $800 million in cash, which, while we like the pace of cash flow generation, we would find unacceptable from an allocation of capital perspective. We currently retain our $500 million share repurchase authorization, representing approximately 18% of shares outstanding as of yesterday's close. As discussed on last quarter's earnings call, we see this share repurchase authorization as a long-term program that we will lean into based on competing capital allocation opportunities we have before us. In this regard, we did not repurchase any shares during the past quarter due to these competing priorities.

Our current leverage position is such that we feel comfortable in potentially using a substantial amount of cash in an M&A transaction and are comfortable adding leverage to the business, provided that we have confidence that the near-term cash flows provide the ability to quickly delever back to below one-time net debt to EBITDA, very similar and consistent with what we have done in our prior acquisitions. Importantly, given our current balance sheet, future cash flow generation, and liquidity position, M&A and buybacks are not necessarily an either/or proposition. However, how certain M&A discussions progress and whether or not they ultimately come together can shift our cadence and immediate tactics in executing share repurchases. I don't want to leave you with the impression that we are limited in the long run on our ability to execute on both.

Much of the commentary for offshore activity during 2025 has been on the pace and amplitude of the recovery from a relatively muted period of tendering for near-term offshore projects. We believe there are a number of factors that have precipitated this white space dynamic, not the least of which have been macro uncertainties, OPEC production and a relatively tepid commodity price environment, and supply chain bottlenecks for critical offshore infrastructure. By all accounts, including observations by the drilling contractors, recent public commentary, and conversations with our customers, it appears that the next few quarters represent a shoulder period of drilling activity ahead of an uptick towards the end of 2026, with increasing conviction on the state of drilling activity into 2027 and beyond.

We believe this to be a reasonable expectation given our conversations, but also more broadly, evaluating expected total global hydrocarbon demand projections and what appears to be a hydrocarbon supply curve that will be in a slight surplus in 2026, moving to a meaningful deficit thereafter. This should result in capital expenditures to bring on new production ahead of this shortfall, providing further confidence to the uptick in drilling activity that appears to be developing, as evidenced by the recent tendering activity for offshore drilling units. In the intervening period, Tidewater is in the advantageous position compared to many in the offshore sector in that we are the beneficiary of a wide variety of offshore activities, all of which remain robust. Production support is a critical piece of our business, comprising roughly 50% of what we do today.

This base level of demand remains steady and is supported by current commodity prices. The continued proliferation and deployment of incremental FPSO units is providing additional vessel demand. FPSO support has always been a component of our business, but the volume of units that are delivering and expected to deliver over the coming years is fairly unique in the history of the offshore industry. In addition, many of these FPSOs are being deployed into frontier areas that have limited shipping infrastructure and are in challenging weather and wave conditions, which should ultimately disproportionately benefit our larger vessel classes. On the EPCI and offshore construction segment of our business, our observation has been that backlog for these projects usually has a few years' lead time before converting into vessel demand.

We've seen that backlog begin to convert into a meaningful increase in demand, and based on customer conversations, that demand is set to further strengthen in 2026 and in 2027. These demand drivers are important components of our business and help mitigate some of the near-term softness we see in the drilling market. In the longer term, the structural growth in these markets will continue to put added strain on vessel supply. When drilling activity growth does resume in earnest, vessel supply will be that much more constrained by the growth in these other sectors, providing even more leverage to vessel owners than what we saw in the 2022 to 2024 period.

As important as these factors are, particularly in straining vessel supply and in drilling recovery, in the near term, these factors do not adequately offset the absence of additional drilling activity to provide us the ability to aggressively push up day rates. However, we do expect this non-drilling demand to help us retain our utilization in day rates next year. To the extent drilling activity comes in a bit stronger than what we are guiding today, we would expect some additional benefit to our 2026 financial performance. We continue to believe that tight vessel supply will remain a tailwind for the sector and that the structural limitations that impact new-build investment decisions will limit any significant new-build vessel programs for the foreseeable future. In summary, we are pleased with the cash flow that our business is generating.

We are optimistic about the long-term outlook for the offshore vessel industry and remain exceptionally well-positioned to drive earnings and free cash flow generation over the coming years. Additionally, we are in the fortunate position of having a significant amount of capital to deploy, and we remain committed to deploying this capital to its highest and best use for our shareholders. Let me turn the call back over to Wes for additional commentary and our financial outlook.

Wes Gotcher (SVP of Strategy, Corporate Development, and Investor Relations)

Thank you, Quintin. At the end of the third quarter, we had $500 million of share repurchase authorization outstanding. Our share repurchase capacity is a function of the refinancing that we completed during the third quarter of 2025. Under the bonds, we are unlimited in our ability to return capital to shareholders, provided our net debt to EBITDA is less than one and a quarter times pro forma for any share repurchase. Under the new revolving credit facility, we are also unlimited in our ability to repurchase shares, provided that net debt to EBITDA does not exceed one times. Under the revolving credit facility metric, to the extent that we exceed one times net leverage, we still retain the flexibility to continue returns to shareholders, provided the free cash flow generation is in excess of cumulative returns to shareholders.

Our net debt to EBITDA ratio at the end of the third quarter was 0.4 times. Specific discussions of these limitations can be found in the respective agreements filed with the SEC. Our philosophical approach to leverage remains consistent. Whether it be for M&A or share repurchases, our litmus test is that so long as we can return to net debt zero in about six quarters, we are comfortable to proceed with a given outlay of capital. From time to time, we may exceed this threshold only for M&A, depending on the visibility and durability of the acquired cash flows. This is our general approach. This approach is important to keep in mind as we navigate the opportunities before us and also informs how we evaluate a combination of M&A and share repurchases.

Our intention is not to use leverage for leverage's sake, but rather to efficiently deploy capital while maintaining the strength of our balance sheet. We remain opportunistic on share repurchases and will look to execute share repurchase transactions when suitable M&A targets are not available. Turning to our leading-edge day rates, I will reference the data that was posted in our investor materials yesterday. Broadly, our weighted average leading-edge day rate for the fleet was down marginally in the third quarter compared to the second quarter, primarily a function of our mid-sized PSVs in West Africa and larger PSVs in the North Sea. Rates for these vessels were resilient elsewhere around the world. We did see nice uplift in our largest class of anchor handlers with contracts in Africa and the Mediterranean, and a bit of a movement up in our smallest PSVs.

During the quarter, we entered into 34-term contracts with an average duration of seven months as we look to a strengthening market as we progress into the back half of 2026. Turning to our financial outlook for the remainder of 2025, we are narrowing our full-year revenue guidance to $1.33 billion-$1.35 billion and a full-year gross margin range of 49%-50%. We've narrowed our range for the remainder of the year, with the revenue outperformance in the third quarter bringing up the low end of the range, and we've lowered the high end of the range due to a few projects ending earlier than anticipated in the Americas, and as we expect a bit more idle time in West Africa as we close out the year.

We now expect utilization to be roughly flat sequentially as the benefit we expected from lower dry docks is now offset by the lighter-than-anticipated activity I just mentioned. The midpoint of our revenue guidance range is approximately 99% supported by year-to-date revenue plus firm backlog and options for the remainder of the year. Turning to the 2026 outlook, we are initiating a full-year 2026 revenue range of $1.32 billion-$1.37 billion and a full-year 2026 gross margin range of 48%-50%. We anticipate a relatively consistent quarterly cadence of revenue generation and margin profile throughout the year. Our expectation is for a relatively even year with a potential for uplift depending on the strength of drilling activity picking up towards the end of the year. Our firm backlog and options represent $316 million of revenue for the remainder of 2025.

Approximately 78% of available days for the remainder of the year are captured in firm backlog and options, with our larger and mid-sized classes of vessels retaining slightly more availability to pursue incremental work as compared to our smaller vessel classes. Looking to 2026, our firm backlog and options represent $925 million of revenue for the full year, representing approximately 69% of the midpoint of our 2026 revenue guidance. Approximately 57% of available days for 2026 are captured in firm backlog and options. Our full-year revenue guidance assumes utilization of approximately 80%, providing us with 11% of capacity to be chartered if the market tightens quicker than we are anticipating. Our largest class of PSVs retain the most opportunity for incremental work, followed by our mid-sized anchor handlers and small and mid-sized PSVs, largest anchor handlers.

Contract cover is higher in the earlier part of the year, with more opportunity available later in the year. The bigger risk to our backlog revenue is unanticipated downtime due to unplanned maintenance and incremental time spent on dry docks. With that, I'll turn the call over to Piers for an overview of the commercial landscape.

Piers Middleton (COO)

Thank you, Wes, and good morning, everyone. First off, as both Quintin and Wes have mentioned, our overall long-term outlook for the offshore space remains very positive for the OSCE market. While we have some short-term headwinds to navigate through, our and the industry's expectations are that as we get to this time next year, we will start to see that expected uptick in drilling demand that everyone has been so vocal about, which led on to the record EPCI backlog should bode well for OSCE day rates in the latter half of 2026 and into 2027. OSCE supply growth is expected to remain very moderate, supporting market dynamics overall, with the OSCE order book of 134 units, according to Clarksons Research, still representing roughly 3% of the current fleet, reflecting limited capacity for supply growth.

New-building activity in the OSV space continues to be subdued, and we see no signs of significant new supply entering the market in the foreseeable future. Turning to our regions and starting with Europe, we saw continued pressure on day rates, mainly in the U.K. However, utilization across the whole region compared favorably to previous quarters as our teams worked hard to keep the boats working in the U.K., Med, and Norway. Uncertainty over the U.K. energy profits levy remains. However, market chatter suggests that the U.K. government may soften its approach to the next budget on the 26th of November, which, if this happens, will be an unexpected shot in the arm for the region as we go into 2026. The longer-term outlook for both Norway and the Med remains positive, with our teams now working on several multi-boat tenders all to start during 2026.

Any awards, however, are not expected until the early part of next year, with much of the work kicking off in the latter half of Q2 2026. In Africa, we continue to see pressure on day rates, which, as we mentioned last quarter, was in part because of the slowdown in drilling in Namibia, where we have been very active over the last six or seven quarters, supporting operations of our largest 900 sq m class of PSV. With the anticipated slowdown in drilling, the team has been focused on winning work elsewhere in the world, and we can expect to see a few vessel movements out of Africa over the next few quarters as we mitigate against some of the expected softness in the first half of 2026.

Longer term, we still remain very bullish for the region, with recent announcements of TotalEnergies lifting force majeure in Mozambique, Shell announcing they are returning to Angola after a 20-year absence to restart deep-water exploration. With all the orange phases to still be developed, we remain very confident that the region will bounce back very quickly once all these pieces fall into place. In the Middle East, vessel demand and day rates continue to strengthen in the quarter, driven mainly by the EPCI contractors operating in the kingdom, as well as additional incremental demand in Qatar and Abu Dhabi. As we have mentioned previously, this is a very fragmented market, which makes it much harder to drive rates aggressively. However, we continue to see supply constraints in certain vessel classes. As demand has been increasing, the team has been doing a great job pushing day rates during 2025.

With no significant slowdown in demand in sight, we expect day rate momentum to continue into 2026 and beyond, especially with the recent news that Saudi Aramco plans to start reactivating some of the rigs that they had suspended last year. In the Americas, we had a solid quarter with day rate and utilization improvement, which primarily came from our operations in the Caribbean and Brazil. The Gulf of Mexico and Mexico both continuing to be flat demand lines. Brazil, or Petrobras specifically, is likely to face some short-term headwinds in 2026 as the NOC is rethinking its offshore logistics model and financial strategy as Brazil enters into an election year in 2026. Longer term, we do not expect any slowdown in drilling or production demand in Brazil.

However, we may see some Petrobras-specific projects moving to the right as the politics around the election push start times close to the end of 2026 or even the beginning of 2027. Lastly, in Asia-Pacific, Q3 saw a solid jump in both day rate and utilization as projects in both Australia and Asia continued on from Q2. We have seen some pressure, unnecessarily in our view in Australia, on day rates with competitors. More broadly in the region, day rates for our larger class of vessels have held up well. Looking out into 2026, we see some positive signs of various drilling projects coming back to the region from Q2 onwards after a bit of a hiatus during the majority of 2025 caused by various political machinations in certain areas.

Overall, we're very pleased with how Q3 has turned out and how our teams have focused on delivering strong results, even with the short-term white space headwinds to contend with. Even with a short-term headwind, we remain very optimistic on the long-term fundamentals for our business, still being very much in the shipowner's favor for some time to come. With that, I'll hand it over to Sam.

Sam Rubio (CFO)

Thank you, Piers, and good morning, everyone. At this time, I would like to take you to our financial results. My discussion will focus primarily on sequential quarterly comparisons of the third quarter of 2025 compared to the second quarter of 2025, including operational aspects that affected the third quarter. As noted in our press release filed yesterday, we reported a net loss of $806,000 for the quarter, or $0.02 per share. Included in the net loss was a $27.1 million charge related to the early extinguishment of our debt, which will be discussed later. For the third quarter, we generated a revenue of $341.1 million compared to $340.4 million in the second quarter, essentially flat quarter-over-quarter, but about 4% higher than our expectation. Third-quarter average day rates of $22,798 were 2% lower versus the second quarter.

We saw a nice increase in active utilization from 76.4% in the second quarter to 78.5% in the third quarter, due mainly to the decrease in idle and dry dock days as we saw a lighter dry dock load in the back half of the year compared to the first half of the year as expected. Gross margin in the third quarter was $163.7 million compared to $171 million in the second quarter. Gross margin percentage in the third quarter was 48%, nicely above our Q3 expectation, but below our Q2 margin of 50%. The margin outperformance versus our expectation was primarily due to higher-than-expected day rates and utilization combined with a decrease in operating costs. Lower operating costs were driven primarily by lower crew salaries and travel costs combined with lower supplies and consumables expense due to fewer idle and repair days, offset somewhat by higher R&M expense.

The margin decrease versus Q2 was due to an increase in operating costs. Operating costs for the third quarter were $177.4 million compared to $170.5 million in Q2. The increase in costs is due primarily to an increase in salaries and travel, R&M, and consumables, with continuing FX impacts also contributing. Adjusted EBITDA was $137.9 million in the third quarter compared to $163 million in the second quarter. The decrease is due to the previously mentioned lower gross margin as well as a sequential lower FX gain. G&A expense for the third quarter was $35.3 million, $4 million higher than the second quarter due to an increase in professional fees. We are projecting G&A expense to be about $126 million for 2025, which includes about $14.4 million of non-cash stock-based compensation.

For 2026, we are projecting our G&A costs to be about $122 million, which includes approximately $13.4 million of non-cash stock-based compensation. We conduct our business through five operating segments. I refer to the tables in the press release and segment footnotes and results of operations discussions in the 10-Q for details of our segment results. In the third quarter, as mentioned, we saw overall revenues decrease slightly sequentially. However, results varied by segment, with our APAC, Middle East, and Americas revenue increasing. These increases were offset by decreases in Europe, the Mediterranean, and African regions. Gross margin versus the previous quarter increased in four of our five regions, with our Europe and Mediterranean region seeing a decrease of about 12 percentage points. The increase in the Middle East region was due to increases in average day rates and utilization, while operating expense was essentially flat versus Q2.

The increase in the Americas region was due to increases in average day rates and utilization, offset by a 2% increase in operating expenses. The improvement in utilization was primarily due to fewer dry dock, idle, and mobilization days. The increase in the APAC region was primarily due to a 7 percentage point increase in utilization and a 5% increase in average day rates, offset by higher operating costs, primarily driven by higher salaries due to movement of some Southeast Asia vessels into Australia. The increase in utilization was primarily due to lower idle and repair days. Africa's gross margin percentage was marginally higher versus the previous quarter, and the decrease in our Europe and Mediterranean region was driven by an 11% decrease in day rates combined with a 6 percentage point decline in utilization, as well as an increase in operating costs.

The cost increase was primarily due to higher R&M and higher fuel expense due to lower utilization. The decrease in utilization was due to higher dry dock and repair days, as well as an overall weaker spot market compared to a very strong Q2. We generated $82.7 million in free cash flow this quarter compared to $97.5 million in Q2. The free cash flow decrease quarter-over-quarter was primarily attributable to lower cash flow from operating activities, lower cash proceeds from asset sales. For a while now, I have mentioned that we had not received payment from our primary customer in Mexico. Although we did not receive payment from them prior to the end of the third quarter, subsequent to the quarter end, we did receive a payment of $7.4 million, and we expect to receive additional amounts prior to year-end.

Our outstanding AR balance at the end of September before the payment was made represented approximately 17% of our total AR and other receivables. We will continue to monitor and assess the situation closely. As we communicated on our previous call, we successfully refinanced our three previous secured and unsecured debt instruments to a single longer tenured unsecured structure, and we also entered into a senior secured five-year credit agreement, which provides for a $250 million revolving credit facility, a $225 million increase over previous revolving credit. As part of the refinancing, we recognize a charge of $27.1 million, or about $0.55 per share related to the early extinguishment of previous debt instruments. As a result of our new debt structure, we will only have small debt repayments that are related to the financing of recently constructed smaller crew transport vessels.

We have no payments until 2030 on our new unsecured notes. We incurred $17.6 million in deferred dry dock costs in Q3 compared to $23.7 million in the second quarter. In the quarter, we had 943 dry dock days that affected utilization by about 5 percentage points. For the year, we're projecting dry dock costs to be about $105 million, which is down about $2 million from our prior call. The decrease is due to the net effect of changes in timing of our various 2025 projects, with some push to 2026. In addition, we see savings generated from projects completed for the remainder of the year. For 2026, we are projecting dry dock costs to be $124 million. Included in that number is $21 million in engine overhauls and $7 million of carryover projects for 2025. We are expecting dry dock days to affect utilization by 6 percentage points.

For Q3, we incurred $5.1 million in capital expenditures related to ballast water treatment installations, EP system upgrades, and various IT upgrades. In addition, we exercised an option to purchase a vessel that we had been operating in our fleet for the past several years under variable fleets. This purchase option was significantly below market value and allows us to keep a high-quality young vessel in our own operated fleet. The purchase option is reflected in the financing section of the cash flow statement. For the full year, we project capital expenditures of about $30 million, which is down $7 million from our previous forecast. Similar to our dry dock projects, the cost savings are due to timing of projects that will be done during dry docks deferred to next year. For 2026, we're projecting capital expenditures to be approximately $36 million, which includes the $7 million carryover from 2025.

In addition to this year, we have two other vessels under release arrangement that we intend to purchase in 2026 for approximately $24 million. In summary, Q3 was another strong quarter from an operations and execution standpoint. We delivered both strong financial results and free cash flow. Our balance sheet is in an excellent position, and we are well positioned to continue to drive earnings and generate meaningful free cash flow in the future. The industry long-term fundamentals remain very strong, and we remain very optimistic about the opportunities that lie ahead for Tidewater. With that, I will turn the call over to Quintin.

Quintin Kneen (President, CEO, and Director)

Thank you, Sam. Liz, would you please open it up for questions?

Operator (participant)

At this time, I would like to remind everyone in order to ask a question, press star then the number one on your telephone keypad. We'll pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Jim Rollyson with Raymond James. Please go ahead.

Jim Rollyson (Director and Equity Research Analyst)

Hey, good morning, all. Quintin, if I kind of take some of your comments around how the market is shaping up at this stage for 2026, I'm curious your thoughts on it seems like the production support end of the business is steady to growing with your comments about FPSOs kind of over the coming years. The construction market has been steady to strong, and really it's been the rig market that's kind of been the differentiation between you guys having the pricing leverage you had before and not.

I'm curious, as that starts to return, but you're seeing the production support market continue to grow, do we need to get back to the same rig levels we were at at the peak in 2024 to get your pricing back, or does that actually come a bit sooner because you've soaked up some capacity into the production market since then, do you think?

Quintin Kneen (President, CEO, and Director)

Hey, Jim. Hey, thanks for the question. I think you summed it up really well. No, because of the increasing activity in both FPSOs and EPCI and subsea broadly, I would expect that we would get there sooner. There has also been vessel attrition over the intervening two years that I think will help us get there sooner regardless. No, I would love to see the drilling activity get back to where it was in 2024 because I think that is going to give us the ability to push day rates again at that $3,000 and $4,000 a day per year level, which is really what we need in this industry to get back to earning our cost of capital. We need a couple of years of that.

Jim Rollyson (Director and Equity Research Analyst)

Right. Okay. That's helpful. That's what I figured. And then if I read between the lines on some of your comments, you talked about capital, where capital flows between buybacks, between M&A potential, and obviously this quarter you guys built a lot of cash and didn't buy back anything, and you didn't really buy anything. But I'm assuming kind of the way you operate that the lack of share repurchases in this quarter maybe suggests that you're at least looking at some M&A opportunities that you're kind of holding some dry powder for. Not that I expect you to tell me who you're buying when that's happening or anything like that, but I'm just curious, is that an accurate read that at least you're pursuing some things that could happen, and maybe that's why you didn't do any share repurchases this quarter?

Quintin Kneen (President, CEO, and Director)

Jim, a very thoughtful and a great question. Allow me to say that we had material non-public information during the quarter, but I just have to leave it at that.

Jim Rollyson (Director and Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. Appreciate that color and good job, and look forward to how things play out as we go into 2026.

Quintin Kneen (President, CEO, and Director)

Thank you, Jim.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from the line of Fredrik Stene with Clarksons Securities. Please go ahead.

Fredrik Stene (VP of Equity and Credit Research)

Hey, Quintin. I hope you are all well and appreciate all the detailed commentary, as always. I wanted to dive a bit into the guidance for 2026. I must say that I was a bit surprised that you gave it during the third quarter since you gave it at the fourth quarter for last year, but clearly positive to see that you have confidence enough in next year to guide at this point. With that as the preface, I wanted to ask if you could help me with a bit of granularity when it comes to which regions would be more exposed to open capacity, which regions are well covered, etc., when we think about this 69% midpoint revenue number that you gave Wes and the 57% of available days that were booked.

Is there any sort of regional discrepancies going into next year, some regions to watch closer when we try to assess whether or not you'll hit that guidance or even outperform? Thanks.

Quintin Kneen (President, CEO, and Director)

Hey, listen, thanks for the question. I'm going to give a quick response, but then I'm going to hand it over to Wes and Piers because they've got more detail on that. As it relates to the guidance timing, we just think it's appropriate at this point in the year to give people guidance. If we can give people guidance at this point in the year that is somewhat firm, we're going to do it. This year, we have a little more confidence than we had last year, and I think that we could characterize this year's guidance as kind of a base case. We're hopeful to see that upside in the latter part of 2026, but we are very confident that we could deliver a year in 2026 that was at least as good as 2025, and we wanted to get that information out.

As to the regional breakup, let me pass it over to Piers because he's got more detailed knowledge.

Piers Middleton (COO)

Yeah. Hi, Fredrik. Yeah. I think that looking at it, we have Africa has a little bit more exposure towards the second half of 2026, which is not unusual when we look at it for most years. Asia is a little bit more on the nearer term as we go into 2026 as well. There is a little bit more exposure there, which, again, as I sort of mentioned, we have got a number of things we are working on at the moment, so maybe that changes as we work through things. That exposure is primarily Africa and Asia as we look out to the year. Elsewhere, we have got fairly solid coverage, I would say, as we go into 2026.

Fredrik Stene (VP of Equity and Credit Research)

All right. Thank you. Just as a follow-up to that one, you're talking about 69% from firm revenues and options. Are you able to give a split there or at least give some color on whether or not it's sensible that most of those options will be exercised given whatever price that are priced at?

Piers Middleton (COO)

I don't have the split on firm and options at hand at the moment, but I would say we've got options, which we do have at once, which were done a while ago. We are very confident they'll get taken when they come.

Fredrik Stene (VP of Equity and Credit Research)

Yeah. Thanks. Just one super quick one at the end here, which does not really relate to any market, but in your 10-Q, you are talking about a case with the Venezuela case where you are potentially owed around $80 million, and to my understanding, there is potentially a verdict by year-end. Is this something to care about? Is there a chance that you will be able to collect that money if it is going in your favor? Any commentary would be super helpful as more cash is obviously possible.

Quintin Kneen (President, CEO, and Director)

Hey, Fredrik, as Quintin, yeah, the timing on these types of cases is so difficult. I mean, this has been going on for 12 years now. So yes, we do feel that we're getting really close, but trying to call it whether it's the end of this year or the first half of next year, I would tell you is really difficult. I would say that most people are thinking it's going to settle in.

Fredrik Stene (VP of Equity and Credit Research)

All right. Thank you so much. That's all from me. Have a good day.

Quintin Kneen (President, CEO, and Director)

Thanks.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from the line of Josh Jayne with Daniel Energy Partners, please go ahead.

Josh Jayne (Managing Director)

Thanks. Good morning. Quintin, you alluded to it a little bit in the answer to the last question, but I'm going to go ahead with that anyway about confidence level. As we sat here a year ago, there were a lot of questions about domestic energy policy and Saudi, and we had just changed presidents and offshore white space. All of those went on to, I think, impact offshore activity over the course of 2025. Do you get a sense that customers have a better sense of the playbook today and are more confident in the next 12 months, maybe more so than you were a year ago? Maybe just elaborate on that a little bit more would be great.

Quintin Kneen (President, CEO, and Director)

I do. Yeah. Just because we've had a year of dealing with this volatility and uncertainty, and we're getting a sense for which regions it impacts and what it does not. Also, we've gotten a real good view on OPEC and how they're releasing excess barrels into the market and how they're managing price expectations as they do that. Yes, I think that operators broadly have a better sense for where they want to go and how deep they want to go in particular regions. I'm looking over to Piers, and Piers, you may have some other commentary on stuff like that.

Piers Middleton (COO)

Yeah. Hi, Josh. I think, yeah, I think when we speak to our customers at the moment, they do seem to have a little bit more of a view as to where they think this is going to go. You can start seeing that in some of the conversations and what you've probably heard from the drillers in terms of the second half of 2026. We're seeing a lot more tenders and pre-tender type of discussions at the moment across all of our regions. There is definitely a good undercurrent of noise coming out in terms of giving us that sort of positive outlook as we go into the second half of 2026. I mean, you mentioned Aramco. I mean, they've already come out. I mentioned briefly about reactivating rigs that they had suspended last year. That is a very positive sign from that side.

We're seeing a lot more activity in places like the Med and obviously the Caribbean as well. It is very positive in all the conversations we're having at the moment. Yeah, I mean, customers seem they seem to have plans in place, and they're starting to move on those plans, which I think is a positive sign for us.

Josh Jayne (Managing Director)

Thanks for that. You talked about the 34 contracts that were signed over the course of the quarter for an average term of seven months. The general consensus view has been we do see some uptick in rig activity in the second half of 2026. Just when I think about the timing, is that intentional on your part, or is the duration of those contracts, or is that just sort of where the market is today, what customers are willing to sign? Maybe just speak to that a little bit more.

Piers Middleton (COO)

It's really sort of where the market is today. I mean, and I think I mentioned this on the last call, when we've had this sort of some expected softness. White space we'll talk about. We've obviously been chasing those really utilization. Some of those contracts are just to get us through into the second half of 2026. I mean, I think the thing which we're very conscious of is keeping utilization up, but at the same time, making sure we don't overcommit too longer term because we believe in this uplift in the market in the second half of 2026 and into 2027, and we don't want to be locking in something which we think is a little bit subscale today.

Some of the contracts we're signing now, about just giving that cover and getting us into the second half of 2026, is how we sort of been focusing in terms of commercial strategy.

Josh Jayne (Managing Director)

Maybe if I could just squeeze one more, and I'd love to get your thoughts on just the new build fleet today. You highlighted the number of vessels, but then also just the ongoing attrition since it's happened over the last two years. Could you just frame that against the attrition that you're expecting over the next 12-24 months and your expectation if the number of vessels that are on order today all ultimately get built? Thanks. I'll turn it back.

Wes Gotcher (SVP of Strategy, Corporate Development, and Investor Relations)

Hey, Josh, West, I'll give a little bit of view, and if Piers or others want to chime in, that's fine. What we've seen over the past, I guess, a couple of years now is a handful of orders from folks in different parts of the world. For the most part, these are not coming from legacy industrial participants. You see some orders from, if you will, new entries into the industry. You do have some new builds that have been ordered down in Brazil against contracts, which we think makes sense, especially given the rates that those reportedly have been won at. As of today, again, it's roughly 3% of the fleet across both PSVs and anchor handlers that have been ordered. Now, what does that mean? That matters as it relates to net new build additions or net incremental supply.

As we look out over time in an industry where the assets are 20-25-year live, that would tell you every year you'd lose roughly 4-5% of the fleet. It doesn't always work out as elegantly as that because not all vessels are built kind of pro-rata over time. Over the course of a few years, you would expect dozens, if not more, of vessels to reach that 20-25-year life, at which point they should otherwise attrition. Now, if you're in an economic environment such that spending a considerable amount of money to keep a vessel going, that's possible that that can happen, but there is a finite life for a lot of these vessels.

What we see is less new build activity or less new build vessels on order than what attrition would tell you would lead to net new supply once these vessels start to deliver. Now, whether they ultimately deliver, I do not think there is any reason to believe they will not. If they are in a shipyard today and they are being built and they had the financing to do that, presumably they should deliver. The question is, on what timeframe? A lot of these vessels have not been built in a long time, and there is some muscle memory that has to be put back in place at the shipyards. I think it is fair to assume that they do indeed deliver. Against that attrition dynamic, in our mind, does it create a net new boat? If it does not, then we are still in as good of a place as we have been.

Josh Jayne (Managing Director)

Understood. Thanks. I'll turn it back.

Operator (participant)

Your final question comes from the line of Greg Clements with PTIG. Please go ahead.

Greg Clements (Analyst)

Hey, thank you, and good morning, everybody, and thanks for taking my questions. Hey, Quintin, I realize you mentioned the non-public information around potential M&A, but beyond that, could you give us any color as we think about potential opportunities? Clearly, the company has a diversified fleet. It's interesting because I think some people like anchor handlers better than PSVs. As you think about the world evolving offshore, which it clearly looks like it's going to over the next five years, do we kind of have a preference for specific asset types or, "Hey, we think asset prices are attractive, and if it's on the water, we want to buy it," type view?

Quintin Kneen (President, CEO, and Director)

Hey, Greg, I will tell you that similar to some commentary I've made in the past, we've been real focused in the Americas. I will say that South America to us is probably more interesting than North America at this point. Vessel classes, I would say large PSVs, definitely a real preference. Medium and large anchor handlers, not the extra large anchor handlers, but the medium and large anchor handlers for sure too. Not looking really to stretch too far out of that right now, but we could. I mean, I do like the subsea market, but you really need scale to get into that market appropriately. We would have to really think hard about stretching farther than the typical PSV and anchor handlers, but it is certainly a possibility based on the core competencies of managing vessels, managing crews, and managing customers, and things like that.

Greg Clements (Analyst)

Okay. I appreciate that you have in a market like West Africa, which is a key basin, you have a lot more medium-sized than large vessels in your fleet. I guess any kind of color on what is keeping the larger vessels' pricing stronger relative to the medium/small vessels? Is that mix of work? Is that scarcity of vessels? Any kind of commentary you can have around that?

Piers Middleton (COO)

Hi, Greg. It is. I think just on the larger PSVs, I think it's a combination of all those. I mean, they're always the go-to vessels that our customers want to get. Size matters if they can get it. I wouldn't say there's a little bit of a scarcity, and we have obviously a very large fleet of those vessels around the globe. But I think when you're doing an EPCI contract or you're doing a drilling program in particular, there's definitely a need for as large a PSV as you can get to fit as much space on. It definitely works to our advantage to have that fleet. You mentioned Africa. I mean, you just go through these waves occasionally where there's a little bit of a slowdown in activity.

We have been able to, we are being able to, there is enough work out there where we can reposition some of our larger PSVs into different regions. It gives us that option, and people are prepared to pay to mobilize vessels to different places to support drilling and construction projects as well. I think it is a combination of all the things that you mentioned in terms of what is allowing us to keep rates high enough, but could go higher always, of course. That is where we are hoping to get to as we go into the next half, next year, as Quintin mentioned.

Greg Clements (Analyst)

Okay. And then I guess since I'm the last caller, I'll just ask one more. Around next year's guidance, thank you for that. I think somebody else mentioned that that was great to see. I think it kind of shows you your kind of outlook on the market. I guess I just had a couple of questions around that. One is, if we kind of think about, I remember about, I don't know, maybe a year and a half, one and a half years ago, we had some hiccups around maintenance, and we've kind of been thinking about potential impacts, the utilization. I guess as we think about utilization for next year, are we kind of carrying through some cushion for those kind of always unexpected unplanned downtimes? And then just one other question, and apologize, I was late dialing on.

It seems like myself included, everybody expects a stronger half of the back half of next year versus the front half. Any kind of view on how we think maybe the revenue shakes out in second half versus first half?

Quintin Kneen (President, CEO, and Director)

I will start with the first part. Greg, in the prepared remarks, we said the quarterly cadence of revenue next year, we actually see to be fairly even. It is not necessarily a back half-weighted outlook. We did say, however, to the extent drilling comes back in a little bit stronger than what we currently are able to see, then that may influence the back half higher from what we guided to. Right now, what we indicated was that the quarterly progression would be fairly even.

In terms of the down for repair time, as we have talked about, if you have noticed the past three quarters or so, we have continued to have better uptime performance than what we saw about a year and a half ago, as you mentioned. Three quarters is better than one quarter in terms of establishing a trend and seeing the fruits of the investments and all the work that have gone into the wherewithal of our vessels. For next year, we did not dive into it specifically, but I do think we have a bit more confidence in the operational wherewithal of the vessels at this point in time.

Greg Clements (Analyst)

Super helpful. Thank you very much.

Quintin Kneen (President, CEO, and Director)

Thanks, Greg.

Operator (participant)

That completes our Q&A session. I will now turn it back over to Quintin, President and CEO and Director, for closing remarks.

Quintin Kneen (President, CEO, and Director)

Liz, thank you. Thank you, everyone. We look forward to updating you again in February. Goodbye.

Operator (participant)

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.