Tsakos Energy Navigation - Earnings Call - Q1 2025

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Thank you for standing by, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Tsakos Energy Navigation's Conference Call on the First Quarter of 2025 Financial results. We have with us today Mr. Takis Arapoglou, Chairman of the Board; Mr. Nicholas Tsakos, Founder and CEO; Mr. Paul Durham, Chief Financial Officer; Mr. George Saroglou, President and Chief Operating Officer; Mr. Harry Kosmatos, Co-CFO of the company. At this time, all participants are on a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question-and-answer session. At which time, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad and wait for your name to be announced. I must advise that this conference is being recorded today, and now I'll pass the floor over to Mr. Nicolas Bornozis, President of Capital Link and Investor Relations Advisor to Tsakos Energy Navigation. Please go ahead, sir.

Nicolas Bornozis (President of Capital Link and Investor Relations Advisor)

Good morning, and thank you very much. Good morning to all of our participants. I am Nicholas Bornozis, President of Capital Link and Investor Relations Advisor to Tsakos Energy Navigation. This morning, the company publicly released its financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2025. In case you do not have a copy of today's earnings release, please call us at 212-661-7566 or email us at [email protected], and we will have a copy for you emailed right away. Please note that parallel to today's conference call, there is also a live audio and slide webcast, which can be accessed on the company's website on the front page at www.tenn.gr. The conference call will follow the presentation slides, so please, we urge you to access the presentation slides on the company's website.

Please note that the slides of the webcast presentation will be available and archived on the website of the company after the conference call. Also, please note that the slides of the presentation are user-controlled, and that means that by clicking on the proper button, you can move to the next or to the previous slides on your own. At this time, I would like to read the Safe Harbor Statement. This conference call and slide presentation of the webcast contains certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Safe Harbor Provision of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Investors are cautioned that such forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties which may affect Tsakos Energy Navigation's business prospects and results of operations. Before I pass the floor over to the Chairman, please let me wish a belated birthday to Dr. Tsakos and his wife, Celia.

I understand that you had a very special birthday gift being in Korea and taking care of the delivery of the Swedmax tanker, Dr. Irene Tsakos. That vessel bears your mother's name, and the vessel will have the Greek flag. Also, you had at the same time the naming of the sister vessel, Celia T., which will bear your wife's name. It has been a very special moment in the company's history, and I'd like to congratulate you. With this, I will pass the floor to Mr. Arapoglou, the Chairman of Tsakos Energy Navigation. Mr. Arapoglou, please go ahead.

Takis Arapoglou (Chairman of the Board)

Thank you. Thank you, Nicholas. Good morning. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you again for joining us today in our call reporting our Q1 results. That is another quarter of excellent financial results driven by the usual superior operating track record of TEN, supported, of course, by strong market fundamentals. This allows TEN to continue rewarding shareholders with a healthy dividend, as it has been doing continuously since inception. As you have read in the press release, TEN has built a continuously and continuously grows on a rolling basis a stream of high-quality, committed future income of currently approximately $3.7 billion, spanning over a number of years through long-term accretive charters of a substantial part of its fleet, which ensures profitability, limits volatility, and provides greater predictability in its earnings.

At the same time, of course, TEN continuously renews the fleet with modern state-of-the-art vessels through an unprecedented size of 21 vessels now being built and selling our old tonnage. You would agree that this is not the typical, more sensitive model of shipping companies protecting them against market shortcomings. Yet, we believe that all these positive characteristics of the TEN industrial model are not properly reflected on our stock price, which is being valued in the same way as other companies in the sector with much less robust attributes. This is perhaps because most followers of the sector have a much shorter time horizon than our industrial model deserves. We hope that investors will focus on this and upgrade their valuation of our stock.

I'll leave you to reflect on this and congratulate again Nicholas Tsakos and his team for the excellent results and wish them more of the same. Thank you, and over to you, Nicholas.

Nicholas Tsakos (CEO)

Thank you, Chairman, and good morning. Good afternoon to all of you that are following our first quarter of 2025 results. As the Chairman said, it has been a solid period. We are navigating literally in very turbulent waters around the world, more for geopolitical events. I mean, the beginning of the year has been a wave of uncertainty as far as our business possibilities. A lot of talk about tariffs, a lot of talk about extra port costs, a lot of talk about protectionism. Of course, now this very unsettling situation that is escalating in the Middle East that I think cannot make anybody happy. However, we have been able to navigate these turbulent waters again successfully, safely, and profitably for the majority. Of course, our main profitability is important, but the safety of our crew and the people on board our ships is even more important.

We have had another good run and safe run on this segment. Regardless of the uncertainties, the underlying market conditions are strong. It is very hard for us and our chartering team to maintain any vessels in the spot market. There is a huge demand for taking even older ships, and I will give you examples which I haven't seen in my 30-plus years in business. Any of our ships can be chartered anywhere up to 10-15 years, even older good quality ships that we operate, as I'm sure you know. I mean, we have one of our oldest, or if not our oldest ship, even older than my twin daughters, keeps on being chartered by one of the big major oil companies year after year.

I think Celia is right now on her 20th extension, and she's 23 years old, and she's extended for another six months. That shows that a good quality operator that provides a good service, age is not important as the quality of the assets. The environment is good. The company is going through its largest growth until the next one because that was something we were saying a couple of years ago when we sold 14 of our first-generation ships and ordered another 17. We are actually now at 21 new buildings, two of them just delivered last week. Thank you, Nick, for your wishes on this very milestone occasion. Yes, we are looking at other opportunities. There are segments that we are right now under-invested, like the VLCCs, and always looking at good quality Korean or Japanese vessels as a priority.

Perhaps we will come up with some surprises later in the following quarters on that. With this, I would ask our President to give us a quick overview of what we have done up to now. I think the things to remember, our share price is being treated together with the other companies. We went down from our $31 one-year high to almost half of that. We're making some progress, but our net asset value without $3.7 billion of future business is in excess of $60. We are really, really in undervalued territory here and a good opportunity. We've been penalized together with the rest of the market and the nervousness. 29 vessels have been extended or new businesses within the first six months of the year. That's 29 out of the 62 vessels in the water.

Half of the fleet has been extended for a very long period of time. We have reached, according to Paul Durham, our CFO, and presented future revenues going forward of $3.7 billion. I think these are serious numbers. We announced still a healthy dividend, and hopefully, we will be able to maintain and perhaps increase that going forward. George, tell me, how are the prospects for that?

George Saroglou (President and COO)

Thank you, Nicholas. We are very pleased to report today another profitable quarter. We continue to operate in a very good-faith market environment. Energy majors continue to approach our company for time-chartered business. As Mr. Tsakos mentioned, since the start of the year, we have had 29 new time-chartered fixtures. Total fleet contracted revenue, the backlog as of today, stands approximately at $3.7 billion. We have built in TEN one of the largest transporters of energy in the world. We started with four vessels back in 1993, and we have turned every crisis the world and shipping has faced into a growth opportunity. We now have a pro forma fleet of 82 vessels thanks to the company's crisis-resistant model. During these 32 years, we have combined self-generated cash, traditional bank lending, and counter-cyclical capital market fundraising in order to build the corporate fleet.

The fleet today is modern, diversified, and versatile, covering both the conventional and specialized transportation requirements of our clients, which are mainly the major oil companies, blue-chip names with global reach. In slide five, we list the pro forma fleet of all conventional tankers, both crude and product carriers. The red colors show the vessels that trade in the spot market and our new buildings under construction, especially when you see TEN instead of a vessel name, the ticker NBTTN. With light blue, we have the vessels that are on time chartered with profit sharing, and with dark blue, the vessels that are on fixed-rate time charters. In the next slide, we list the pro forma diversified fleet, which consists of our two LNG vessels and our 16 vessel shuttle tanker fleet.

We are one of the largest shuttle tanker operators in the world, following the recently announced deal with Transpetro in Brazil for nine high-specification shuttle tankers to be built in the Samsung Shipyard in South Korea. We have five shuttle tankers in full operation after taking a recent delivery of ATIL-04, which commences a long-time charter to an energy major. If we combine the two slides and account only for the current operating fleet of 63 vessels, 29 or 46% of the operating fleet has market exposure. That is spot-related rates and time chartered with profit sharing, while 52 vessels or 83% of the fleet is in secured revenue contracts. That is six time chartered and time chartered with profit sharing. The next slide has the client with whom we do repeat business through the year thanks to our industrial model. ExxonMobil is the largest revenue client.

Equinor, Shell, Chevron, TotalEnergies, and BP follow. We believe that over the years, we have become the carrier of choice to energy majors thanks to the fleet that we built, the operational and safety record, the disciplined financial approach, and the strong balance sheet and financial performance. The next slide presents all the break-even costs for the various vessel types we operate in the company. As we have said many times, our operating model is simple. We try to have our time chartered vessels generate revenue to cover the company's cash expenses and let the revenue from the spot-rated vessels contribute to the profitability of the company. Thanks to the profit sharing element, for every $1,000 increase in spot rates, we have a positive 13% impact in annual earnings per share based on the number of TEN vessels that currently have exposure to spot rates.

We have a solid balance sheet with strong cash reserves. The fair market value of the fleet is $3.6 billion against approximately $1.7 billion of debt, and net debt to cap currently stands around 40%. Fleet renewal has been key to our operating model. Since January 1 of 2023, we have further upgraded the quality of the fleet by divesting from first-generation conventional tankers, replacing them with more energy-efficient new buildings and modern second-hand tankers, including dual-fuel vessels. In summary, we have sold 14 vessels with an average age of 17.3 years and deadweight capacity of 1.2 million deadweight tons and replaced them with 30 contracted and modern acquired vessels with an average age of less than a year and three times the deadweight capacity of the vessels we sold. We continue to transition the fleet to greener and dual-fuel vessels.

We are currently one of the largest owners of dual-fuel LNG-powered Aframax tankers with six vessels in the water. Global oil demand continues to grow year after year. Wars and geopolitical events positively affect the tanker market, and freight rates and the order book remain at healthy levels as a big part of the global fleet is over 20 years and needs to be replaced. With that, I will pass the floor to Harrys Kosmatos, who will walk us through the financial performance for the first quarter. Harry?

Hello.

Harrys Kosmatos (Co-CFO)

Hello. Do you hear me?

George Saroglou (President and COO)

Yes, I can hear you. Sorry. Okay.

Harrys Kosmatos (Co-CFO)

Hello? Yes. Hi. Thank you, George. Thank you, George, for touching on the major points that I think we need to highlight. With this, I will just go over a brief overview of the financials that we presented earlier today. During the first quarter of 2025, TEN operated just about 62 vessels, one over the equivalent 2024 period, and shifted fleet employment more towards secure revenue contracts to capture the increased appetite from oil majors to lock their long-term entrepreneurship needs. As a result, TEN's exposure to subcontracts increased from about 73% in the first quarter of 2024 to 80% in the first quarter of 2025. By contrast, the fleet's pure spot exposure between the 2024 and 2025 first quarter period declined from 19% to about 18%.

Despite this recalibration of fleet employment to conform with TEN's industrial approach to shipping, TEN's ability to maintain a notable presence in the still healthy, strong spot market was actually enhanced as emphasis was placed on profit-sharing contracts, which, when combined with spot fixtures, increased the fleet's ability to capture market peaks from 44% in last year's first quarter to 47% in this year's quarter. Staying on fleet dynamics, during the first quarter of 2025, two vessels underwent scheduled dry docking compared to five in the 2024 first quarter, ensuring a near maximum fleet utilization of 97.2%. Resulting from the above, the larger fleet, the higher fleet utilization, and the increased days in secure revenue contracts somewhat neutralized and earned pressure the soft spot market earlier in the year may have created.

As TEN's fleet generated $197.1 million in gross revenue, a little under the $201.5 million in the first quarter of 2024. The average time charter equivalent per ship per day that corresponded to this performance was at a still healthy $30,741. Boarders' expenses, on the other hand, and in line with TEN's calculated lower exposure in spot rates during the 2025 first quarter, experienced a $6 million decline from last year's first quarter and settled at $36 million. Vessel operating expenses, however, due to the sum of larger fleets, were at $49.6 million compared to $48.6 million in the first quarter of 2024, or $9,502 per ship per day, a level contained thanks to the efficient and proactive management of TEN's second-term managers.

A similar pattern was evident for both depreciation and amortization expenses, which increased from $37.5 million in the first quarter of 2024 to $41 million in the first quarter of 2025, also assisted by the introduction of larger and more high-value assets. During the first quarter of 2025, a sale of the 2009 Suezmax tanker Theoharrys Kosmatos generated capital gains of $3.6 million compared to capital gains of $16.2 million in the first quarter of 2024. Net of these gains, during the first quarter of 2025, TEN's operating income was at $57.1 million compared to $60.1 million in the 2024 first quarter. Interest and finance costs declined by $1.1 million to $24 million as a result of lower debt obligations and somewhat lower interest rates compared to the 2024 first quarter.

Reflecting all the above, a net income of $37.7 million was recorded in the first quarter of 2025, leading to an earnings per share of $1.04. Adjusted EBITDA for the first quarter of 2025, a quarter with soft spot rates, was at $99.3 million, almost identical to the $100.5 million in last year's strong spot rate first quarter. Total debt was reduced to $1.7 billion, $40.4 million lower from the 2024 first quarter level, while debt to capital also fell to a comfortable 40.6%. Cash flow for the first quarter of 2025, after $27 million into first coupons and $238 million of principal payments to banks, including payments for financial arrangements, was $350 million, $6 million higher from the cash levels at the end of the 2024 first quarter.

In ending, and reflective of this positive performance, TEN will distribute to common shareholders a first semiannual dividend of $0.60 per share to shareholders of record on July 14th, 2025. With this, I'll pass it back to Nico.

Nicholas Tsakos (CEO)

Thank you. Harry, thank you for your very to-the-point and accurate presentation. I think, as we said, it has been the beginning of this year, it has been a very peculiar and turbulent year, starting with the restriction of shipping. As we usually say, our aim is we are the truck drivers of the season. We need open roads and not protection and not tolls. On top of this, the recent intensified geopolitical turmoil is putting us literally to navigate very turbulent waters, which I think we have been successfully and profitably doing.

Looking at the tanker market and the majority of the crude trades, there is huge demand for more business. As we have said, it has been a very strong year of expansion. This is our largest expansion until our next one. We are looking to still grow to segments that we have not grown up yet for good reasons, like the VLCC and the LNG. The market environment is positive. A lot of demand. We have our chartering department has to try and keep some ships on the spot market.

There's huge demand, even for older ships, as I mentioned the example of our 2003 vessel, which has been continuously chartered with one of the major oil companies since their inception, which is a very good proof for our technical managers, for the way we operate the ships, and the trust that we are able to share with the oil companies. Overall, an unsettling period for the world, but something that we keep under control, at least for our side of the business. We have been able to combine, as the Chairman earlier said, an unprecedented growth. Fingers to frozen now. I'm just putting on the slides over the years. Growth and strength over the crisis and strong dividend payments and debt reduction. With this, I would like to open the floor. If there are any questions, please, we're here to answer.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press Star one on your telephone keypad. The confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press Star two to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the Star key. One moment, please, while we pull for your questions. Our first questions come from the line of Poe Fratt with Alliance Global Partners. Please proceed with your questions.

Poe Fratt (Equity Research Analyst)

Hello. Can you just highlight what the second quarter new build cost will be? I'm looking at roughly $130 million. Is that in the ballpark for the second quarter new build payments?

Harrys Kosmatos (Co-CFO)

Harry. Hello. Can you hear me?

Poe Fratt (Equity Research Analyst)

Yes.

Harrys Kosmatos (Co-CFO)

Hello, folks. For the second quarter of 2025, we have one of our DP2s that will be coming into the fleet. This vessel has the all-in cost just under $130 million. We expect to pay approximately $17 million remaining for that quarter out of equity. The rest has been arranged through St. Manila's Commercial Bank. We also have to pay a second installment, the second 5% installment, on the nine newbuildings, the nine DP2 shuttle tankers, of about $67 million that will make the second 5% payment that we are required to make until the delivery of the vessel. We will not make any other payment on that because we are looking into getting pre-delivery financing on those vessels as well. We expect one of the conventional Suezmaxes, the Celia T., to be delivered in the next quarter.

This has a value somewhere in the mid-$80 million. We're looking to raise somewhere between 70%-80% financing. We're very closely doing that. The rest will be directly paid out of cash reserves. These are more or less what we have scheduled currently for the next quarter as regards to the new building.

Poe Fratt (Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. And just to clarify, the $67 million on the shuttle tankers will fall into the second quarter, not the rest of the year. That's a second quarter event, Harry?

Harrys Kosmatos (Co-CFO)

They are scheduled for July of this year.

Poe Fratt (Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. Third quarter. Okay. And then when you, Nico, you talked about that you're underrepresented or you don't have as much exposure to VLCCs and we should stay tuned. My impression is that the bid-ask in the S&P market is still, I guess, could you characterize how the bid-ask is in the S&P market right now, especially for V since you mentioned V?

Harrys Kosmatos (Co-CFO)

We are always looking to build ships against client wishes and, of course, when opportunities arise. I mean, our first aim is to build good quality Korean or Japanese ships. And there are not many of them out there. So when we get an opportunity, it's something that we seriously look. As you look at our fleet, we're down to three VLs. I think for a company that will be close to 90 ships before the, in a pro forma basis, we need to increase these segments in the market. We're looking at opportunities out there. We have seen, and I think we have been able to time a good reduction of the new building prices from top yards. This is what we are looking to take advantage of.

Poe Fratt (Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. Great. You did sell in the first quarter a 2009 Suezmax. Can you just sort of help me understand sort of your fleet strategy as far as are you going to continue to sell older assets as you see decent bids out there, or is your fleet going to stay roughly flat with the new builds increasing the fleet over time?

Harrys Kosmatos (Co-CFO)

I mean, we are always taking advantage of the S&P market in renewing the fleet. I think we are looking to sell at least half a dozen ships from now to the end of the year. We are very close in three or four transactions that might take place before the fourth quarter, which will release close to $100 million of net cash flow. Of course, it will enhance our ability to pay dividends, reduce debt, and at the same time, would not affect our strong cash balances when we grow the business for further expansion.

Poe Fratt (Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. I know it's probably hard at this point in time. Can you give us an outlook for the second half dividend that you typically pay in December?

Harrys Kosmatos (Co-CFO)

I mean, I cannot because this is taking our strategy meeting is taking place every October in Greece, and that's when people sit under the sun and decide having some wine on the dividend. Joking apart, we hope to have at least a similar dividend to the first half, to say the least.

Poe Fratt (Equity Research Analyst)

Great. That's helpful. You did highlight that your NAV, you think, is north of $60. The stock's a little bit under $20. It's at 35%. It's trading at 35% of NAV. Is there anything that you think that you should do to help close that gap, or is there anything that you think corporate actions-wise you can take to help close that gap?

Harrys Kosmatos (Co-CFO)

I think what we have to do is to try, as the Chairman, I think the Chairman, perhaps he can arrange at the end of this, he can give us again the same presentation, is to present the difference of TEN, which has an industrial model proven for 30 years than the other shipping companies that are more fluctuating. I mean, we still have a small flow of shares, excluding the management and the family. If someone were there to do a buyback, it would completely dilute even more the free flow. I think we are looking for various scenarios where people will understand the value of the company.

One of them would be, and we've been discussing going forward, some sort of spin-off of the LNG and shuttle tanker fleet that has a huge cash flow for the next with an average of 12.5 years. That, of course, that would be able to help also the mother company. These are still discussions we're internally having. We don't have to do anything for the next couple of years. The company has a lot of liquidity. There's no need to raise capital. It just needs to become to make the point more evident.

Poe Fratt (Equity Research Analyst)

That's an interesting concept. Thank you so much.

Harrys Kosmatos (Co-CFO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press Star one on your telephone keypad. I'm not showing any further questions at this time. I would now like to hand the call back over to Mr. Nicholas Tsakos for any closing remarks.

Takis Arapoglou (Chairman of the Board)

I think you guys have heard too much from my side. It has been an exciting first six months, and hopefully, we can make the remaining of the year exciting. We wish for everybody to have a peaceful summer. Although it doesn't look very likely, we hope everybody will be able to make sense of what's happening and have a much more peaceful environment than we operate now. With that, I will ask our Chairman, Mr. Takis Arapoglou, to close our presentation. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, Nicholas. On the question of closing the gap on the price to NAV and the mention of a buyback, I would rather pay people to stay through dividends than pay them to leave. I think that I hope investors would understand the value of the stock and treat it differently to your usual other shipping assets in the market, which behave and trade in a different way. We provide an almost stable stream of income going forward, which is not a one-off. It is being rolled year after year with additional transactions. This provides a different environment in which we operate. I hope that investors will understand the distinction. That is it from me for now. Thanks.

Nicholas Tsakos (CEO)

Thank you, Chairman. I think, just again, not to and this is more for the analysts. I think our type of operation, which is much, much more industrial, and it has a proven record of 32 consecutive years of dividend and growth, should not be measured on net asset value. I think net asset value is completely for companies that have no operation. I mean, we have $3.7 billion with an average 12 and a half years of forward income, fixed, at the minimum. To make everybody feel very, very young, we have 180 years of fixed employment for all our ships, which means I think even our great-grandchildren might be there to receive some of the dividends at the end of the period.

The model of net asset value, which actually takes a ship that might be empty, sitting in the middle of the ocean with no cargo, and gives it the same value as a ship that has a 15- or 10-year, it's a wrong or at least it's not representative of what we do. I think we should be looking to be measured on EBITDA multiples like or earning multiples. Right now, if we look, I mean, we're measured at two or three times EBITDA multiples when we should have been measured at eight times EBITDA multiples. That's what we're going to try and make better through the spin-off. That's the only reason we might be doing a spin-off, to prove the point. It's not because the company is actually putting aside close to $500,000 of cash on a daily basis after all our expenses.

The last thing we need is to raise equity. We're there to pay dividend, grow, and reduce debt. With that thought, I would like to let our analysts think a bit and perhaps start measuring companies like ours a bit on that measure rather than net asset value.

Takis Arapoglou (Chairman of the Board)

Of course, Nicholas, if I may interrupt, Nicholas.

Nicholas Tsakos (CEO)

Yes, please.

Takis Arapoglou (Chairman of the Board)

Sorry. If you look at if you take last year's dividend, then perhaps we will not be that far this year. At the present level of our stock price, we're talking about an 8-9% dividend yield, which is not something that you find in the sector often. This is the proof of the model, really, if you look at it. They're relatively limited payout. I think what Nicholas says is correct. Net asset value is a very static model. We do not run a static business. EBITDA is the best indicator of the performance of the fleet. Thank you.

Nicholas Tsakos (CEO)

Thank you. All the best for the remaining of the year. Our team is in New York. I know you guys are having a very nice lunch, I presume, I hope, at a Greek restaurant sitting outdoors very soon. Send us some pictures and a doggy bag for us. Thank you.

Takis Arapoglou (Chairman of the Board)

Take care. Bye-bye.

Paul Durham (CFO)

Thank you, everyone. Thank you. Bye-bye.

Takis Arapoglou (Chairman of the Board)

Bye-bye.

Operator (participant)

This does conclude today's teleconference. We appreciate your participation. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Enjoy the rest of the day.