Solstad Offshore ASA

OSE:SOFF

Earnings Call Transcript 2023-Q4

[Lars Solstad, executive]

Good morning, and welcome to this fourth quarter presentation of Solstad Offshore ASA. My name is Lars Peder Solstad, I'm CEO of Solstad Offshore, and I'm going to have this presentation together with the CFO, Kjetil Ramstad.

As many of you know, it has been an eventful couple of months for us, where we have refinanced the company at attractive terms and where, with existing shareholders, maintaining the ownership share. I am convinced that this is the best available solution for the company. And this solution secures long-term financing at attractive terms. It protects present shareholders, including the right to invest more and it extends the majority of an unsecured claim that had to be solved in parallel with the maturity of the secured debt. And as a shareholder, I'm very pleased with the refinancing, and I'm also very pleased with the fleet we have and our position in the global offshore energy markets.

A general comment to this presentation is that the P&L reflect the company structure as it was prior to the refinancing, while there are some onetime accounting effects in the balance sheet and also on impairment that is linked to the refinancing. We will come back to this on separate slides.

We then take a quick look at the disclaimer before we move on to the financial highlights. It has been an operational strong quarter, where we have nearly doubled the revenue compared to a year earlier to NOK 2 billion. And this is due to high utilization of the fleet even in the part of the year which normally are defined as low season, especially in Europe. EBITDA is up from NOK 336 million in fourth quarter '22 to more than NOK 900 million this quarter, giving an EBITDA margin of 46%. And EBIT is also up around 3x to NOK 341 million in the quarter.

Debt and assets are reflecting the sale of the PSV fleet, but it does not show the effect of the refinancing as this was only concluded 16 January this year. We will come back to numbers and refinancing effects on later slides.

If we take a closer look at the refinancing, and the refinancing of the Solstad Group should be well known, but to repeat some of the highlights. It started with the sale of the PSV fleet announced and concluded in 2023. This reduced the overall debt to a level that made it more realistic to refinance the company without debt conversion. And 23rd October last year, we announced the agreement with Eksfin, DNB, AMSC and Aker to refinance Solstad by NOK 4 billion in new equity, NOK 9.7 billion in new bank facility and a postponed maturity on the Maximus residual claim that had to be solved in parallel with the maturity on the existing bank debt.

Since then, 16 January this year, we closed Phase 1 of the refinancing by fully repaying all debt restructured in October 2020 and injection of new equity increase. Phase 2, which is the NOK 750 million tranche directed to soft shareholders, is expected to be in second quarter and is already fully underwritten. Subscription rights issued will be tradable when the prospectus is approved. On the -- going forward, we will then have 2 shareholder structures, and from first quarter '24, we will report based on the new structure with Solstad Maritime as an asset from associated company to Solstad Offshore ASA.

Eight vessels are under the direct ownership of SOFF ASA, and this also goes for the very important Brazil structure as well as the [ payout ] in of the important CSV Normand Maximus, while the remainder of the fleet are now under the Solstad Maritime, where Solstad Offshore ASA will held 27% going forward. Operationally, we are still one company, still branded Solstad Offshore. So no changes for clients, suppliers or employees.

Kjetil, I will then hand over to you to take us through the new debt structure.

[Kjetil Ramstad, executive]

Yes. Thank you, Lars. And as earlier announced, the company had a need to refinance its debt -- most of its debt within the end of first quarter this year. And the refinancing was announced 23rd of October '23 and completed 16th of January 2024. The balance sheet has been substantially strengthened, and refinancing involved a repayment of NOK 11.2 billion under the secured loan agreement that was entered into in connection with the restructuring in 2020. The company, Solstad Offshore, is released of all its guarantee obligations under the 2020 facility agreement.

A new fleet loan in Solstad Maritime has been entered into with a 3-year tenor on a 7-year profile and with 2 1-year extension possible also. The Normand Maximus claim also was due end of first quarter of '24 and had to be solved. The new maturity debt is now 16th of January 2027, and there is also interest component on that claim that will be due on maturity. There is also an option for Solstad to purchase this claim for the amount of NOK 200 million in the event of the lenders is being successful in the [indiscernible] of the ownership of the shares in Maximus Limited.

Solstad Offshore has also a 5-year bareboat charter agreement on Normand Maximus until October 2027 with [ 3x ] 5-year options. Also have a purchase option to buy the vessel after 5 and 10 years. Normand Superior [ SPV ] in Solstad Offshore is also being refinancing as we speak. We have discussions with lenders, and we will refinance this facility by end of March. Solstad Brazil, the 4 vessels that we have built in Brazil and financed by vendors was included earlier, has maturity dates that is between 2026 and 2031.

So that gives the overview of the debt and when the maturity is going to be. With that, Lars, I hand the word back to you.

[Lars Solstad, executive]

Thanks, Kjetil. And we'll then take a closer look on the business update. And as you have seen, it has been a solid quarter with the improved earnings across all regions and segments, and we have achieved a very high also utilization rate of 94% on our vessels. And I would like to highlight the utilization of the anchor handling fleet where the project fleet was involved on a project in West Africa, most of the quarter and gave an overall utilization of the anchor handling segment of 89%.

EBITDA came in at NOK 923 million, significantly up from the same quarter in '22, and it's also encouraging to see that we continue to have a very high percentage of our EBITDA income from renewable energy activities. 27% of the EBITDA generated came from renewable energy segment this quarter. We see in general that the activity within -- especially within offshore wind represents a significant demand for subsea vessels on top of the growth we see within the more traditional oil and gas activities.

Even if the book-to-bill factor was below 1 in the quarter, book-to-bill for the year came in at 1.2 and with all new contracts done at improved terms compared to previous contracts. And there's a very high bidding activity at the moment, and we expect to be awarded our fair share of these new contracts. We also continue to grow in additional services and we ordered 6 new ROVs in the quarter, bringing the total fleet of ROVs to 12 units. And these are being mobilized onto the Solstad vessels and are part of the strategy to add more services to our offering without adding more project risk. And we see a large growth potential in or within services and we have ambitions to have NOK 1 billion in revenue from services within 2026.

After quarter end, we also sold 2 of our vessels in lay-up in Asia to new owners and leaving only 1 -- and then we only have 1 vessel left in lay-up in total, and that is also a vessel that is held for sale.

If we take a look at the market. There is still a very strong demand for vessels and services across segments and across geographical regions. Demand comes from oil and gas and from offshore wind activities. We see the market fundamentals as robust. And in combination with a stable supply side, we expect also to see a high utilization rate on the fleet also going forward. There is a significant amount of offshore energy production systems to be installed in the coming years.

We have FPSOs in Africa, Brazil and Guyana, subsea systems in the North Sea and the U.S. Gulf, development of gas discoveries in Australia, wind parks in Taiwan, U.S. and the North Sea basin are some examples. And in addition, there is a large maintenance market across all regions, and all this will require the type of services that we can offer and it is a good position to be in when we see that the activity is continued to pick up, while the supply side are still quite stable. And we see a very high tender activity in the market with the request for vessels in the project market and in the long-term market where we see that clients would like to secure vessel capacity.

On the backlog, we see that the -- our experience is that the market has shown a significant improvement and the rates we achieve now are at reasonable levels. This goes to -- for the CSV segment in general, but also for the -- also the anchor handling segment shows improvement on projects but also on long-term contracts. In the Solstad Group, we have around NOK 4 billion contracts in hand for execution in 2024 and about NOK 7.5 billion of firm backlog in total. And if we include charters option, the total backlog is around NOK 13.7 billion as per fourth quarter of '23.

On top of this, we have in 2024 in the group approximately 30% of potential vessel days available for new contracts. And this is a favorable position to be in, as I see it, as markets continue to go up and available vessels are limited. It is also worth noting that the backlog is shared between oil and gas contracts and renewable energy contracts, and it's also for work in the global markets.

If we look at the next slide and on the book-to-bill. It came in, as I mentioned, on 1.2 for the year, meaning that we signed new contracts for value of about 20% more than the 2023 revenue. All new contracts are done at improved terms and they have done a healthy EBITDA margins. It is also worth mentioning that more than 80% of the group's backlog has been added since early 2022, meaning that there is just a small portion of legacy backlog. Within the next 12 months, also these contracts will expire. And we expect that we will be able to replace those contracts with more profitable contracts.

So then I give the word back to you, Kjetil, to take us through the income statement and balance sheet.

[Kjetil Ramstad, executive]

Thank you. As mentioned, the income statement for the fourth quarter reflects the historic Solstad Offshore. So we haven't -- that is -- yes, it's 100% Solstad Offshore in the P&L for 2023. It has been a good quarter with high activity, and operating income has almost been doubling compared to last year. The main drivers for the operating income are improved commercial terms, it's higher utilization and the increased sales of additional services.

And I will mainly go through the highlights of the P&L now, and then next one that I will touch upon is the administrative expenses. There will -- that's also a onetime effect with higher cost in the quarter driven by refinancing and legal and advisory costs. The operating result before depreciation is -- has been increased more than 100% compared to last year, ending at above NOK 900 million for the quarter.

And then we have some accounting effects in -- on the impairment line affecting the operating result, where we have recognized an impairment of NOK 499 million in connection with the deconsolidation of the Solstad Maritime Group. This consists of -- 1/3 is related to ordinary depreciation and 1/3 is currency effect. As mentioned in earlier quarters, we had quite some movements on FX. And then the last portion is related to profit on operating result. So this is the portion that relates to Solstad Maritime Group. And in addition, we have a reversal of 2 vessels that have been impaired earlier, Normand Carioca and the Normand Superior, of approximately NOK 95 million.

Of the [ cost ] considerations, we also have included a potential tax accrual of NOK 262 million for operations in international waters. This gives EBITDA a result of the quarter of NOK 923 million, which is the highest fourth quarter EBITDA we have ever generated.

Looking at the year, almost NOK 7 billion of revenue and operating income in 2023 and EBITDA of NOK 3.2 billion or almost doubling since last year as well. Look at the distribution of EBITDA, it's good to see that the anchor handing fleet is -- shows a strong EBITDA generation in the quarter and also the CSV with 2/3 of EBITDA for the quarter with still a good portion of renewable activity also in fourth water.

If we go to the balance sheet. And of course, we have done a lot on the balance sheet in 2023. Lars mentioned the sale of the PSV fleet, which affected both the fixed asset and the debt side, of course. And as mentioned many times in this presentation already, the transaction in Solstad Maritime Group where we will deconsolidate, that portion is then classified as an asset held for sale per end of year of NOK 13.7 billion, which then is the assets that will be included in the Solstad Maritime balance sheet. And it's, of course, mainly the vessels. As you can see, it's cash, it's account receivables and some other current and fixed assets.

Yes, I think that's the main event on the balance sheet for the quarter, and Solstad Maritime going forward will be reflected as an investment in associates using the equity method going forward. So next quarter, first quarter of '24, the balance sheet will reflect the new ownership structure.

With that, I give the room back to you, Lars, to summarize.

[Lars Solstad, executive]

Thanks, Kjetil. And to summarize the quarter, we have -- as we have already described, Solstad is now fully refinanced. We have a strong balance sheet, and we have an industry-leading fleet. The company has had solid earnings in the fourth quarter with a high utilization of the fleet. We expect that the demand for our services will continue to be strong in a tight market that is backed by solid fundamentals. And we have a solid backlog, but we also have capacity to take on more work in a market that continues to improve.

So we are very pleased with the 2023. And as we see it, the outlook for 2024 is also very solid. So thank you very much. This concludes our presentation, and we now move over to Q&A.

[Kjetil Ramstad, executive]

Okay. Then we will start on the questions. Maximus has been lying outside Italy for a couple of months. Can you please comment on what is next for Maximus?

[Lars Solstad, executive]

Yes. The reason for being there is because she's between projects. So they will move on to the next project during March is the plan, and the vessel is on hire.

[Kjetil Ramstad, executive]

Next question is, what is the status of Normand Sentinel? We have seen that the vessel has been loaded with the new LOEs, and what is the next project for her?

[Lars Solstad, executive]

Well, we have -- Normand Sentinel is one of the vessels where we have now mobilized our own ROE systems on. They are now on the first project within renewable energy. It will take us a couple of months' work. And then Normand Sentinel is still open for, let's say, 2/3 of this year. But we are bidding that vessel very actively and we have great expectations to what we will achieve in both type of work but also the commercial terms on that vessel. So we are very relaxed on the position of the Sentinel.

[Kjetil Ramstad, executive]

Next question is the anchor handling segment has delivered a fantastic fourth quarter results. How are the tender activity for projects like this moving forward?

[Lars Solstad, executive]

I agree that it was a very nice quarter for the anchor handling fleet. And for us in Solstad, we have a -- our approach to the anchor handling market is getting more and more like we have on the CSVs. We have -- we are focusing on long-term contracts in the regions like Brazil and Australia. We are very actively chasing the project market. We have already some projects in hand for execution this year and we also are bidding many more. And then we have the North Sea spot market as a fallback. So we have great expectations to this segment also going forward.

[Kjetil Ramstad, executive]

Next question. One of the subsea contractors yesterday talked about need for more vessels and to have longer contracts than previous years. Do you see more of our fixed vessels on long-term contracts in 2024?

[Lars Solstad, executive]

Yes, that could be the case. As I also mentioned in the presentation, we see and we're bidding on both project-related work but also on longer-term contracts. And I think the -- many of the -- of our clients realize that there's not going to be many additional vessels coming to the market the next years. So if they are interested in securing capacity, they should look at offering long-term contracts.

[Kjetil Ramstad, executive]

And then maybe same question with a different angle. We've been very successful with the balance of short- and long-term contracts during 2023. How do you see the balance for short versus long term in 2024?

[Lars Solstad, executive]

I think it will be -- it will continue to be a combination. I think that works quite well. It will be a combination of working short on profitable project contracts, always also seeking long term but don't compromise on the numbers. And we will also chase work in our core geographical regions because that is also a great interest to us. And we see the demand is not only here in the North Sea, it's -- most of the demand actually is outside the North Sea.

[Kjetil Ramstad, executive]

And then there's a question. What is your thoughts on growing the fleet through M&A or potentially new builds?

[Lars Solstad, executive]

I think the -- our main focus now is to concentrate on the fleet we have. We have -- I mean, it's not a bad position to be in to have 39 very good vessels and positioned as we are in the market that is ahead of us. We will continue to grow the services we offer on the vessels we already have. And to look at new builds, while we don't have any firm plans of doing that, I think the cost is very high. And also what we have seen on what rates that are possible to get on term contracts -- on longer-term contracts don't justify the investment yet as we see it.

[Kjetil Ramstad, executive]

We have a good share -- Solstad have a good share of renewable services in the quarter and in the year. What is the main services that we provide into the wind and renewable industry as you see it?

[Lars Solstad, executive]

I think it's the -- I think if we -- the development of our wind park is, if you exclude the turbine itself, is very similar to -- also to -- or has a lot of similarities to development of a subsea installation. So a lot of the work we do is basically more or less the same as we do for, let's say, a subsea development. It's a survey work, it's trenching, it's cable laying, it's commissioning work. And it's also kind of a walk to work and that type of services. So -- and in addition to that, we are also involved with the installation of fiber optics. We are involved with decommissioning projects. So there's a variety. But the scope we do is not very different from what we do within oil and gas.

[Kjetil Ramstad, executive]

All right. I think with that, we conclude the Q&A.

[Lars Solstad, executive]

Okay. Thanks a lot for listening in, everyone. Have a good weekend.