Wilh Wilhelmsen Holding ASA

OSE:WWI

Earnings Call Transcript 2020-Q4

[Thomas Wilhelmsen, Group CEO]

Okay. Good morning, and welcome to the quarterly presentation and year-end results for the Wilh. Wilhelmsen Group for the year 2020. This time, last year, we have just started seeing the signs of COVID in Asia with port restrictions and port closures. And it did not take long before we really started feeling the impact of the pandemic hitting the world back in March and onwards. And of course, this has really set the stage for the year and the challenges that we've had. I will start off talking more about, say, what's been going on throughout 2020 and hand over to Christian Berg later who will focus more on the fourth quarter and the year-end results as such. But as we can see from the slide behind me, there's been quite a lot of volatility during the year. We've -- as I said, COVID started, we started to feel it at the early start of the year, but the real effect of it came after March. And looking at the volatility on the Wilh. Wilhelmsen Holding share price, we've been on a bit of a rollercoaster ride. But at the end of the year, we can sit back and we can show a return to our shareholders of 3.6% for the A shares and around 3% for the holders of the B share, which I would characterize as being acceptable, given the challenges that we have been through during the year. Then moving into a little bit, say, of the summary for what's been going on. There's no doubt we've had significant impact, especially operationally during the year. But also, our customers have been feeling the impact, our employees have been feeling the impact, and financially, it's been a challenging year. But we've had a strong recovery second half. Looking at Wallenius Wilhelmsen, they've been too more or less the same. It's been a real rollercoaster ride with the share price hitting rock bottom, below NOK 8. We've had a second quarter in Wallenius Wilhelmsen where revenue were 40% down year-on-year. It's a large balance sheet in this company. But again, the recovery in second half has been tremendous. And I think we are now into much more safer territory, and the volumes are returning back into this business. Wilhelmsen Ship Services has been -- it's been, say, a general impact in lower activity volumes. But the specific area where we have seen it the clearest is within the segment of cruise, which is an important customer segment for this company. But also here, it's really been the operational challenges that we've had to face with during the year. But it's been okay. And I must say, for all our businesses, it's pretty impressive to see how we've been able to, say, tackle these challenges throughout the world. Hyundai Glovis, again, significant rollercoaster or a lot of volatility in the share price movement. I think we started the year at around KRW 138 per share. It hit bottom of around KRW 81,000 per share and then rebounded to around KRW 184,000 or something like that at the tail end of the year. And of course, the appreciation of the Hyundai global share price has been a significant, say, contributor to the results for the group for this year. We sold 1 percentage point of the company during the last quarter, which gave us around $63 million in net proceeds, which, of course, has been, say, a welcome contribution. We believe it's an exciting company. They have a lot of interesting prospects in areas that we also like to pursue as a group, hydrogen being one of the examples. NorSea Group has delivered a very stable performance during the year. We've -- I must say, to a certain extent, this is probably where we've been the most surprised in terms of looking at the oil and gas industry. Back in March, April, May, it looked pretty challenging. But the year has turned out to be, say, more or less on par of 2019. And a lot of this is, of course, because of the incentive packages and the other [ stimuli ] initiatives that's been taken towards the oil and gas industry. But good performance really all around. As I said, we sold some head Hyundai Glovis shares. We did an acquisition by 25% of Edda Wind, I'll come back to that a little bit later. We believe that's a very exciting company and an exciting investment. We also finalized the acquisition of 50% of Ahrenkiel Steamship company, which I'll also come back to in a later slide. But I want to stop a little bit on ESG. There's been a tremendous ESG drive throughout 2020 and is continuing into the future, we believe there is definitely an energy transition taking place. And we've had quite a lot of press during the year of some of the initiatives that we are involved in, and I believe we are no lagger in this. We are, say, continuing towards shaping the maritime industry being the vision of the company. And we have a lot of interesting prospects, maybe it's early phases, but still, we have a lot of interesting prospects within, what I would call, the new energy field. And it's also, to an extent that we will have to look at how we organize this into the future. But there's nothing said and done in that respect so we'll come back to that when we, say, have finalized how to tackle this going forward. But we believe there will be a continuous drive within this direction. And as I said, we have a lot of interesting opportunities, be it within offshore wind, be it within hydrogen, et cetera. So we'll come back to that at a later stage, and hopefully, we'll be able to take some of these projects through to fruition. Ahrenkiel Steamship company. We presented this briefly in -- at the end of the second quarter. We bought 50% of this company, becoming joint venture partners with MPC. This is a fantastic platform for our ship management business to enter into both the container segment, but also the German markets, 2 areas where we have not been strong previously. We've had an ambition of increasing the overall number of ships under technical management for our ship management business, main reason being that we have to have a certain size in order to, say, maintain relevant and have the necessary scale. We now have around 180 ships on full management. And then in addition to the fleet of Ahrenkiel, we will be plus/minus 250 vessels under full technical management. The integration is going as -- or according to plan. I spoke to our partner last week. They are happy with the way the integration is going, so are we. We hope that we can, say, utilize some of the competence and capacity that we also have within the digital space to bring that into this platform and also into the container segment. So around 85 people land-based within Ahrenkiel and around 1,300 people of seafarers. So it is a sizable business. So we are looking forward to take this hopefully to a new level. Then Edda Wind, as I mentioned, we have acquired 25% of this company. We have an option to acquire an additional 25%, and I would say it's likely that we are to declare that option. It's an option that ends second half of this year. This company has 2 vessels on the water, 2 -- 4 vessels under construction and further 2 options for another 2 vessels. So it's, call it, 6 vessels in the fleet with an additional potential for 2 ships as it is today. And out of the 6 firm vessels, 4 is on contract. The offshore wind industry is growing tremendously and have a fantastic path going forward. But of course, there will be a lot of players who want to enter this field. But partnering with Østensjø, who is the owner of 75% of this company, they are very, say, well versed into this industry. They are a highly reputable player. And we believe this is an interesting platform for the Wilhelmsen Group together with Østensjø to take a major role within offshore wind support. So we are looking forward to follow this company. And with that, I thought I will follow up and talk a little bit about how we see it into the remainder part of the year. For maritime services, we do see a general increase in the activity level, but we are somewhat cautious in terms of how we see the increases. The cruise segment, as I mentioned earlier, is important for us and it's a little bit uncertain as to when cruise activity is really ramping up. For supply services, this time of the year is normally not the best. We have certain seasonality, which will also come into play this year. Looking then further at holding an investment for the car and roro segment, volumes have started to come back as we saw at the second half of last year. Hopefully, that will continue. And with the continued increase in volumes, there will also be a much better supply/demand situation on the fleet. Financial markets today are extremely strong. And as a result of that, we are also expecting a certain element of volatility within the financial markets going for -- into the year of 2021. So with that, I think, I would conclude a wrap-up for the year of 2020 and hand over to Christian Berg who will then talk a little bit more about the, say, specific numbers for the quarter. So thank you very much. Christian?

[Christian Berg, Group Chief Financial Officer]

Thank you, Thomas. Just jumping into the fourth quarter. Thomas sort of gave the big word on the financial assets, and that's sort of the big number in this quarter. But revenue top line side being, give or take, on the same level as third quarter. But as you can see, close to 10% down from the fourth quarter in 2019. EBITDA, a little bit on the weak side in total, I'll come back to some of the explanations. Associates coming a bit up from the third quarter, Wallenius Wilhelmsen being the, by far, biggest contributor. Supply service also with USD 5 million of contribution. The changes in fair value for the quarter being USD 215 million, of which Hyundai Glovis contributes with $205 million. So big contribution in the value uplift from the Hyundai Glovis shares on Wilhelm Treasure. So giving us a solid $4.45 EPS for the quarter. Going further on sort of the full year 2020. We can see top line there, down 5%. So 5% in total for the year, which has been kind of a strange year. It's not too bad. We have lost in some areas, we will come back to that as well. Full year EBITDA of $138 million, give or take, at the same level as last year, but down from -- in the margin, down from last year from $149 million. Of the $138 million, $89 million is contribution from maritime services and supply services with a contribution of USD 57 million. In the associates line, there is a minus of USD 50 million, of which actually Wallenius Wilhelmsen contributes with even more with minus $63 million. And supply services contributes with a profit of $11 million. For the full year, the fair value positive from Hyundai Glovis has been USD 202 million, giving us a full year EPS of $2.63. Digging a bit into maritime services for the quarter. A total quarter of USD 137 million, which is down 9% year-over-year. Of the $137 million, $120 million is coming from marine services -- ships services and USD 16 million from ship management. And as Thomas alluded to, agency, a bit sort of on the stronger side, coming from the low side and then recovering into the quarter while cruise activities still on the low side of what we can expect in a more normal year. Ship management positive, mainly from the wind segment -- offshore wind segment in the area. EBITDA for the quarter, USD 18 million. It's down 19% year-over-year and with a margin of 13% for the quarter. We have done some inventory adjustments for the quarter, which is negative. There are some other nonrecurring elements as well. And there is a bad debt settlement for the quarter, which sort of gives us, if not a one-off, but at least something hitting the quarter a bit more than we would like to see on a normal level. And as Thomas also alluded to, the acquisition of Ahrenkiel 50% is completed. The group is rebranded to Wilhelmsen Ahrenkiel Ship Management. And in total, the Ahrenkiel group manages a fleet of 72 container ships. On the supply service side, we are in a period now of seasonality and first quarter typically, but still on the strong side even though USD 64 million revenue is down year-over-year 10%, it's still on the high side also compared to the corresponding quarter because of more -- less pass-through revenue than before. That's some of -- the main explanation for us having a EBITDA of $13 million and a margin of 20%. Also in the supply service side, there is an increase in the bad debt accruals, not much, but some, which also sort of shows a bit on the -- at least, it shows a bit strength in the underlying that we can sort of absorb that and still have a positive EBITDA margin development from last year. In the quarter, we realized a share of profit from associates from the sale gain in CCB, which is an associate owned by NorSea by 50% of sale of [ Ågotnes Næringspark Næringspark ] to the Port of Bergen. And as alluded to a couple of times in the holding and investment area, positive development. And as the graph shows and as Thomas also said, very positive development from the lower side of this year, close to a double in the market values from the underlying marketable shares. For the quarter, $24 million profit from associates, basically all from Wallenius Wilhelmsen, coming up from the weak second quarter and a not-so-weak third quarter, but better than the second. So hopefully, we will see more and more sort of positive signals from our -- deliveries from Wallenius Wilhelmsen going forward. In the fair value of Hyundai Glovis, as explained earlier, USD 205 million out of the $215 million for the quarter. So -- and also on the financial income side, the investment portfolio made a $9 million gain in the quarter. And we did complete the transaction of the 25% of Edda Wind in October. And as Thomas also said, the option to potentially increase to 50% is an option that has a tender through the first half year of this year. Coming into the cash flow. And as the header says, pretty steady cash flow from the operating activities. Might be a word to notice and on a very positive note that the operating maritime services is contributing with USD 131 million, and of which, close to USD 35 million is positive working capital gain. So in a period of challenges, we have been able to find cash all over the system. Even though coming from a cash-rich side, we have been able to preserve cash and find cash in the system through the year. Supply services also contributing with $43 million. And on the investing activities, Thomas alluded to the fact that we have sold Hyundai Glovis shares with Treasure, giving $63 million of net contribution. We also sold some Qube shares. And on the negative cash flow side, but on the positive industrial side, we have invested in Ahrenkiel and we have invested in Edda Wind, but still positive contribution cash-wise from the investing activities. So with a normal net and other financing negative, the year -- the full year is giving a very -- giving us a very positive contribution when it comes to the cash flow in the group. With sort of that background, it's natural to see also and we are happy to see that equity is stabilizing. And as you can see on the left-side picture, the solid balance sheet has crossed the $2 billion mark. The total equity is up by 9% through the year, and the total asset is up 6% through the year. So solid balance sheet and you can see some steady growth through -- from the lowest point last year. On the debt maturity side, still a sound maturity profile. We do see some debt coming towards us in a couple of years, and it's natural for us to sort of start working towards seeing for refinancing of some of those coming towards us. But we are confident and we are sort of happy to see, and we are confident to see that, that's kind of a positive challenge. We have lots of interesting discussions with several banks and other markets to see how to and when to refinance the debt that -- in the WMS system. And as reported last night, the Board of the Wilhelmsen Group proposes a first dividend of NOK 5 per share. That is including a 3 -- NOK 2 extraordinary dividend to be paid as 2019 but paid in 2020 extra. In 2020 for 2019, the Board decided to pay a dividend of NOK 2 in total. And when taking into consideration this was being decided in the early phase of COVID, we have seen that we have been able to deliver better than we've had. And we think it's prudent for us to suggest that we actually pay a second dividend towards the 2020 numbers. So NOK 2 for 2020 and 2019 extra, and NOK 3 for 2020 and a potential second dividend for 2020 of NOK 3 per share. So we are happy to see that we are able to deliver to our shareholders in the area of what we are expecting as compared to our policy when it comes to dividends. So with those words, I leave it to the guys on the bench if there any questions, might come some questions or Thomas might have a comment or...

[Thomas Wilhelmsen, Group CEO]

No. I think you've wrapped it up. At least we tried to the best of our ability to talk about the year in total and also the, say, the happenings of the quarter. All in all, as been mentioned many times, given the challenges that we have seen throughout the year as a result of COVID, we feel that we can look back at a year, which is acceptable under the circumstances with a strong recovery in second half. So if there still is nothing...

[Unknown Executive]

Nothing from the web.

[Thomas Wilhelmsen, Group CEO]

Then I think we should say thank you very much for everyone who's been listening in, and we're looking forward to what we hope is an exciting 2021. Thank you.